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Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Aportadera: UN is casualty of Iraq war
By Atty. Billy Aportadera
THE fall of Baghdad marked the climax of the Iraqi War. The "liberation" of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, the Bathe Party and the Republican Guards were surgically done under the US-GB sponsored "Operation Freedom". The military offensive of the Coalition Forces demonstrated to the world the unsurpassed superior might of the United States Armed Forces.
Well-coordinated and precision air strikes cleared the road to Baghdad for the US Marines and decimated the vaunted Republican Guards and Deadens of Saddam Hussein.
As the Coalition Forces firm up their military foothold on Iraq, the casualties of war are counted. The city of Baghdad with its Arabian nights is a devastated city and its people left with wounded national psyche and without any government to rule them. There were more civilians wounded or killed than the Iraqi, American and British soldiers.
The one biggest casualty of the Iraqi war is the United Nations. It failed to reign in the United States and its coalition of the willing nations from invading Iraq and overthrowing a government through an aggressive war. The Charter of the United Nations declares that, "We, the people of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, xxx And for these ends xxx to ensure, by acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used save in the common interest."
"The Purposes of the United Nations are: 1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: xxx and to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace xxx."
Finally, one of the declared principles of the United Nations is that, "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
The utter disregard of the mandate of the United Nations by the United States and Great Britain has relegated the United Nations as a mere "rehabilitation institution." It allowed, by its impotency, some member states to wage an aggressive war against another member, waste its land, social and political infrastructures, erase its history, and pass on to the United Nations the mandate to rebuild and rehabilitate a devastated Iraqi nation. In the meantime, member nations are now counting the $100 billion opportunities as a result of the Iraq war, chargeable to the oil of Iraq.
The injury inflicted to the United Nations as a peace institution is irreparable. It has been reduced to a debating club. It has become inutile. It is a casualty of the Iraq war waged by the United States.
(April 16, 2003 issue)
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