Karen O Toole "To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war...to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and smal!.."
This was the declaration of the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945. Today, over 50 years later, the UN is no closer to bringing world peace.
Yet some on the left argue that peace can only come about, post-September: 11, through the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq. TUC conference this year heard TUC General Secretary John Monks argue, not against war, but for the UN to be the route to any military action.
A United Nations peacekeeping force is a contradiction in terms. Permanent membership of its Security Council is by the five most powerful military nations in the world; the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - most of whom have economic, namely oil interests, in the Middle East, and can all exercise a veto. Worse still most of them have played no small part in creating conflict in the region since the beginning of the 20th century.
The United Nations reflects the economic and military interests of the major powers as even some of its ex-employees acknowledge. Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter believes Washington is using the UN to manoeuvre its own troops into the region. Distressed
Phillip Corwin, former UN chief politi cal officer during the Bosnian conflict, writes in his memoirs: "I was deeply distressed by NATO's massive military intervention against the Bosnian Serbs. An intervention, not very well camouflaged, under UN cover."
Past UN interventions reveal the truth behind the blue beret. Operation "Restore Hope' was the name for the UN-US intervention in Somalia in 1992. It ended with the United States military being charged with the torture and murder of Somali Civilians. The 1950-53 war between North and South Korea (partitioned by the US and Russia after the war) saw the UN providing cover for the massive US military intervention. UN peacekeeping forces in East Timor enabled the Indonesian army to maintain their troops there.
Congolese independence in 1960 ushered in UN troops who imprisoned the elected prime minister Patrice Lumumba in his own home (and subsequently handwhilst Belgian troops encouraged the secession of Katanga province.
The United Nations developed out of the post-war stability pact, which saw the establishment of the IME, World Bank and the GATT (predecessor to the World Trade Organisation.) The World Bank and the IMF were both set up as special agencies of the United Nations and as, "facilitators of post war reconstruction". Despite recent attempts to reinvent themselves, the World Bank and the IMF in fact operate as United States-led agenFailure
Given the failure of the United Nations it enjoys the broad support of people Justice, where the USA has ensured such as Colin Powell and John Monks
Tony Blair's speech at TUC conference attempted to raise the banner of intermaed him over to be murdered by the CIA), tionalism and solidarity in calling for action against Iraq! Blair stated: "Internationalism is no longer the cry of the left; it is practical statesmanship." The kind of "internationalism" Blair talks about is the imposition of a solution from the outside, decided by a minority on behalf of a minority. In fact the majority of people are opposed to war against Iraq - most people in Britain and a growing minority in the USA are against attacking Iraq lenged. Multilateral arms agreements will never again be signed
The new text says: "In the new world we have entered, the only path to peace and security is the path of action."
Or as Dan Plasch, director of the United Services Institute (the British armed forces' think tank) put it: "First Iraq, then Iran and after that China."
The unthinkable, which certainly involves nuclear weapons, is being thought in the Washington corridors of power.
The anti-war majority can be convinced of the utter hypocrisy of the American and British governments cies of economic repression of the Third demanding that UN resolutions on Iraq be obeyed to the letter while UN resolutions calling for justice for the Palestinians are routinely ignored.
There is also growing scepticism about to keep the peace or ensure sustainable the role that bodies like the UN play in development, it comes as no surprise that the proposed International Court of immunity from prosecution for its troops.
The deaths of civilians - men women and children - are no less real when killed by US soldiers or their allies who happen to be wearing blue UN helmets.
The continual expansion of an anti-war moverent, which is already the biggest since Vietnam, is the only hope for a region, divided for so long by the narrow interests of competing capitalist powers The anti-war movement can give confidence to the people of the Middle East to find their own solutions in the interests of social justice and democracy.