IPS: A Declaration of War

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http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050831/a_declaration_of_war.php

A Declaration Of War

August

31, 2005

by Phyllis Bennis - Institute for Policy Studies

The Bush administration has declared war on the

world.

The 450 changes that Washington is demanding to the

action agenda that will

culminate at the September 2005 United Nations

summit don't represent U.N.

reform. They are a clear onslaught against any

move that could strengthen

the United Nations or international law.

The upcoming summit was supposed to focus on

strengthening and reforming the

U.N. and address issues of aid and development,

with a particular emphasis

on implementing the U.N.'s five-year-old

Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs). Most assumed this would be a forum for

dialogue and debate,

involving civil society activists from around the

world challenging

governments from the impoverished South and the

wealthy North and the United

Nations to create a viable global campaign against

poverty and for

internationalism.

But now, there's a different and even greater

challenge. This is a

declaration of U.S. unilateralism,

uncompromising and ascendant. The United

States has issued an open threat to the 190 other

U.N. member states, the

social movements and peoples of the entire world,

and the United Nations

itself. And it will take a quick and unofficially

collaborative effort

between all three of those elements to challenge

the Bush administration

juggernaut.

The General Assembly's package of proposed

reforms, emerging after nine

months of negotiations ahead of the summit, begins

with new commitments to

implement the Millennium Development

Goals-established in 2000 as a set of

international commitments aimed at reducing

poverty by 2015. They were

always insufficient, yet as weak as they are, they

have yet to be

implemented. The 2005 Millennium Plus Five summit

intended to shore up the

unmet commitments to those goals. In his reform

proposals of March 2005,

U.N. Secretary General Kofi n called on

governments north and south to

see the implementation of the MDGs as a minimum

requirement. Without at

least that minimal level of poverty alleviation,

he said, conflicts within

and between states could spiral so far out of

control that even a

strengthened and reformed United Nations of the

future would not be able to

control the threats to international peace and

security.

When Bolton, Bush's hotly contested but newly

appointed ambassador to

the United Nations announced the U.S. proposed response, it

was easy to

assume this was just Bolton running amok.

After all, Bolton, a longtime

U.N.-basher, has said: " There is no United

Nations. " He has written in The

Wall Street Journal that the United States has no legal

obligation to abide

by international treaties, even when they are

signed and ratified. So it was

no surprise when Bolton showed up three weeks

before the summit, demanding a

package of 450 changes in the document that had

been painstakingly

negotiated for almost a year.

But, in fact, this isn't about Bolton. This Bush

administration's position

was vetted and approved in what the U.S. Mission

to the U.N. bragged was a

" thorough interagency process " -meaning

the White House, the State

Department, the Pentagon and many more agencies

all signed off. This is a

clear statement of official U.S. policy-not the wish- ist

of some

marginalized extremist faction of neocon

ideologues who will soon be reined

in by the realists in charge. This time the

extremist faction is in charge.

The U.S. proposal package is

designed to force the world to accept as its

own the U.S. strategy of

abandoning impoverished nations and peoples,

rejecting international law, privileging ruthless

market forces over any

attempted regulation, sidelining the role of

international institutions

except for the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, and weakening, perhaps

fatally, the United Nations itself.

It begins by systematically deleting every one of

the 35 specific references

to the Millennium Development Goals. Every

reference to concrete obligations

for implementation of commitments is deleted.

Setting a target figure of

just 0.7 percent of GNP for wealthy countries to

spend on aid? Deleted.

Increasing aid for agriculture and trade

opportunities in poor countries?

Deleted. Helping the poorest countries, especially

those in Africa, to deal

with the impact of climate change? Deleted.

The proposal puts at great risk treaties to which

the United States is

already a party, including the Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.N.

Summit draft referred to the

NPT's " three pillars: disarmament,

non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear

energy. " That means that

states without nukes would agree never to build or

obtain them, but in

return they would be guaranteed the right to

produce nuclear energy for

peaceful use. In return recognized nuclear weapons

states-the United States,

Britain, France, China and Russia-would commit, in

Article VI of the NPT, to

move toward " nuclear disarmament with the

objective of eliminating all such

weapons. " The proposed U.S. changes deleted all

references to the three

pillars and to Article VI.

The U.S. deleted the statement

that: " The use of force should be considered

as an instrument of last resort. " That's also

not surprising given the Bush

administration's " invade first, choose your

justifications later " mode of

crisis resolution.

Throughout the document, the United States demands changes that

redefine and

narrow what should be universal and binding rights

and obligations. In the

clearest reference to Iraq and Palestine, Washington narrowed the

definition

of the " right of self-determination of

peoples " to eliminate those who

" remain under colonial domination and foreign

occupation. "

Much of the U.S. effort aims to

undermine the power of the U.N. in favor of

absolute national sovereignty. On migration, for

instance, the original

language focused on enhancing international

cooperation, linking migrant

worker issues and development, and the human

rights of migrants. The U.S.

wants to scrap it all, replacing it with " the

sovereign right of states to

formulate and enforce national migration

policies, " with international

cooperation only to facilitate national laws.

Human rights were deleted

altogether.

In the document's section on strengthening the

United Nations, the U.S.

deleted all mention of enhancing the U.N.'s

authority, focusing instead only

on U.N. efficiency. Regarding the General Assembly

the most democratic organ

of the U.N. system-the United States deleted references to

the Assembly's

centrality, its role in codifying international

law, and, ultimately its

authority, relegating it to a toothless talking

shop. It even deleted

reference to the Assembly's role in Washington's own pet

project-management

oversight of the U.N. secretariat-leaving the

U.S.-dominated and

undemocratic Security Council, along with the U.S. itself (in the person

of

a State Department official recently appointed

head of management in Kofi

n's office) to play watchdog.

The Bush administration has given the United

Nations what it believes to be

a stark choice: adopt the U.S. changes and acquiesce

to becoming an adjunct

of Washington and a tool of empire,

or reject the changes and be consigned

to insignificance.

But the United Nations could choose a third

option. It should not be

forgotten that the U.N. itself has some practice

in dealing with U.S.

threats. President W. Bush gave the U.N.

these same two choices once

before-in September 2002, when he threatened the

global body with

" irrelevance " if the U.N. did not

embrace his call for war in Iraq. On that

occasion, the United Nations made the third

choice-the choice to grow a

backbone, to reclaim its charter, and to join with

people and governments

around the world who were mobilized to say no to

war. It was the beginning

of eight months of triumph, in which governments

and peoples and the U.N.

stood together to defy the U.S. drive toward war and

empire, and in doing so

created what The New York Times called " the

second super-power. "

This time, as before, the United States has threatened and

declared war on

the United Nations and the world. As before, it's

time for that three-part

superpower to rise again, to defend the U.N., and

to say no to empire.

___________________

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for

Policy Studies , is the author

of the forthcoming Challenging Empire: How People,

Governments, and the U.N.

Defy U.S. Power (Interlink

Publishing, Northampton MA, October 2005