World

profound crisis (the Hungarian revolution
had broken out), which had the political
will to warn France, England and Israel
that nuclear bombs could always fall on
Paris, London and Tel Aviv.

The war quickly ended, the U.S.
helping to broker the peace, and Nasser
kept the canal. This time around, the
Soviets (and Chinese) voted with the U.S.
in the Security Council. The Soviets
gained something important at very little
cost — an invitation to a Middle East
peace conference. And, as this is written,
Moscow is doing what it can to broker a
peace in the area and still has a substantial
number of advisers in Iraq.

It is not at all unlikely that, when the
dust has settled, Bush will find Moscow
more closely involved in the Middle East
than it had been before.

Finally, some quick comments on the
United Nations. Some have spoken as if
the UN was simply an American puppet.
This is a very dated view. It is certainly
correct that when the UN was set up in
1944, and for well over a decade after, it
was an “American Institution,” built and
paid for in the U.S. We also bought the
votes. We voted all of Central and Latin
America, including Cuba. We voted all of
Asia (except India) and even controlled
the Chinese seat in the Security Council. It
was a very rare West European
government which dared vote against the
US.

But even back then the State
Department didn’t trust the UN and ran its
most important network of alliances

Yes. And the very fact of those
sanctions allows me to ask when there will
be sanctions against Israel for defying
Resolution 242, and when there will be
sanctions against the U.S. until it gets out
of Panama, and to ask the congressional
defenders of sending troops and
supporting armed blockade why this
didn’t occur to them in the case of South
Africa. And to support sanctions is very
far from supporting a UN military action,
which I don’t.

Finally, aside from what may be called
a “pacifist lament” (but which I hope is,
actually, a more universal human lament)
that we always seem to have more money
for armies and never for the things that
really count — such as hungry children
and homeless families —let me say that to
deplore the Iraqi action of trying to annex
Kuwait is to affirm the case of the
Palestinian people.

For if one does not condemn one
occupation, how can one be heard in
condemning another? If any powerful
country has the right to seize territory
based on past history (whether that is the
history of the Ottoman Empire or the
Biblical history of the Hebrew tribes) then
we really have sold out the Palestinians.
Enough others have sold them out, I don’t
want to be in that number.

Whatever the PLO policy may be —
and their policy is subject to very
immediate and special pressures — from
my own vantage point I want to speak as
clearly as possible in saying that while not
one American soldier should be

BR a aa ea rT a ETE RS CRT EE]
To deplore the Iraqi action of trying to annex Kuwait is

to affirm the case of the Palestinian people. ... The one

hope of this current tragedy is that by a firm linking of
the rights of people to self-determination we may help

push U.S. public opinion toward recognizing the rights

of the Palestinian people.

through bilateral and multilateral
economic and military arrangements
outside the UN (in the process subverting
it), It was our creature, but we didn’t trust
it.

And our fears proved sound. Sometime
between the late 1950s and early 1960s
the UN changed. Cuba voted its own vote
and set an example which, occasionally,
other Latin states followed. Indonesia,
Yugoslavia, Algeria, Ghana, Zambia, one
by one, in Africa, Asia, Europe, power
shifts led to the “non-aligned bloc” which
was willing to defy both the Soviet Union
and the U.S. And the UN, weak as it
remains, provided the framework for
Nicaragua to take the U.S. to the World
Court and win a judgement on the mining
of its harbours.

The only problem was that the UN
lacks any power to coerce the U.S. to pay.
But just as we struggle to improve our
warped and class-ridden- legal system
rather than simply dumping it, so we need
to remember that Nicaragua did take the
U.S. to court and win. We need to
remember the international conference on
youth, on women, on disarmament, which,
each in turn, has been a forum for
discussion and a chance to focus world
attention on key problems.

In 1950 the UN was indeed the mask
behind which the U.S. waged war in
Korea. But to think that nothing has
changed in 40 years is to make the same
mistake some make in thinking Saddam
Hussein is the Ho Chi Minh of our time.

