Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 7. september 2013 / Timeline September 7, 2013
Version 3.56. September 2013, 8. September 2013
09/07/2013
US Nukes
News Releases for U.S. Department of Defense.
Navy to Commission Submarine Minnesota
The Navy's newest Virginia-class attack submarine Minnesota will be
commissioned Saturday, Sept. 7, 2013, during a 10 a.m. EDT ceremony
at the Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Va.
09/07/2013
Syria, Democracy And International Law
By John Scales Avery
The central purpose of the UN organization, when it was set up in
1945, was to make war illegal. The enormous suffering caused by two
world wars had convinced the men and women who drafted the Charter
that security based on national military forces had to be replaced
by a system of collective security.
The fact that the basic purpose of the United Nations is the
abolition of war is made clear in Article 2, where Section 2.3
states that “All Members shall settle their international
disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international
peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.” Section
2.4 adds that “All Members shall refrain in their
international relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in
any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United
Nations.
The abolition of war implies the abolition of the colonial system,
in which technologically advanced nations maintain their dominance
over less developed regions by means of superior weapons. If the
institution of war is abolished, this becomes impossible.
Despite the high aims of the founders of the United Nations, both
war and neocolonialism have persisted. Some of the wars that we see
today are civil wars, but others are characterized by the use of
military force by highly industrialized countries to extract
resources from the developing countries on unfair economic
terms.
In his book, “Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global
Conflict” (2002), Michael T. Klare shows that many recent
wars can be interpreted as struggles for the control of natural
resources. For example, many conflicts in the Middle East can be
seen in terms of the desire of industrialized countries to control
the petroleum resources.of the region (“blood for
oil”). Are not the efforts of the United States to obtain
complete hegemony in the Middle East at least partly motivated by
the lust for oil? Syria and Iran resist this hegemony, and
therefore they are scheduled for attacks.
But there is a second motive for the US plan to attack Syria and
Iran: Israel regards these two countries as threats; and Israel
seems to control the United States government. Much of the drive
towards a US military attack on Syria seems to come from the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The American people
oppose such an attack; but the government ignores the wishes of its
citizens because it has been enslaved by Israel.
Since the United Nations has, until now, failed in its efforts to
abolish the institution of war, some people argue that we should
let the United States function as a “global policeman”.
There are a number of reasons why this is a terrible idea, one of
which is that no single country can be an impartial judge in
international conflicts. The special motives (oil and Israel) for a
US attack on Syria illustrate this point.
Furthermore, whatever system we have for global governance ought to
be democratic, with equal rights for all nations. The United
Nations, in some form, is the appropriate place for all nations to
have their say. If a single bully, “the world's sole
superpower”,dominates all other nations, we do not have a
global democracy but a tyranny of brutal military power.
In fact, the United States has lost it own internal democracy and
degenerated into an Orwellian surveillance state. The Occupy Wall
Street movement's slogan, ``We are the 99 percent", points to the
fact that a very small power elite, perhaps only 1 percent of the
population, has a hugely disproportionate amount of economic and
political power in the United States. In this sense, the United
States is no longer a democracy, since neither the economic system
nor the government serve the will and needs of the people. They
serve instead the interests of the wealthy and powerful 1 percent,
who control not only the mass media and the financial system, but
also the politicians of both major parties.
Law has always been the protector of the weak against the raw power
of aggressors. This is why tyrants hate law and ignore the law. But
today, in a world of thermonuclear weapons capable of destroying
human civilization and much of the biosphere, international law is
our only hope.
A US attack on Syria would unambiguously violate not only Article 2
of the United Nations Charter, but also the Nuremberg Principles.
Does President Obama really want to turn himself from a Nobel Peace
Prize winner into a war criminal?
Today the world has become a global village. It is no longer
possible to regard nations as separated from each other. They are
linked together by nearly instantaneous communications and by a
shared economy. So nationalism has become anachronistic, and we can
no longer afford to have anarchy at the international level; we
need to have some sort of global governance. The United Nations
fills that role, and its agencies perform extremely important
services for the world community. For example, essential work is
done by the World Health Organization, the Food and Agricultural
Organization, the International Panel on Climate Change, the UN
Development Program and UNESCO. Furthermore, the United Nations is
a forum and a meeting place where international problems can be
discussed and solved.
Rather than undermining the United Nations, we need to strengthen
and reform it. A just and democratic system of international law is
our only hope for the future.
09/07/2013
Forbundsparlamentsvalg i Australien.
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