All posts tagged: United Nations

Venezuela: An Open Letter to the UN Secretary General

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The most noble task of the United Nations is to create the conditions conducive to local, regional and international peace, to work preventively and tirelessly to avoid armed conflicts, to mediate and negotiate to reach peaceful solutions, so that all human beings can live in human dignity and in the enjoyment of the human right to peace and all other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. I am particularly worried by the Orwellian corruption of language, the instrumentalization and weaponization of human rights and now even of humanitarian assistance.

Goodbye ‘Freedom and Democracy’ – Hello ‘Rules-based International Order’

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Paul Carline The banner and the clarion call of western countries, and their own asserted legitimation – especially when they are engaging in illegal wars and coups – used to be “freedom and democracy”: the precious gift they were generously and selflessly offering to a backward world – or one allegedly in the ‘chains’ of Socialism/Communism. There was “Radio Free Europe”, for example, pushing out western liberal propaganda, primarily against the countries of the former Soviet Union. The Washington-based “Freedom House” organisation, which claims to be independent, has around 150 staff members in Washington and in ‘field offices’ around the world. Its President is Michael J. Abramowitz, who before joining Freedom House in 2017, was director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education. Before that, he was National Editor and then White House correspondent for the Washington Post. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the Hoover Institution. He is also a board member of the National Security …

The NYT Whitewashes Haley

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The decampment of Nikki Haley from Trump’s military regime is, or ought to be, a nonstory. The United States’ ambassador to the United Nations is a ceremonial position that serves no purpose. The very idea of it is absurd. The US is a law unto itself, readily violating the UN Charter whenever the latter’s principles get in the way of the former’s imperial agenda. Washington didn’t bother obtaining a Security Council resolution for its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; nor did it get one for its bombing of, and deployment of troops in, Syria; nor did it get one for its protracted bombardment of Yugoslavia; nor did it get one for its various military operations in Yemen.

How the UN Joined America’s War Against Syria

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America has been at war to transfer control of Syria over to the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia; and America has been trying to do this ever since the first of the CIA’s coups against Syria failed in 1949. But only during the U.S. Presidency of Barack Obama did the United Nations become a tool in this American enterprise.

P is for Phosphorus and for Projection

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Hope K On Thursday September 6th, US Ambassador Nikki Haley warned Syria and its allies Russia and Iran that the US will act if chemical weapons are used against Syrian civilians. On Saturday September 8th, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that US jets shelled the Syrian city of Hajin with white phosphorus. White phosphorus is a gnarly chemical weapon that can burn human flesh down to the bone. So, does that mean that the US is going to “act” on itself? Probably not. The Pentagon denies the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim. Somebody’s lying. Who could it be? Well, I don’t know about you, but my mind immediately goes back to June of 2017, when the US military got caught using white phosphorus in Iraq and Syria after they said they didn’t. Then they claimed they just used it for smokescreens. The US signed a treaty in 2009 with the promise they would never again use the chemical weapon white phosphorus, except when they need to for smokescreen purposes. That’s an interesting exception. It sounds …

Western narratives, proven to be false, have nevertheless brought about a real Russia-West estrangement

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Tony Kevin We have a situation now in which two major world governments, UK and Russia, both nuclear powers and permanent members of the UNSC, are upholding entirely opposed and contradictory narratives on two issues – the alleged Salisbury/Amesbury Novichuk poisonings, and the alleged nerve gas attacks by Assad Government forces on 7 April in Douma, Syria (on basis of false White Helmets-staged evidence). The latter allegation led to a US/UK bombing attack on Syrian Air Force bases. On both issues, the US and French governments – also UNSC members and nuclear powers – have in solidarity supported UK government- sourced narratives , though in the former case there has been no UK judicial process, and in the latter case OPCW inspectors have found no physical evidence of use of nerve agents in Douma , and nor do local people’s accounts support the allegations. In the Salisbury case, OPCW technical reports made public in Moscow on 14 April by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, detailing results of the Skripal samples analysis by the OPCW Spiez Laboratory …

