Are America and NATO replacing the UN?

America and Britain invaded Iraq in 2003 by spreading false propaganda that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and nuclear weapons and murdered Saddam Hussein through this fraudulently fabricated “crime.” 2013 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq by Britain and America. It is reported that 2.7 million Iraqis – women, children and men - have been killed. America alone lost over three thousand soldiers. Many of the American soldiers sent to die in a war that had nothing to do with their interests were African-Americans.

At that time the United Nations sent its scientists to Iraq. They found no weapons of mass destruction there. Tony Blair of Britain and George Bush of the United States nevertheless went ahead and illegally aggressed against Iraq. They were never summoned to the International Criminal Court to account for the atrocities they perpetrated upon the Iraqi people. The United States has not even signed the Rome Statute that created the ICC, but it is very vocal about non- American-NATO leaders being brought before this court to answer for their crimes against humanity.

In Britain Tony Blair’s Party lost the last elections because the British electorate considered him as having lied to them about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. David Cameron of the Conservative Party won the last British elections. Recently, he tried to involve Britain in the controversial use of chemical weapons in Syria. He failed to convince the British Parliament. France has also had a split in Parliament on the issue of who used “chemical weapons” in Syria. Sixty four percent of the French people have been reported as opposed to the military attack by America.

Cameron was keen to see atrocities punished in Syria, but not those Britain committed in her colonies such as Rhodesia, South Africa and Kenya. Over 5000 Kenyans have recently been awarded reparations by a British High Court for atrocities committed in Kenya by Britain on the freedom fighters of this African country which fought against British colonialism and imperialism in their country. They are the former Kenya Land and Freedom Army that the British colonial regime internationally discredited as “Mau Mau terrorists.” These African Freedom Fighters were led by Kenyan leaders such as Dedan Kimathi whom the British colonial regime sentenced to death for resisting British imperialism in their own African country. Some of the evidence heard in the British Court was that:

“A woman claimant testified that she was subjected to severe sexual torture. British soldiers inserted bottles of hot water in her vagina. In addition to these cases thousands of Kenyans were maimed, lynched and brutally murdered by the British army during the last century. Thousands of women were subjected to rape, forced labour, gross abuse and torture in detention camps. It was part of the British colonial regime to break a civilian population cast as ‘baboons,’ ‘barbarians’ and ‘terrorists.’

“In 1903 the British colonial government sent thousands of settlers from South Africa and from England to Kenya with the aim of creating another ‘white man’s country’ in Kenya. The European settlers were allocated the most fertile land in an area they colonially named ‘White Highlands,’ writes Ms Jemima Pierre editor at the Black Agenda Report in Uganda.

Article 22 of the 1907 Hague Convention IV states that it is especially prohibited
a. To employ poison or poisoned weapons;
b. To employ arms, projectiles or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.

The United States of America government used such weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and also in Vietnam. Can America’s intelligence service be trusted to be non-partisan and truly professional to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria where the interests of America and NAT0 Allies are so crucial? To trust such America and NATO investigators to be impartial in their search for chemical weapons and to identify who used the is like naively believing that jackals can look after sheep without reporting that some of them are “missing” or “dead.”

Iraq is a leading case study to prove beyond reasonable doubt that false information can be fabricated to mislead the world by America and its Allies to destroy governments they do not like including those in Africa such as Zimbabwe and Libya, as well as those like Iran in the Middle East. Libya is the 10th largest producer of oil reserve in the world. Under Muammar Gaddafi, the oil wealth was controlled by Libyans and not by America and NATO. America and its allies, mainly Britain and France moved into Libya under false cover of United Nations Resolution “no fly zone” and “protection” of Libyan civilian population. More civilians have died in Libya under America-NATO “protection” than under Gaddafi.

Most objective observers of events have noted that Libya “has moved on, but into lawlessness and economic ruin.” The civil war in Syria has been fuelled by Western countries. They have openly trained and supplied weapons to the Syrian rebel forces. This is exactly what they did also in Libya.

But in Saudi Arabia, America and NATO adopted a different attitude when Saudi Arabia used life ammunition against pro-democracy protesters, and banned demonstrations. During the same time NATO and America accused Gaddafi’s Libya of “killing his own people.” They turned a blind eye even when Saud Arabia sent its own troops to Bahrain which was being overwhelmed by its own people.

Someday it will be proved that the rebels in Syria used the chemical weapons in order to give America and NATO the fraudulent excuse to attack President Bashar el-Assad’s Syrian government. It is the rebels that America relies on to facilitate their “regime change” strategy for themselves and for their oil-hungry masters to control oil wealth in Syria.

United States Defence Secretary Chuch Hogel has been reported as saying that American forces in the region are now waiting to be given the order to attack Syria. Clearly like in the case of Iraq and Libya, America and NATO were determined to undermine the authority of the United Nations. America is now claiming that they are acting according to international law. Which international is this, which is the sole prerogative of the Americans and their NATO allies? Which international law authorises them to violate the United Nations of which they are members? International law is the law of all nations. It is not the law of Europeans or those of European descent living in Canada, Australia or America after exterminating the indigenous people of these countries by theft of their lands and terrorist militarism.

At the United Nations, the Security Council is the supreme body of this world body. It has rules. Five members have a veto. It seems, however that to America and NATO, only the veto of Britain, France and United States of America matter, not that of Russia and China. This imperialist attitude by America and NAT0 does not contribute to the peace, prosperity and order in the world.

Any military strikes by America and its NATO Allies in Syria will be illegal. They have no authorisation of the Security Council of the United Nations. America must stop preaching “legality” and “good governance,” especially to Africans; while walking illegality and dancing illegality and violating all principles of international law with impunity; and arrogance intoxicated with the exuberance of military superiority.

The Russian Federation has come up with a reasonable proposal and Assad has accepted this proposal. Russia has proposed that Syria must bring all its chemical weapons under international control and burn them. Russia’s proposal however, must go beyond this point. All nations of the world with weapons of mass destruction must do as they demand of Syria. They must burn their chemical and nuclear weapons, so that more money can be spent on the economic development of nations and social emancipation of its people from poverty, disease and ignorance, than on weapons of war.

There will never be peace in the world as long as some nations are armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, but demand other nations to disarm. All the nations of the world must take disarmament seriously. There can be no trust between armed nations and disarmed or unarmed nations in this world of selective morality in international politics, especially over control national resources that are coveted by countries steeped in imperialism and whose morality is “might is right.”

The undermining of the Charter and authority of the United Nations by the United States of America and its NATO Allies is the source of wars in the world. The League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations collapsed with disastrous consequences for mankind. It facilitated the Second World War from Europe which killed 72 million people. Sixty one million of them were on the side of the “Allies” and 11 million on the side of the “Axis.”

* Dr. Motsoko Pheko is a historian, political scientist, lawyer, theologian, author of several books among which is TOWARDS AFRICA’S AUTHENTIC LIBERATION. He is a former Member of the South African Parliament. During the unfinished liberation struggle in South Africa he was a Representative of the victims of apartheid at the United Nations in New York and at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

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