Almost everyone in this country is coming
to the uncomfortable recognition that the war with
Iraq is as good as lost or at best it is on the verge
of a major failure.
A
year ago the country was in uproar over the United Nations.
It looked as if the great vision of a world platform
was coming to an end. The United States railroaded the
UN, ignored it, bullied it, disposed of it very publicly
in a trash can and then went to war.
As circumstances (and common sense) would have it, the
war isn’t working out well. Almost everyone in this
country is coming to the uncomfortable recognition that
the war with Iraq is as good as lost or at best it is
on the verge of a major failure. There are still a few
in this country, especially some fanatical talk show
hosts (Bob Grant and Sean Hannity in New York and the
right wing clones elsewhere) who are convinced that
we won the war and what is happening now are mere skirmishes
(“We have to go in there with more troupes and wipe
everyone out.”).
Now the United States has turned to the UN because the
it is the new janitor. They will help us clean it up.
They are needed to make it all look legitimate. Some
in the administration (including its gifted Defense
Secretary) want a “UN” face on the “operations in Iraq.”
In some looney fit, even the Indian Government was contemplating
sending soldiers to help this facelift on an operation
that the natives of Iraq call an occupation. We hope
that brief gesture of generosity got some good will
with the IMF or the World Bank, but it did not and would
not fit well with anyone who has a semblance of understanding
about the Iraq debacle.
The UN has passed a resolution supporting an international
administration in Iraq. All sorts of ridiculous, funny
and outrightly insulting propositions have been trotted
out. One of them suggests that a U.S. General would
head the armed forces there, while the civil administration
will be headed by UN diplomats. Read here cleaning services
(Baghdad is literally awash in garbage, according to
some reports), hospitals with lots of bandages and anesthetics
and civic offers of bureaucracy. Sort of a front line
for the military operations!
The President once remarked that the UN has reduced
itself to a debating society. Wouldn’t you know! If
all you know is shooting from the hip, then you would
not notice all the other shooting you do.
Even though the UN has become an ineffectual body for
a host of other reasons (among them, a steady starving
of overdue funds from the United States, choking of
UNESCO and other bodies, some of which were released
some money only after Sept. 11, 2001), one cannot deny
that UN is the only hope of conducting any dialog among
the communities of the world. It has virtually no real
authority, but it is a wonderful place where you could
still stand face to face with the greatest superpowers
and assert that you had the same single vote that the
Big Ones do.
What a beautiful idea that all nations, tiny and mighty,
each have only one vote! You would think this could
be nurtured in the greatest democracy in the world.
Despite the continuous debilitating attrition in the
value and effectiveness of the UN, we hope that there
may be at least one hope. That the UN could become a
great debating society where you could practice courage
in free speech and tell the major honchos who want to
run the world that they are wrong and arrogant and completely
contemptible.
Once Malcolm X remarked in Harlem that the Blacks in
the United States could go to the UN to bring its pressure
to remove racism in this country. Oh, how the world
has changed!
Although the vision of Malcolm’s dream is difficult
to realize today, we hope that the UN can at least debate
and discuss such issues, including the wretched war
in Iraq which brings fresh news of new deaths every
morning.
