On Saturday, October 15, 2011, Kenya invaded Somalia. Earlier in the week President Barack Obama announced he was sending U.S. combat troops to Uganda [See Obama Sends U.S. Gunmen to Uganda]. Uganda and Burundi already have troops occupying part of Somalia. Meanwhile the U.S. occupation army has not quite left Iraq. The U.S. is now in an undeclared war with Pakistan [as I predicted in U.S. Close to War with Pakistan on April 23, 2011] and has operations in Oman and other nations. Iran, too, is on U.S. target lists.
Note that the United Nations (U.N.) is not going to protect Somalia. The U.N. does not exist to protect weak nations from invasions by stronger ones. The U.N. exists mainly to further the agendas of the Great Powers, and right now the only powers of any global importance are the U.S., Europe, and China. None of them care for the current de facto government of Somalia, the militia/political party Al Shabaab. Surprisingly the Kenya military did not announce it was "invited in" by the "provisional government" of Somalia, a hand-picked group of U.S. puppets backed by hundreds of genuine supporters and those Ugandan troops already mentioned.
Maybe the U.S. forgot to order President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed to invite in Kenya as an ally in the civil war. Don't forget the formidable Ethiopian army invaded Somalia in 2006, financed by the U.S., with the same purpose, with the brilliant result of destroying the moderate Islamic de facto government, leading to the rise of Al Shabaab as the dominant popular government. [Sharif Ahmed, now a U.S. puppet, was a leader of the regime destroyed by Ethiopia, the Islamic Courts Union.]
Sure, there are a lot of moving parts to keep track of, but this is really beginning to look like World War III, with the United States playing the role Britain played in World War II: an imperialist power about to be bankrupted.
Neither World War I nor World War II started on a single day. Both had their preludes and aftermaths. A smart and strong U.S. President could defuse the situation by withdrawing from Afghanistan, apologizing to Iran, Pakistan, and Oman, recognizing Al Shabaab, and recognizing the state of Palestine and the right of Palestinians to have their private property returned to them. Obama can't do that; he has become a subservient tool of the U.S. corporate security state, and was certainly vetted for that role before being allowed to become the Democratic Party frontrunner in 2008.
A single incident, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, is said to have started World War I. More important than the spark were the stacks of powder kegs all around: the rivalries of the imperialist, industrialist powers, most notably between the British capitalists and their German cousins.
World War II is more instructive. It is generally marked as starting when German armies attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, or when Great Britain declared war on Germany the next day, escalating a regional conflict into a global war. But in East Asia the anti-imperialist war of Japan and its allies against the European colonialists had long been underway, and would last until the United States withdrew, defeated, from Vietnam in 1975. In Europe World War II probably became inevitable when Britain, France, and the United States refused to support the democratically elected government of Spain in its civil war with General Franco (with support from his fellow Catholics Pope Pius XI, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini), leading to Franco's victory in March 1939.
Al Qaeda is not a great industrial power that can have its factories bombed into impotence, as happened to Germany, Italy and Japan in World War II. The strategy of Al Qaeda has always been based on Osama Bin Laden's analysis of the fall of the Soviet Union. It was caused by a lopsided militaristic economy, aggravated by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda's goal has always been to cause a similar collapse of the United States economy by irritating the U.S. into asymmetrical expenditures. It has largely succeeded. At this point the only way Al Qaeda can fail is if the U.S. severely cuts back its military and homeland security expenditures and starts taking care of its own people. Instead our leaders continue to fall into the Al Qaeda trap.
Al Qaeda, however, will not be the ultimate winner in this global contest. Al Qaeda has proven it knows how to fight, but not how to govern. When Germany and Britain fought for world dominance in World War II, it was the U.S. that inherited the earth. Who will dominate the economy and culture of the next century is not easy to predict, although the easy bets are on India and China. Hopefully no nation will be stupid enough, after the lessons of the 20th century, to try to become the global superpower. That is just a recipe for eventual bankruptcy.
The Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939, only two weeks after the German invasion (in fairness, Poland did not exist before the end of World War I, so both Germany and the U.S.S.R. claimed to be reclaiming lost territory). Yet the British Empire did not declare war on the U.S.S.R. Germany was seen as more of a threat to the British Empire, short run. Britain (and its ally France) was in no position to fight both Stalin and Hitler at the same time. So they chose to fight Hitler. Even that kind of pragmatisim did not save the British Empire (or the French, or Dutch empires) in the long run. When the French, after the briefest face-saving hint of battle, were brought over to the German side (by Marshal Petain, another Roman Catholic fascist), that should have meant global dominance for Germany. That, in turn, would have required more patience than Hitler had. The Catholic armies of Europe, instead of finishing off the British, attacked the athiest U.S.S.R., cheered on by the Pope. Everyone forgets that some 30 million athiests died before Hitler's Catholic hords were defeated.