Yes, the U.S. acted first both in 1950
and 1990 and then got UN backing. And
no, I don’t believe in sanctions on sending
food and medicine. But do I support
sanctions in general on Iraq?

committed to the Middle East, neither
should American funds continue to flow to
arm or sustain any of the countries of that
area, and most emphatically not Israel,
which holds in bondage a whole people.

The one hope of this current tragedy is
that by a firm linking of the rights of
people to self-determination we may help
push U.S. public opinion toward
recognizing the rights of the Palestinian
people, and the need to deal directly with
the PLO. But all of that discussion does
not require U.S. military bases in the area.

Those bases should be closed now, and
the troops brought home now. And Bush,
if he is to be taken seriously when he
invokes the UN, should pay the back dues
owed, and accept the judgement of the
World Court on Nicaragua.

In the Gulf area, serious wars begin in
October. So these notes may be dated. I
hope they are dated because of movement
toward peace. But if they are dated
because of the tragedy of war, then our
voices of dissent will be more urgently
needed. Surely Vietnam taught us a lesson.
It should not take us 10 years and millions
of dead before we force a change of policy.

American youth are not a “cop for
sale” to defend the Saudi monarchs. I
hope the debates belatedly occurring will
prevent the war, but if they fail to prevent
it, let our actions end it.

David McReynolds is on the staff of
the War Resisters League and associated
with the Nonviolent Activist, a pacifist
monthly. Reprinted from the U.S. monthly
Journal CrossRoads.

force of more than 300,000 troops.

U.S. JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN COLIN POWELL ... commanding a U.S.

By TOM FOLEY

UNITED NATIONS: Washington’s
lack of backing in the United Nations
Security Council for war against Iraq
has become so obvious, in the wake of
Secretary of State James Baker’s
failure last week to drum up support
for use of military force, that U.S.
officials at the UN have dropped all
references to their draft resolution to
give a UN cover to such action.

The Associated Press reported,
“U.S. officials said China, France and:
the Soviet Union reportedly expressed
concem that Washington might attack
Iraqi forces without giving the
UN-ordered trade embargo a chance to
work.” AP said a U.S. official who was
with Baker in Moscow a week ago
confirmed that Baker did not ask
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev or
Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze
to support such a U.S. resolution in the
Security Council.

The basic Soviet position for a
peaceful diplomatic solution received
unexpected backing from Iran. Iranian
UN Ambassador Kamal Karrazi said
Sunday that “Iran considers Soviet
efforts to settle the Persian Gulf crisis
through political means as a positive
initiative.”

A day earlier, arriving in Tehran,
Turkish Premier Turgut Ozal told
reporters that Turkey wants the Gulf

U.S. no longer
expects UN to
back force in Gulf

crisis “resolved in a peaceful manner ...
Our contacts have made it clear there
are no differences in the outlooks of
Iran and Turkey in this regard.”

Baker also met in Cairo with
Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen.
Qian said China disagrees with the
United States on the use of force and
will pursue diplomatic means for a
solution “as long as there is a glimmer
of hope” of avoiding war. After Baker
left Paris, a spokesperson for President
Francois Mitterrand said the French

’ position “consists of the strict

application” of Security Council
resolutions and nothing more.

Meanwhile on Wednesday Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak made a
sudden, unannounced visit to Libya.
Also visiting Libya was Iraqi Deputy
Premier Sa’dum Hammadi. Mubarak
startled observers Sunday when he said
that Egyptian soldiers will not enter
Iraq even if U.S. troops attack.

And King Hassan I of Morocco,
who had sent 1,900 troops to Saudi
Arabia, on Sunday did a quick
about-face and issued an appeal for an
Arab summit to head off war. Baghdad
sent Iraqi Deputy Premier Taha Yassin
Ramadan to Morocco, where he is
expected to confer Wednesday with
King Hassan.

Tom Foley is a staff writer for the
People’s Daily World.

Pacific Tribune, November 26, 1990 « 9