Attitude? read about U.N. Agenda 21 here.
Posted on 11/03/2004 4:02:24 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 3 (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was quick to congratulate U.S. President George W Bush on his re-election Wednesday but diplomats and U.N. watchers issued warnings about future U.S.-U.N. relations.
Annan, who irritated the White House recently by describing the U.S. invasion of Iraq as ''illegal,'' has little or no choice but to welcome four more years of a new Bush administration, according to U.N. diplomats and officials.
''If the United Nations is to survive as an institution, it has to learn to live with the United States,'' said an Asian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Annan was his usual diplomatic self after the news was announced, conveying ''warm'' wishes to the U.S. president.
After congratulating Bush, the secretary-general said he is ''committed to continuing to work with President Bush and his administration on the whole range of issues facing the United Nations and the world.''
Since Annan is expected to finish his second five-year term as U.N. chief only by the end of December 2006, he will have to work with the new Bush team at least for the next two years.
Bush, whose new four-year term will end December 2008, will also play a key role in electing the next U.N. secretary-general, possibly from Asia.
A long serving U.N. official says Annan cannot afford to take a confrontational stand against Washington, ''because he will only be doing irreparable damage to the institution''.
''Either you cooperate with the White House -- or you just perish,'' he added.
The reaction was equally strong from U.S. political analysts, academics and U.N. activists.
''The Bush policies toward the United Nations are likely to remain similar -- viewing the United Nations as a significant tool when useful to Washington and as an irrelevant ritual otherwise,'' says Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy.
''Likewise, we'll see Washington continue to use the rhetoric of 'multilateralism' when expedient, while taking unilateral action whenever convenient,'' Solomon told IPS.
Diplomats at the United Nations, he said, would be foolish to take Bush's claims seriously. "The United Nations should impede and oppose -- not assist or tacitly support -- policies from Washington that seek to extend empire," said Solomon, co-author of 'Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You'.
The Bush administration, which went to war in Iraq in March 2003 without U.N. authorisation, has also remained at odds with the United Nations over sending a large team of U.N. employees to organise elections in the occupied country in January 2005.
Annan has said he will not send U.N. staffers until and unless the security environment in Iraq shows signs of improvement.
''I think the United States is very eager to get the United Nations on board to provide some semblance of international credibility to these inevitably flawed 'elections under occupation','' says Phyllis Bennis of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.
But clearly their commitment to getting the United Nations involved in the polls is limited, she added.
''We know from the (New York-based newspaper) 'Newsday' leak that it was Washington that rejected the offer of a large multilateral deployment of troops from a number of Muslim countries specifically designed to protect U.N. election workers, because the force would be under U.N., not U.S., command,'' said Bennis, author of 'Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Sep. 11 Crisis'.
''That means (U.S. officials) were more concerned with maintaining Pentagon hegemony in Iraq than in creating a scenario under which the United Nations might go in. But it remains politically crucial for the United Nations to continue its refusal to return to Iraq under the terms of the U.S. occupation -- even if the official reason remains the lack of security,'' she told IPS.
A U.N. return to Iraq under those conditions would mean legitimating the U.S. occupation of that country -- and thereby delegitimising the United Nations itself, Bennis added.
According to Nasser Aruri, chancellor professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, ''There is no reason to assume that the Bush administration, which has ridiculed the United Nations as an institution whose 'time has passed', is likely to develop a sudden respect for the world body whose basic principles are at odds with the world view of the Bush administration."
The Bush government, he added, has effectively reduced the five permanent members of the Security Council, to just one -- the United States (the others being Britain, France, Russia and China).
Bennis predicted the Bush administration would continue with its "aggressive" foreign policy while totally disregarding the United Nations.
''The world will see a re-empowered American administration claiming a popular mandate, with a strengthened commitment to preventive war in Iraq, intensified support for Israel's occupation of Palestine, renewed military threats against other perceived 'enemies,' the abandonment of nuclear weapons accountability, the sidelining of the United Nations, and the consolidation of a law of empire to match the rejection of international law," she added.
Sounds like GW's UN policy is right on the money. The Security Council consists of us. Period. We suck all the air out of the room. That's a fact. Get over it.
Sounds about right.
These folk don't know how to deal with a Texas Cowboy...no nuancing, no parsing, just cards on the table.
Double "yeah"
Newsflash to elites, the voters have spoken and the working majority agree with Bush regarding the UN as a tool.
The UN better wake up and smell the coffee before abolishing the UN becomes a wedge issue in 2008.
Did we just dodge a big bullet or what?
the united states played by the rules of the united nations when knocking off saddam. they also played by the rules in the food-for-oil program. the united nations has not been playing by the rules. what the world is learning is that bush and powell are great diplomats and can cut through the crap to get to the truth. if ugly t*rds are uncovered, so be it.
To Kofi: We just cancelled the check on the dues, now get out of this country. Go to France, no...go to Hell! Bubbye!
Nearly 60,000,000 Americans are just waiting for a chance to boot the UN from here to Brussels. So please, please impede and oppose our President.
Supreme Court...
Someone call the Waaaahhhhmublance!
Dump the UN.
Don't call us, we'll call you.
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