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Re: Re: [casi] What people are saying about the UN - and the blast




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It's hard to see the difference between the US and UN ! And Annan won't make it any easier to make 
a distinction between the US and the UN.
Dirk Adriaensens.
www.irak.be
U.N. Chief Says New Force in Iraq Can Be Led by U.S.
By FELICITY BARRINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/23/international/worldspecial/23NATI.html?ex=1062650030&ei=1&en=1ad056ffaac000f0
NITED NATIONS, Aug. 22 - Secretary General Kofi Annan suggested today that the Security Council 
could set up a new multinational force in Iraq that would be led by the United States as the 
largest troop contributor - a common practice in joint military operations.
In addition, Mr. Annan said continuing security concerns in Iraq were a part of a larger challenge 
of persuading Iraqis that the foreigners in their midst were acting in their interest and intended 
to turn back the reins of power quickly.

In remarks to reporters, he said the Security Council might "decide to transform the operation into 
a U.N.-mandated multinational force." But, he added, "it would also imply not just burden-sharing, 
but also sharing decisions and responsibility with the others."

"If that doesn't happen," he added, "I think it's going to be very difficult to get a second 
resolution that will satisfy everybody."

A spokesman for Mr. Annan later said a unified command would not exclude having the leaders of 
other troop contingents work as part of the same headquarters unit.

It was not immediately clear if Mr. Annan's suggestion would provide common ground between the 
United States - with its insistence on complete control of political, economic and particularly 
military operations - and Council members like France, Germany and Russia. They remain disinclined 
to lend their approval to a military effort undertaken despite their fierce opposition.

But it was clear from Mr. Annan's public remarks today and a brief interview that he is certain 
that a new United Nations mandate is required to give the organization a clearly defined role and 
to allow Iraqis to have confidence that control over Iraq's future is reverting to them.

"We are focusing a lot on the force, the multinational force, and security," he said. "I think it's 
because of what happened. But that is only part of the answer. The other part of the answer is to 
move quickly to create an environment where the average Iraqi will support the operation and see 
that what is happening is in their interest."

He added, "That's why I keep saying, let's come up with a timetable to let them know that the 
occupation is really time-bound."

Paying homage to the skills of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations coordinator on Iraq who 
was killed in Tuesday's bombing, he said Mr. Vieira de Mello's ability to win the trust of diverse 
segments of Iraqi society could not be replicated. "We have played a vital role," Mr. Annan said. 
"But we did because of that personality. Because of Sergio being who he is. The next time around, 
the mandates have to be very clear and well-defined. I cannot rely on personalities. I had only one 
Sergio."

The secretary general, who flew to Brazil tonight to attend the memorial service for Mr. Vieira de 
Mello, has been increasingly vocal in emphasizing the need for a common approach among the former 
Security Council opponents. He told reporters today that "a chaotic Iraq is not in anyone's 
interest," and "therefore we have a collective responsibility to try and deal with the situation as 
it exists in Iraq today."

But the bitterness, particularly on the part of France, was back in evidence on Thursday in the 
remarks of a French envoy to the Council.

In interviews published and broadcast today, Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, 
did not reject the idea of supporting a new resolution calling for international help in Iraq.

Mr. de Villepin did, however, talk of moving Iraq from a "logic of occupation" to a "political 
logic of the restoration of sovereignty." He called for elections for a constituent assembly, to be 
supervised by a new special representative of the secretary general and to take place as early as 
the end of the year.

It was unclear how nations like India, Pakistan and Turkey, which have balked at providing troops 
in the absence of a mandate, would respond to the secretary general's notion of essentially 
embracing the existing occupying force as part of a United Nations-mandated multinational force.

In a related development, Mexico has angered the United States by calling for a vote Monday on its 
moribund resolution on the security of United Nations employees overseas, diplomats here said today.

Council diplomats said today that the resolution, which was proposed in May, was put aside after 
the United States threatened to veto it because of its invocation of the powers of the 
International Criminal Court. The Bush administration opposes the court, a standing war crimes 
tribunal, arguing that it might be used to harass American soldiers and government officials.

But vetoing a resolution to enhance the security of United Nations staff, less than a week after 23 
people died in the Baghdad bombing, would be too embarrassing, the diplomats added. Even an 
abstention would be hard to explain. So the United States would be left with a choice of agreeing 
to language it has repeatedly rejected or finding some way to get Mexico to modify the draft.

But, diplomats said, almost all the rest of the Council members have indicated support for the 
measure. Bulgaria, a close ally of the United States during the Iraq debates, expects to be a 
co-sponsor, the Bulgarian envoy, Stefan Tafrov, said today. Even Pakistan, which also has 
reservations about the court, has indicated its support.