If the United Nations were about peace, it would sanction Kenya and, if necessary, send in troops to expel the Kenyans from Somalia. Watch it do nothing, just as its predecessor, the League of Nations, consistently did nothing to prevent World War II. Again, there was a reason: Woodrow Wilson designed the League of Nations to be a racist, imperialist institution, and it stuck to that design.
Showing posts with label League of Nations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label League of Nations. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Recognize Palestine
The United Nations (U.N.) is a funny place. And I don't mean ha-ha funny.
On the one hand it is as close as one can get to a recognizable global government. Therefore it makes sense for the Palestinians to ask the U.N. to recognize their existence as a nation.
On the other hand, it has most of the attributes of a bad government, and few attributes of a good government. Given its history, that should not be a surprise. The UN was, and remains, a profoundly racist institution, dedicated to maintaining the system of imperialist domination of the industrial, mainly "white race" nations over all others.
The UN had as its predecessor the League of Nations. In American history books Woodrow Wilson is almost always portrayed as the progressive peace-lover who worked to create the League of Nations, to promote world peace, only to see the U.S. Senate reject American membership in the body. That is not untrue. But Woodrow Wilson was one of the intellectual architects of racism in the United States, and the leader of the overtly racist Democratic Party. His Fourteen Points for world peace and international relations basically amounted to democracy for white people.
President Wilson effectively called for new nations based on ethnic majorities when those new nations had been part of rivals to the American, British, and French empires. For instance Poland, which did not exist as a state before World War I, was to be created out of parts of Russian and Germany. But he did not call for independent states to be carved out of any part of the American or British empire. Neither the Philippines nor Puerto Rico, both U.S. colonies, were considered nations capable of self-determination.
Japan was one of the few nations that had, at that time, escaped colonization by one of the imperialist nations (often referred to then as the Great Powers: the United States, Russia, Germany, France, the British Empire, and perhaps Italy). During negotiations Japan raised the idea that Asian peoples had a right to self-determination. That would mean the U.S., Britain, France and Holland giving up their colonies (Germany's were taken from it for losing the war). Woodrow Wilson, chairing the committee that considered that proposal, killed it. He really truly thought that only people of European descent were capable of self-government. Instead of a peaceful withdrawal of imperialists from Asia in 1920, the issue led to the Asian Anti-colonial War (always lumped by U.S. historians into World War II, to confuse the issue) and then to a series of national liberation struggles lasting into the 1970s, including the Vietnam War. [See also: The U.S. War Against Asia]
Palestine, after World War I, was not allowed national self-determination. It was removed from the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire and places in the British Empire. The British, in order to receive Jewish financial backing during World War I, had promised to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine (the Balfour Declaration). While there were (fluctuating degrees) of Jewish immigration into Palestine before World War II, the British never official created a Jewish state or region in Palestine.
The United Nations was a reboot of the old League of Nations, with most of its flaws. It did not call for the abolition of colonialism. It was designed expressly to give the appearance of global backing to the new British-American alliance. It was not democratic in any reasonable sense of the term, as the one-person one-vote guideline was subverted by the colonial system and other un-democratic structures. Where independent nations had been established in Asia, the UN allowed them to be re-colonized. In particular when Korea tried to become an independent nation (the Korean War) the UN voted to attack Korea. Similarly, in almost every case where it has been involved, the UN has helped strong nations attack weaker nations.
Meanwhile, back in Palestine, the Jewish section of the population threw out the British and established a state by force of arms in 1946 through 1948. Unfortunately, this was not simply a matter of making reality out of the Wilsonian rhetoric of national self-determination. It was largely a land grab and instance of ethnic cleansing, for the native Palestinians were largely thrown out with the British, by the mostly European jewish invaders. The new state of Israel made further conquests in a series of wars, leaving the Palestinians with no territory of their own. Although at first reluctant to back the tiny new state and anger the Arab states in the region, in the U.S. Jewish votes in the key states of Florida and New York, along with a vast corruption of government through election campaign donations eventually made the U.S. government the primary military and economic backer of the state of Israel.
Despite their troubles, the Palestinians have retained their national identity and have created a culture of resistance to Israeli tyranny. This week the Palestinian National Authority petitioned the United Nations to recognize the Nation of Palestine.
President Obama is too worried about getting himself re-elected with American Jewish money and votes to support Palestinian statehood. Given the anti-democratic structure of the U.N., that means the Palestinian request will be blocked by its Security Council. Based solely on a military alliance that existed during World War II, five security council seats have permanent members (the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, France, and China) with permanent veto powers. Basically, the form of the United Nations is an oligarchy bordering on dictatorship.
However, a vote in the General Assembly is likely to show that the majority of the nations of the world want to recognize Palestine as a nation, and that implies they want to see justice done for the Palestinian people.
Americans should support democracy and national self-determination, including for the nation of Palestine. The United States government should voluntarily relinquish its veto power in the U.N., along with the other permanent Security Council members.
