Security (?) Council....

I was reading the Post today, and I came across an article about Bill Clinton - speaking out against the war in Iraq - my first inclination was...."Oh no, tell me he's not going to say that the war was illegal..." But Bill is much too smart for that, he wouldn't say that the war was illegal, at least not from a UN perspective, because he acted in much the same manner when he was president.

As one could guess, today's International Law class focused upon the authorization for the use of military force. And though, I love Bill Clinton....I gotta say that he was just as shady - legally - as the current administration for seeking UN authorization for military action against Iraq.

My forthcoming comments are only in regards to the Iraq situation - I don't know nearly enough about the Kosovo conflict to say one way or another whether I think that proceeding without explicit UN authorization was a-okay (though it seems to me that if 'ethnic cleansing' is going on - it's universally objectively verifiable - and so any country should be willing to step up and take action - immediately).

Regardless, today in class we discussed at length the arguments of the current administration arguing the legality of the current Iraq war. (One of which was used by Clinton to bomb Iraq in the 90's) The crux of the dominant argument is "Hey the UN authorized force" "The UN authorized a cease-fire, suspending the authorization of force" "The cease-fire is contingent upon Iraq doing a bunch of things" "Iraq hasn't done those things" --> "The suspension goes away" "We're authorized to attack"

To me this is such bullshit - Hello the authorization for force was passed in 1990 (Security Council Resolution 678) and it's purpose was to get Iraq out of Kuwait. These hyper-technical arguments are clearly against the spirit of the UN Charter. The UN system was set up so that countries couldn't fuck with each other using really deadly means - the UN was vested with executive authority to authorize force within the community of nations. Read the preamble of the UN Charter - it's amazing.

There simply isn't a rational human being who could say that this hypertechnical argument (used by both Clinton & Bush) is consistent with the intent and goals of the United Nations....any attempt to so otherwise argue - is disingenuous at best.

Article 2(4):
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat 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."

When are we going to live up to our international obligations???? The international community stands a helluva lot better a chance at getting along if we all work together - equally - and leave the doctrine of unilateralism behind, a vestige of our imperialist past.