The following Editorial was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the
Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, November 27th, 2002.
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Editorial: Whence the United Nations?
There is some controversy over the sudden withdrawal of Australian SAS
forces from Afghanistan as to the Howard Government's real intentions,
but an educated guess is that the real purpose is to send them to war
with Iraq in January or February.
The US trumpets its threats and military preparations almost every day
and Howard makes no secret of his 100 percent support for another war in
Iraq. He pays lip service to the United Nations and attempts to hide his
commitment to war by declaring that "no decision has been made".
The UN inspectors have started their work but many of them are US
citizens and their number is certain to contain CIA agents whose real
mission is spying and creating provocations to justify a US invasion. It
was for this reason that the UN inspectors were kicked out in 1998.
There are only two forces that stand between the war being planned by
the Bush administration and a peaceful outcome. They are the mass
demonstrations against war being held in many countries, including in
the US, and the possibility that the majority of the United Nations
Security Council will refuse to back a war.
The demonstrations are set to continue and become larger and more
determined. But what of the UN Security Council and those three
countries - China, Russia and France - who could veto a war resolution
and speak out strongly against war?
These countries have already voted for a flawed resolution which,
despite the denials, gives the US any number of "triggers" to launch a
war. The leaders of China, Russia and France tend to talk first about
the necessity of Iraq carrying out the instructions of the UN but when
it comes to the necessity of the US carrying out those parts of the
resolution which require the matter to be further considered by the
Security Council, their voices get very soft and timid.
It is not only war or peace that is on the line. The credibility of the
United Nations is also on the line - even its survival. The sickening
hypocrisy of the United Nations Security Council is only one aspect -
its total failure to implement innumerable resolutions demanding that
Israel return to its original borders, its scandalous failure to
implement resolutions concerning biological, chemical and nuclear
weapons, its failure to raise even a timid voice to stop the aggression
against Yugoslavia to mention only a few issues.
The main threat to the UN however, comes from a raging US imperialism
which has no need for a United Nations anymore.
Either the UN, and that means in the first place the big powers with the
right of veto, stand against the US juggernaut and threat of endless war
and do so now, or they capitulate and not only destroy their own
credibility but also that of the UN.
The people on the streets are showing their commitment and courage and
do not hesitate to say - "No war on Iraq". They are entitled to expect
that governments that assert their commitment to the UN, will join them
in that call.
Within the next several months they will face this crucial test. The US
intends to go to war. It has nothing to do with alleged "weapons of mass
destruction". It is about strategy, oil, the military occupation of the
whole of the Middle East and bases in Central Asia.
When fascism was on the rampage in Europe in the 1930s and '40s and
seemed to be all powerful, the Soviet Union did not hesitate to denounce
fascism. It helped to rally the people of the world against the threat
of war even though it was still militarily weaker than the Nazi war machine.
It was its political strength that enabled it to overcome huge
difficulties and eventually forge international collective security
against fascism and defeat the Nazi menace.
The menace to the whole world today comes from the United States under
Bush. There is an urgent need for a new collective of nations against
war together with the ability to give a strong voice of support to the
anti-war demonstrations on the streets.
It is almost D-day for the UN.
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