The Nations that Accept Nazism Today

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Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org The U.S. Government leads a global operation to make racist fascism ‘respectable’ again. On 21 November 2014, in a vote at the United Nations on a Resolution opposing a resurgence of the racist-fascist ideology (opposing the ideology that’s commonly called “nazism”) which Resolution was titled “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-nazism and other practices that contribute to contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance”, 115 nations voted “Yes” to pass the Resolution, 3 voted “No” to reject it, and 55 voted “Abstain,” meaning they didn’t want to express a view on the resolution. An additional 19 didn’t vote at all on it (decided to absent themselves from that roll-call, for whatever reason — basically, not even saying whether they were neutral on it by voting “Abstain” — just said nothing at all on it). The document that they were voting on had been posted complete on 17 November 2014, and is still posted in its entirety here. As can be seen there, it had been proposed by …

The Guardian Takes Aim at Venezuela’s Democracy

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by Joe Emersberger from TeleSUR The British newspaper recently published an editorial saying that President Nicolas Maduro’s government must be threatened with “pariah status.” From 2006 to 2012, The Guardian’s output on Venezuela was dominated by its Caracas-based reporter, Rory Carroll, who tirelessly demonized, ridiculed and lied about the government of former president Hugo Chavez as it made rapid progress on reducing poverty. The Guardian recently published an editorial saying that President Nicolas Maduro’s government must be threatened with “pariah status” by the “international community“ if it does not hold presidential elections by the end of 2018. This comes from a newspaper that continually attempts to rehabilitate former British prime minister Tony Blair, a man who played a key role in launching a war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. But no pariah status for him. The imperial hypocrisy on display is stunning. The Guardian editors cited the New York Times editorial board to back up their stance on Venezuela. In 2002, the New York Times editorial applauded a U.S.-backed military coup …

Aleppo: the moment of truth for the United Nations

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by Anna Jaunger On December 2, the official representative of the UN Secretary General Stefan Dyuzharrik said that during the operation of government forces to liberate Aleppo districts of militants there were released more than 30,000 peoples, including 14,000 children among them. Thus, today the ability to begin providing large-scale humanitarian aid to the Syrian population in the liberated areas in the eastern part of Aleppo will be the moment of truth for the United Nations. It should be mentioned that the question of the humanitarian disaster in militant-controlled eastern Aleppo has been repeatedly raised by the US State Department, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, the Foreign Ministries of Great Britain and France. There have also been lots of loud statements about the need to help ordinary Syrians. Recently, the representatives of these countries and organizations, in particular, UN Humanitarian Official Jan Egeland, insistently demanded to permit humanitarian convoys to get into the eastern districts of Aleppo. In addition, on December 2, British Prime Minister Theresa May, in an interview to local …

The West Ignores Terrorist Crimes in Aleppo

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by Anna Jaunger Speaking at a UN Security Council session held to discuss the humanitarian situation in Aleppo, Syria’s permanent representative to the UN Bashar Al-Jaafari said that no one in the world is more committed than the Syrian government to protect the Syrians’ lives which suffer from the terrorism of armed organizations. He added, that terrorist attacks on civilians in Aleppo thrice coincided with the announcement of humanitarian pauses which were aimed at civilian’s lives saving. However, the West stubbornly ignores the significant efforts made by the Syrian authorities to rescue civilians including the introduction of humanitarian pauses, organization of humanitarian corridors, and delivery of humanitarian assistance. In addition, Al-Jaafari pointed out that all who commit crimes should be declared terrorists, no matter which group they belong to. Anyone who raises a weapon against civilians can’t belong to the “moderate” opposition. A striking example of the relevance of his words is a rocket attack on a primary school in Aleppo in the Al-Furqan on Sunday, November 20. It resulted in death of ten people, …

A collection of thoughts about American foreign policy

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by William Blum, November 6, 2016, Anti-Empire Reports Louis XVI needed a revolution, Napoleon needed two historic military defeats, the Spanish Empire in the New World needed multiple revolutions, the Russian Czar needed a communist revolution, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires needed World War I, Nazi Germany needed World War II, Imperial Japan needed two atomic bombs, the Portuguese Empire in Africa needed a military coup at home, the Soviet Empire needed Mikhail Gorbachev … What will the American Empire need? I don’t believe anyone will consciously launch World War III. The situation now is more like the eve of World War I, when great powers were armed and ready to go when an incident set things off. Ever since Gorbachev naively ended the Cold War, the hugely over-armed United States has been actively surrounding Russia with weapons systems, aggressive military exercises, NATO expansion. At the same time, in recent years the demonization of Vladimir Putin has reached war propaganda levels. Russians have every reason to believe that the United States is preparing for war …