A State Department official said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell would call the Mexican foreign 
minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez, to push for modification of the draft resolution. "We want to make 
sure our concerns regarding the International Criminal Court were addressed before we could support 
such a resolution," the official said.

----- Original Message -----
From: <bob.steel1@juno.com>
To: <casi-discuss@lists.casi.org.uk>
Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2003 10:12 PM
Subject: !OT Re: [casi] What people are saying about the UN - and the blast


>
> On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 06:40:53 +0800 "emir chen" <hc228@cam.ac.uk> writes:
>
> >Yes, to many Arabs, the US and UN are one; but to me, >they are
> different! And, the difference should be made >more distinct than before,
> since an independent UN, which >is not manipulated by any one power, I
> believe, is very >important to counter imperialism and war. Am I right?
> >
> >Emir
>
> I think so. I also think that it's important that the UN get real teeth,
> both legal and military. If we look at history, the common story is small
> groups consolidating into larger ones: clans into tribe, villages into
> cities and states, city-states into nations, and at each step the
> formation of law and civil authority. It hasn't all been for the good --
> the anarchists have some pertinent points on this --   but I see only two
> alternatives: constant war, on some scale, or reduction of population
> density to where people rarely come together.
>
> Not just a UN, but a form of world government in inevitable if we are to
> survive -- but it must be a just and democratic one, with built-in
> guarantees of diversity and human rights for everyone, including
> self-determination for groups and sub-groups -- not hegemony or empire!
>
> There is a basic conflict, it seems to me, in Iraq: on the one hand the
> Iraqis rightly want self-determination, but on the other there are
> factions who want to control the whole country and everyone living there,
> such as Saddam, and also radical Islamists. There must be a world-wide
> organization and mechanism to support the rights of all individuals, and
> counter the dictatorships, whether large or small, national, religious or
> tribal. Those people who want to form a group with strong central
> government and strict laws must be permitted to do so, as long as
> individuals can freely opt out.
>
> As it stands, the US tries to impose it's own visions of "democracy" on
> all people -- but it includes not only much more than the fundamentals of
> liberty and self-determination but also much which undermines those very
> ideals which it espouses. Liberty at gunpoint is not liberty at all.
>
> What, then, of a powerful UN? Even putting aside the fact that the US
> uses the UN as a tool of it's imperial expansion, there remains the
> problem of finding the point at which guaranteeing people's rights by
> force merges with totalitariansm. At what point does Iraqi self-
> determination permit the denial of Iraqi freedom. I submit that the best
> answer to this is Alan Watts observation that groups do not really have
> rights, but rather individuals have rights: if the rights of all
> individuals are upheld, the rights of individuals as parts of a group are
> also upheld. By Watts' criteria, the US statements that Iraq is now more
> free than before, while people are being deprived of basic liberty, is
> absurd.
>
> The core, then, of a functioning UN must be built around its human rights
> declarations and activities. The hungry, ignorant, sick, homeless,
> repressed, battered -- these people can not possibly be free. A UN as a
> "one power" in itself can be right and effective only if that power is on
> the side of the individual person, in equality with any other individual
> person. That is *supposed* to be a primary tenet of the US, but has been
> largely ignored.
>
> (The same rights must be applicable for all, and this tends to avert the
> tyranny of the masses, similar to the old method for dividing cake among
> two children: the one cuts the cake and the other gets first choice. With
> Iraq the same party - the US -- is dividing the wealth and then taking
> whatever parts it wants.
>
> To achieve a proper UN or world government it must derive its power from
> from both immutable principles of human rights within its charter and
> also from the *people* of the world -- not just the various governments,
> many of which have been corrupted. The invasion of Iraq could probably
> have been prevented by invoking the "united for peace" provision through
> the general assembly, but even the GA is controlled not by the people of
> the world -- who massively opposed the war -- but the governments of the
> world, composed of "leaders" open to corruption. We see a similar thing
> in Iraq with the governing council, which is not representative of the
> people, but a hand-picked clique of the US (and obstruction of
> elections).
>
> One absolute pre-requisite to an effective democratic system is that the
> people know: they need the education and information to make *informed*
> decisions -- not the peasants' conditioning, propaganda, and lies people
> are fed now. If a well-informed world population takes real power over a
> world organization, such as, perhaps, the UN, then there would be a
> viable alternative to power-hungry tyrants. Otherwise we would have -- as
> we largely do have -- a UN controlled by many smaller tyrants, and the
> people are then just pawns to be shuffled about to benefit whichever
> tyrant happens to be winning *their* game at the time.
>
> This will be true as long as most of the nations are not truly free and
> led by those who truly represent the people. Thus we see nations
> supporting the invasion even while vast majorities of citizens in
> opposition -- and finally collapsing in resignation -- and the UN acting
> counter to the people. It was not only the US, but the collapse of the
> people's representatives.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
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