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The Case Against Iraqing Iran

December 16, 2017

The Case Against Iraqing Iran

The case against Iraqing Iran includes the following points:

Threatening war is a violation of the U.N. Charter.

Waging war is a violation of the U.N. Charter and of the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

Waging war without Congress is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Have you seen Iraq lately?

Have you seen the entire region?

Have you seen Afghanistan? Libya? Syria? Yemen? Pakistan? Somalia?

War supporters said the U.S. urgently needed to attack Iran in 2007. It did not attack. The claims turned out to be lies. Even a National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 pushed back and admitted that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.

Having a nuclear weapons program is not a justification for war, legally, morally, or practically. The United States has nuclear weapons and no one would be justified in attacking the United States.

Dick and Liz Cheney’s book, Exceptional, tell us we must see a “moral difference between an Iranian nuclear weapon and an American one.” Must we, really? Either risks further proliferation, accidental use, use by a crazed leader, mass death and destruction, environmental disaster, retaliatory escalation, and apocalypse. One of those two nations has nuclear weapons, has used nuclear weapons, has provided the other with plans for nuclear weapons, has a policy of first-use of nuclear weapons, has leadership that sanctions the possession of nuclear weapons, and has frequently threated to use nuclear weapons. I don’t think those facts would make a nuclear weapon in the hands of the other country the least bit moral, but also not the least bit more immoral. Let’s focus on seeing an empirical difference between an Iranian nuclear weapon and an American one. One exists. The other doesn’t.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hearing the Russian Perspective

January 3, 2016

Hearing the Russian Perspective

The neocons and liberal hawks who dominate the U.S. foreign policy and media establishment are pushing the world toward a nuclear showdown with Russia as few people hear a comprehensive response from the other side, an imbalance that a new Russian documentary addresses, writes Gilbert Doctorow.

By Gilbert Doctorow

Without mincing words, the new Russian documentary World Order is a devastating critique of U.S. global hegemony justified in the name of “democracy promotion” and “human rights” ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.

It is directly in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first repudiation of the American unipolar world issued in his speech to the Munich Security Conference in February 2007 and his further, ever more explicit exposés in a succession of speeches that challenged specific manifestations of “American exceptionalism.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin taking the presidential oath at his third inauguration ceremony on May 7, 2012. (Russian government photo)

Russian President Vladimir Putin taking the presidential oath at his third inauguration ceremony on May 7, 2012. (Russian government photo)

World Order, which is now posted on YouTube (in Russian) and at another site (with English subtitles), illustrates through graphic footage and the testimony of independent world authorities the tragic consequences, the spread of chaos and misery, resulting from U.S.-engineered “regime change” and “color revolutions,” of which the violent overthrow of the Yanukovich regime in Ukraine in February 2014 is only the latest example. (Some of the highlights from Putin’s interview are translated into English hereand here.)

The title of the film follows on Putin’s address to the 70th anniversary gathering of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015 which had as its central message that world order rests on international law, which in turn has as its foundation the UN Charter.

By flouting the Charter and waging war without the sanction of the UN Security Council, starting with the NATO attack on Serbia in 1999 and continuing with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 up to its illegal bombings in Syria today, the United States and its NATO allies have shaken the foundations of international law.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Current trade treaties: “a revolution against law”

October 28, 2015

Current trade treaties: “a revolution against law”

trade cartoon snippetA respected human-rights expert at the United Nations, Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, has joined the global movement opposing trade treaties like TPP and TTIP. And he has novel and powerful legal arguments.

In international law, de Zayas says, there is a hierarchy of agreements, and at the top is the UN Charter: “in case of conflict between the provisions of the UN Charter and any other treaty, the Charter prevails.” In other words, trade treaties that lead to a violation of human rights — or breach any other obligation set out in the UN Charter — are legally invalid. Most countries have signed onto human rights treaties, but “they have also entered into trade and investment agreements that hinder, delay or render impossible the fulfillment of their human rights treaty obligations.”

De Zayas is especially concerned about Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses, which allow corporations to sue governments over laws or regulations that might diminish expected profits. Such mechanisms, he says, “actually constitute an attack on the very essence of sovereignty and self-determination, which are founding principles of the United Nations.” In fact, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires these kinds of disputes to be decided by independent, transparent and accountable tribunals. “Allowing three private arbitrators to disregard international and national law … is tantamount to a revolution against law.”

De Zayas notes that of the 608 known arbitration awards, many “have overridden national law and hindered States in the sovereign determination of fiscal and budgetary policy, labour, health and environmental regulation, and have had adverse human rights impacts… including a ‘chilling effect’ with regard to the exercise of democratic governance.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The UN: Pretending to Oppose War for 70 Years

September 29, 2015

The UN: Pretending to Oppose War for 70 Years

The United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals don’t just ignore the fact that development isn’t sustainable; they revel in it. One of the goals is spreading energy use. Another is economic growth. Another is preparation for climate chaos (not preventing it, but dealing with it). And how does the United Nations deal with problems? Generally through wars and sanctions.

This institution was set up 70 years ago to keep nations, rather than a global body, in charge, and to keep the victors of World War II in a permanent position of dominating the rest of the globe. The UN legalized “defensive” wars and any wars it “authorizes” for whatever reason. It now says drones have made war “the norm,” but addressing that problem is not among the 17 goals now being considered. Ending war is not among the goals. Disarmament isn’t mentioned. The Arms Trade Treaty put through last year still lacks the United States, China, and Russia, but that’s not among the 17 concerns of “sustainable development.”

Saudi Arabia’s “responsibility to protect” Yemen by murdering its people with U.S. weapons isn’t at issue. Saudi Arabia is busy crucifying children and heading up the UN’s Human Rights Council. Meanwhile U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the Foreign Minister of Turkey have declared that they will start addressing the full “lifecycle” of young people who become “terrorists.” Of course, they’ll do so without mentioning the U.S.-led wars that have traumatized the region or the by now long established record of the global war on terrorism producing terrorism.

I’m happy to have signed this letter, which you, too, can sign below:

To: U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon 

The U.N. Charter was ratified on October 24, 1945. Its potential is still unfulfilled. It has been used to advance and misused to impede the cause of peace. We urge a rededication to its original goal of saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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