UN Team Heard Claims of ‘Staged’ Chemical Attacks

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A widely touted U.N. report accusing the Syrian government of two chlorine-gas attacks relied on shaky evidence and brushed aside witness testimony that claimed some incidents were staged, reports Robert Parry. United Nations investigators encountered evidence that alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian military were staged by jihadist rebels and their supporters, but still decided to blame the government for two incidents in which chlorine was allegedly dispersed via improvised explosives dropped by helicopters. In both cases, the Syrian government denied that it had any aircraft in the areas at the times of the purported attacks, but the U.N. team rejected that explanation with the curious argument that Syria failed to provide flight records to corroborate the absence of any flights. Yet, if there had been no flights, there would be no flight records. The U.N. team also dismissed out of hand the possibility that jihadist rebels who had overrun some air bases and thus had operational helicopters at their disposal might have used them as part of a staged event designed to incriminate …

Imperial lawlessness & the dirty war in Syria

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by Mark Taliano at Global Reasearch Powerful nations continue to enjoy impunity for their crimes, and they have no reason to expect that they will be prosecuted. The credibly accused war criminals responsible for war crimes against countries that include Iraq, Libya, and now Syria, will not be prosecuted. International law is selective, and the powerful nations know this. They are repeat offenders, and their impunity emboldens them. If a just peace, and respect for international law, was the desired outcome in Syria, then the West, including Canada, would reverse course. The United States Peace Council (USPC) offers simple steps that are immediately attainable. Peace would be achieved if the West and its allies were to: Stop bombing Syrian economic infrastructure in the name of fighting ISIS. Stop injecting foreign fighters into Syria. Stop funding, organizing and arming the combatants in Syria. Lift all sanctions on Syria. Provide humanitarian aid to the Syrian people. Help the Syrian refugees settle wherever they want — including back in Syria. Confusion-mongers would have us believe that it isn’t …

UNSC votes unanimously on ISIS “threat” – but what does this mean in real terms?

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What to make of the unanimous, though seemingly very vaguely-worded, UN vote on “a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security”? Does it really indicate a potential new rapprochement between the West and Russia? This possibility is being heavily promoted in some (mostly Russian) media right now, while other outlets – such as the Guardian and NYT – are so far pretty much ignoring the UN resolution altogether. A united attack on ISIS is fine in theory, if we ignore the fact NATO is funding and arming ISIS, and is actually engaged in what amounts to a proxy war with Russia in Syria. Allying with Russia to destroy ISIS would require a total reversal of US/NATO policy, not just in the ME, but globally. This seems very unlikely to happen, unless we have been completely deceived about the nature of Russo/US geopolitcs. It will certainly prove very interesting to watch developments in the next few days and weeks. A good measure of the real intentions behind current rhetoric will be the reception given …

VIDEO: Putin’s UN speech

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Russian: English: Transcript: Mr. Secretary General, distinguished heads of state and government, Ladies and gentlemen, The 70th anniversary of the United Nations is a good occasion to both take stock of history and talk about our common future. In 1945, the countries that defeated Nazism joined their efforts to lay a solid foundation for the postwar world order. Let me remind you that key decisions on the principles defining interaction between states, as well as the decision to establish the UN, were made in our country, at the Yalta Conference of the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition. The Yalta system was truly born in travail. It was born at the cost of tens of millions of lives and two world wars that swept through the planet in the 20th century. Let’s be fair: it helped humankind pass through turbulent, and at times dramatic, events of the last seven decades. It saved the world from large-scale upheavals. The United Nations is unique in terms of legitimacy, representation and universality. True, the UN has been criticized lately …

US is “de facto ally” of ISIS in Yemen

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from Aletho News Turns out the United States and the Islamic State, ISIS, are de facto allies of Saudi Arabia and its alliance of dictator states, all bent on exterminating Yemeni Houthis and pretty much any other Yemeni in the neighborhood. This Yemenicide started in earnest in March 2015. After years of US drone strikes proved too slow and ineffective at wiping out people in the poorest country in the Arab world, it was time to expand the arsenal of war crimes. Rarely, in discussions of Yemen, does one hear much about the violations of international law that have reduced the country to its present war-torn and devastated condition. Failing to acknowledge a foreign policy disaster in Yemen, the Obama administration has chosen instead to trash international law by supporting the criminal, aggressive war that Saudi Arabia’s coalition of police states launched on Yemen on March 26. Now, despite more than three months of Saudi-American terror bombing, the Houthis remain in control of northwest Yemen, their tribal homeland, as well as much of the southeast …