Saul Landau
In
1945, the UN was established to help bring the world community to peace.. NATO
was invented four years later to defend against a supposed Soviet threat to
conquer Western Europe. NATO has outlived the Soviet Union, but its leaders
didn’t dissolve their outmoded structure after it lacked a raison d’etre.
Instead, they redesigned and expanded it. They soon found a new purpose:
humanitarian bombing — against Yugoslavia. But NATO commanders didn’t arrange
to protect the Kosovar Albanians before they began bombing. Indeed, as bombs
dropped outraged Serb forces retaliated by accelerating their assault against
ethnic Albanians. Although wrapped in altruism, the bombs still caused death and
destruction. NATO said it didn’t want an independent Kosovo. But with the Serb
military gone, NATO facilitated the Kosovo Liberation Army’s virtual take over
of police power. NATO then permitted their thugs to cleanse the Serb minority
from the area. NATO forces still stand as their line of defense against
Yugoslavia.
NATO
nations also supported the UN mandated independence referendum in East Timor.
But Indonesia army thugs responded to that vote with violence. They had not
learned the lesson that NATO would punish gross human rights violations? Or did
humanitarian impulses over Serb brutality in Kosovo turn to hand wringing in
East Timor? East Timor and Kosovo: two cases of secession where government
forces persecuted a majority population. NATO under humanitarian guise handed
Kosovo to the KLA. But when its Indonesian military pals brutalized East
Timorese after their independence vote, NATO leaders wrung their hands.
The
US and allies ignored Indonesian atrocities in East Timor since the mid 1970s,
or actually approved of Indonesia annexing East Timor in 1975. Now they
implicitly blame UN weakness for the failure of Indonesia to abide by the UN
supervised vote. Meanwhile NATO ministers meeting in Toronto argue they need
ever greater military budgets to carry out Kosovo-style operations.
Kofi
Annan criticized humanitarian interventions by regional military organizations
against UN wishes, because it undermines world law and thus order. Formerly
colonized people have scant trust for "humanitarian-minded" imperial
states whose leaders have not shown zeal in relaxing their aggressive pursuit of
corporate profits and access to resources. In the next Century will the world’s
publics trust a defense alliance without enemies and therefore without mission
— outside of its own reproduction — or the UN, the legitimate global
organization , which the United States has purposefully weakened. US policy will
ignore the UN — except when it becomes convenient to cover for US intervention.
Yes. Dissolve NATO! Strengthen the UN and democratize its Security Council!
Anyone listening?
Saul
Landau is the Hugh O. LaBounty Chair of Interdisciplinary Applied Knowledge at
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, 3801 W. Temple Ave. Pomona, CA
91768 tel – 909-869-3115 fax – 909-869-4751
