The opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York each September is generally notable for its two weeks of speeches by heads of state, foreign ministers and other government officials addressing their own fellow citizens through the medium of a world forum. This year was no exception except for the fact that the...
Read MoreThe United Nations postponed last week for the third time the publication of a blacklist of Israeli and international firms that profit directly from Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territories. The international body had come under enormous pressure to keep the database under wraps after lobbying behind the scenes from Israel, the United States...
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I promised you Christmas wouldn’t be dull! In a surprising move, for the first time in 40 years, the US voted in the UN Security Council against official Tel Aviv’s wishes. The miracle friends of Palestine and progressive Israelis prayed for - occurred, after all. This is one of the first benefits of Donald Trump’s...
Read MoreToday is the 70th anniversary of the UN. It is not clear how much good the UN has done. Some UN Blue Hemet peacekeeping operations had limited success. But mainly Washington has used the UN for war, such as the Korean War and Washington’s Cold War against the Soviet Union. In our time Washington had...
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Back at the beginning of August 1914, Europe was on the cusp of collective suicide yet it failed to grasp the severity of the situation in time to prevent disaster. In the years preceding WWI, European nations had engaged in intense coalition-building. France, along with Great Britain and Russia had forged the Triple Entente while...
Read MoreIn his recent syndicated column “A U.N. for the good guys,” Jonah Goldberg evokes the mindset of seventeenth-century puritanism. This is entirely understandable. Much of what the American left teaches, including its neoconservative element, resembles American Calvinism—albeit in a warmed-over form. In Puritan New England, Congregationalists—the only authorized communicants—were deeply troubled that unredeemed polluted their...
Read MoreAmerica's best-that-money-can-buy legislators have passed into law the proposition that any international body that admits the state of Palestine as a full member shall immediately lose all US funding. In the past week this has meant US defunding of UNESCO leading to possible complete withdrawal from that organization if a bill proposed by Senator Lindsey...
Read MoreI have a piece up at Asia Times today about the Palestinian application for full state recognition at the UN, Palestine: Mission Accomplished for China. The affair is a big black eye for President Obama, who gets to look like Israel’s rent boy. The Chinese government is rather happy, since the Palestinian bid has shifted...
Read MoreChina’s response to the new UN Security Council sanctions on Iran provide a useful perspective on Chinese policy and its movement toward a new, post-Bush and post-terror alternative doctrine for managing international crises. The story of the Iran nuclear crisis can be summed up with the acronym SSDD: Same Sanctions Different Day There is certainly...
Read MoreA Clean Break
The United Nations can regain both the prestige and moral authority it needs to deal effectively with world issues by living up to its Charter and removing the United States from the Security Council. This would not only eliminate the greatest immediate threat to world peace but, additionally, confer legitimacy on future activities of the...
Read MoreCounterPunch Diary Handmaid in Babylon: Annan, Vieira de Mello and the UN's Decline and Fall
"One has to be careful," said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in late August, "not to confuse the UN with the US." If the Secretary General had taken his own advice, then maybe his Brazilian subordinate, Sergio Vieira de Mello, might not have been so summarily blown to pieces in Baghdad two days earlier. As...
Read MoreMany progressives around the world looked to the United Nations Organization (UNO ) as the best institution for peacefully resolving conflicts and serving the cause of justice, free from the control of big power interests. Within the UNO, the secretary general was looked upon as a person of fairness, integrity and, above all, independent of...
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