Harper’S UN Gibberish

With Afghanistan the UN gives what is really America’s war an attempted respectability. A highly pertinent question at this point in time is: How can Canadians or other NATO contributors have confidence in the integrity or outcome of the Afghanistan mission when they see the atrocity of Iraq? Reckless militarism has utterly destroyed that country, making a bad situation into a monstrosity. Yet we are seeing the same reckless militarism in Afghanistan and we are supposed to believe in a positive outcome. One of the explicit dangers of serial warfare is that the first war had better be successful if you want to sell the second. Furthermore, even now there is a fierce debate going on within the US administration as to whether there should be an all-out attack, possibly nuclear, on Iran (see Truthout.org, Seymour Hersh from New Yorker magazine.) Ironically, many senior military advisors are against this attack because Iran does have a very real ability to retaliate and the economic consequences of such an attack would be global and devastating. The real problem the US has with Iran, like Iraq, is that it is sitting on one of the world’s last great oil reserves--and Iran has the audacity to be selling it to Russia and China! So the USA is in the rather bizarre position of having made a mess of one war, is trying to sell a second war, and all the while laying plans for possibly one very big third war. When the US president tells the UN he seeks peace he really means it! One of the most compelling reasons for a more peace-driven solution to the Afghanistan problem is the citizens of that country whether they are Taliban or not have no reason to trust Western imperatives. For the past several decades it has been ripped over, manipulated and abused. When a progressive stable government was estalbished back in the 1970s it was overthrown by the CIA. As Afghanistan is considered a “failed state,” imperial powers have been major contributors to the failure. Still another issue to be addressed is that other major countries, especially the UN Security Council, must challenge the US and not allow the effectiveness and integrity of the world body to be debased. The perpetrators of war have a huge credibility problem as their every utterance rings hollow. Alas, pity poor Stephen! Doing George’s dirty laundry is a formidable and bloody task. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on September 25, 2006]