[Peace-discuss] [sf-core] The UN Security Council

[C. G. Estabrook]

Belden is apparently referring to the Amnesty International Annual Report 2024/2015 <https://www.amnesty.org/en/annual-report-201415/>, discussed today in a NYT op-ed <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/opinion/unshackle-the-united-nations.html> - which calls for the UN Security Council "to take decisive action to protect civilians" - as I did, but which Belden claims would be "useless" in regard to ISIS.

The UNSC considers matters proposed by members, and the Obama administration continues to kill people in Iraq and Syria while studiously avoiding placing the matter of ISIS before the Council. This is of course similar to what the Clinton administration did in regard to Yugoslavia. The US was pursing its own imperial goals in both cases, while falsely alleging that it "stopping genocide."

To say as Belden does that to bring such matters to the UNSC "was useless because of the veto power of each permanent member" is to ignore the fact that the principal vetoer is the US. There is no need to assume that Russia - threatened itself by jihadists - would veto appropriate action against ISIS. President Putin in fact has said,

“Regrettably, we must note that the actions being undertaken today by the members of the anti-terror coalition, their strategy and tactics are disproportionate to the scale and nature of the existing threat. Airstrikes alone are not enough to deal with it. What is more, such actions lack legitimacy since they were not directly sanctioned by the UN Security Council and in certain cases are taken without the consent of states whose territories are being targeted.” 

It's the Obama administration that doesn't want the UNSC involved. They should reverse their policy. 

--CGE

PS - Also, it's worthwhile to be clear on what Turkey (and others) actually did in regard to the defense of Kobanî - and which group was actually effective in its defense: it was the "People's Protection Units" = the YPG militia, the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syrian Kurdistan - a socialist organization opposed by the US, Turkey, and the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The YPG is affiliated with the opposition Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).


On Feb 25, 2015, at 1:03 PM, 'Fields, A Belden' a-fields at illinois.edu [sf-core] <sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> While I don't want to tediously prolong the exchange between Carl and myself over what to do about ISIS, I do want to inform people that Amnesty International has just criticized the UN Security Council for not dealing with ISIS.  Carl had said that the US should have gone through the Security Council, and I said that it  was useless because of the veto power of each permanent member, and also because there is no effective UN military force that could possibly deal with ISIS.  Amnesty shares my frustration that the Security Council proves so useless when the "great powers" are not in agreement.  At least the UN Secretary General's representative on the ground called for military action from Turkey to come to the aid of ISIS's victims in Syria.  He tried, but  to no avail, so a lot of innocents died in incredibly cruel ways.
> 
> Belden