Further, the United States of America should recognize the Palestinian state, regardless of the outcome in the United Nations. President Obama should be ashamed of his self-serving following in the footsteps of that architect of racism, Woodrow Wilson.
On the one hand it is as close as one can get to a recognizable global government. Therefore it makes sense for the Palestinians to ask the U.N. to recognize their existence as a nation.
On the other hand, it has most of the attributes of a bad government, and few attributes of a good government. Given its history, that should not be a surprise. The UN was, and remains, a profoundly racist institution, dedicated to maintaining the system of imperialist domination of the industrial, mainly "white race" nations over all others.
The UN had as its predecessor the League of Nations. In American history books Woodrow Wilson is almost always portrayed as the progressive peace-lover who worked to create the League of Nations, to promote world peace, only to see the U.S. Senate reject American membership in the body. That is not untrue. But Woodrow Wilson was one of the intellectual architects of racism in the United States, and the leader of the overtly racist Democratic Party. His Fourteen Points for world peace and international relations basically amounted to democracy for white people.
President Wilson effectively called for new nations based on ethnic majorities when those new nations had been part of rivals to the American, British, and French empires. For instance Poland, which did not exist as a state before World War I, was to be created out of parts of Russian and Germany. But he did not call for independent states to be carved out of any part of the American or British empire. Neither the Philippines nor Puerto Rico, both U.S. colonies, were considered nations capable of self-determination.
Japan was one of the few nations that had, at that time, escaped colonization by one of the imperialist nations (often referred to then as the Great Powers: the United States, Russia, Germany, France, the British Empire, and perhaps Italy). During negotiations Japan raised the idea that Asian peoples had a right to self-determination. That would mean the U.S., Britain, France and Holland giving up their colonies (Germany's were taken from it for losing the war). Woodrow Wilson, chairing the committee that considered that proposal, killed it. He really truly thought that only people of European descent were capable of self-government. Instead of a peaceful withdrawal of imperialists from Asia in 1920, the issue led to the Asian Anti-colonial War (always lumped by U.S. historians into World War II, to confuse the issue) and then to a series of national liberation struggles lasting into the 1970s, including the Vietnam War. [See also: The U.S. War Against Asia]
Palestine, after World War I, was not allowed national self-determination. It was removed from the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire and places in the British Empire. The British, in order to receive Jewish financial backing during World War I, had promised to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine (the Balfour Declaration). While there were (fluctuating degrees) of Jewish immigration into Palestine before World War II, the British never official created a Jewish state or region in Palestine.
The United Nations was a reboot of the old League of Nations, with most of its flaws. It did not call for the abolition of colonialism. It was designed expressly to give the appearance of global backing to the new British-American alliance. It was not democratic in any reasonable sense of the term, as the one-person one-vote guideline was subverted by the colonial system and other un-democratic structures. Where independent nations had been established in Asia, the UN allowed them to be re-colonized. In particular when Korea tried to become an independent nation (the Korean War) the UN voted to attack Korea. Similarly, in almost every case where it has been involved, the UN has helped strong nations attack weaker nations.
Meanwhile, back in Palestine, the Jewish section of the population threw out the British and established a state by force of arms in 1946 through 1948. Unfortunately, this was not simply a matter of making reality out of the Wilsonian rhetoric of national self-determination. It was largely a land grab and instance of ethnic cleansing, for the native Palestinians were largely thrown out with the British, by the mostly European jewish invaders. The new state of Israel made further conquests in a series of wars, leaving the Palestinians with no territory of their own. Although at first reluctant to back the tiny new state and anger the Arab states in the region, in the U.S. Jewish votes in the key states of Florida and New York, along with a vast corruption of government through election campaign donations eventually made the U.S. government the primary military and economic backer of the state of Israel.
Despite their troubles, the Palestinians have retained their national identity and have created a culture of resistance to Israeli tyranny. This week the Palestinian National Authority petitioned the United Nations to recognize the Nation of Palestine.
President Obama is too worried about getting himself re-elected with American Jewish money and votes to support Palestinian statehood. Given the anti-democratic structure of the U.N., that means the Palestinian request will be blocked by its Security Council. Based solely on a military alliance that existed during World War II, five security council seats have permanent members (the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, France, and China) with permanent veto powers. Basically, the form of the United Nations is an oligarchy bordering on dictatorship.
However, a vote in the General Assembly is likely to show that the majority of the nations of the world want to recognize Palestine as a nation, and that implies they want to see justice done for the Palestinian people.
Americans should support democracy and national self-determination, including for the nation of Palestine. The United States government should voluntarily relinquish its veto power in the U.N., along with the other permanent Security Council members.
Further, the United States of America should recognize the Palestinian state, regardless of the outcome in the United Nations. President Obama should be ashamed of his self-serving following in the footsteps of that architect of racism, Woodrow Wilson.
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