During the preceding national crisis, the Viet Nam War, a seminal article by Noam Chomsky entitled, "The Duty of Intellectuals" appeared. "Teach-ins" spread across university campuses. It is again a time of national crisis in which to marshal intellectual resources to build a lobby of rationality.

The UN and the Middle East.

The UN remains the world's great hope for peace, security, and justice. It was conceived and designed to help achieve a higher level of civilization in which the rule of law would replace war as the method of settlement of disputes between the nation-states which dominate the world scene.

"The UN Comes of Age", trumpeted the Boston Globe in a headline welcoming the newly-found "effectiveness" of the UN in its Middle East role. The media portray the most recent resolution of the Security Council authorizing "any means necessary" to achieve the withdrawal of Iraqi military forces from Kuwait by 15 January 1991 as having been approved. It did not pass! In order to launch wars, U.S. administrations play as fast and loose with the UN Charter as with the US Constitution.

According to Section 5, entitled "Voting Procedures in the Security Council", Article I, Paragraph 1 of the Statement of the Delegations of the U.S., the UK, the USSR, and China to the San Francisco Conference at which the UN was founded. "...decisions which involve direct measures in connection with settlement of disputes, determination of threats to the peace, removal of threats to the peace, and suppression of breaches of the peace," require "THE CONCURRING VOTES OF THE FIVE PERMANENT MEMBERS,..."(Emphasis added)]. This procedure was adopted from the Yalta conference and expressed the desire to require "unanimity of permanent members in (such) decisions of the Security Council." It was incorporated in both the 1945 and modified 1963 versions of Article 27 of the UN Charter.

China did not concur as required for passage, It abstained. Abstaining is not concurrence.

There are compelling arguments to relax the requirement of unanimous consent among permanent members of the Security Council, but, in the meantime, respect for the rule of law is damaged by such misinterpretations as the invention of the "veto", especially when they are used to legitimate and to launch undeclared and illegal wars.

If Bush starts an undeclared war without concurrence of the permanent members of the Security Council it will be doubly illegal--in violation of both the UN Charter and the US Constitution. The Uniform Code of Military Justice and the U.S. military recognize the Nuremberg Principles, signed by the U.S. in the London Agreement and Charter on 8 August 1945, which forbids crimes against peace. Military personnel should be encouraged to obey the law rather than illegal orders.

One of the grave dangers of the crisis is to discredit the UN by exploiting it as a legitimate of war. The UN's job is to keep the peace.

The "Just War" Thesis.

All wars have victims which, by anyone's standards would be considered innocent. Therefore, all wars are unjust, even if they are "legal". History is replete with "legal", unjust wars. War is especially unjust if non-violent alternatives exist.

"Unthinkable" Alternatives to War.

Herman Kahn coined the phrase "thinking about the unthinkable" in his book, On Thermonuclear War. Nonetheless, thinking about nuclear war has almost become an industry. What has been and remains largely "unthinkable" for U.S. governments is world rule of law, with the UN as the preeminent institution through which it would be implemented.

The UN is intended to be an alternative to war.

But the UN is "broke"--in more ways than one.

It is "broke" because the U.S. administration doesn't pay its dues.

It is also "broke", primarily because U.S. administration systematically prevents attempts to "fix" it:

1) The U.S. administration refuses to accept the jurisdiction of the Permanent International Court of Justice.

2) The U.S. administration repeatedly casts the only vote against resolutions to create an International Security System by strengthening the UN to increase compliance with existing law.

3) The U.S. administration was the only country to boycott the UN Conference on the Relationship between Disarmament and Development.

4) The U.S. administration holds the world's record for negative, obstructive votes in the UN. Of the 83 resolutions passed overwhelmingly by vote in the 43rd and 44th sessions of the General Assembly the U.S. administration concurred only 13 times. It systematically and repeatedly opposes dozens of resolutions to enhance national security by enhancing international security (43/89 and 44/126)). It even cast the sole vote against dialogue to improve the international situation (43/87), as well as against regional disarmament centers (44/117F), against regional conventional disarmament (44/116S), against naval disarmament (43/75L and 44/116M)), against the implementation of disarmament resolutions (44/116G), against prevention of an arms race in space (43/70 and 44/112)), against international cooperation for disarmament (43/78C), against disarmament and international security (43/76A), against a resolution on the economic and social consequences of the arms race (43/78J), against studies by the Secretary-General on nuclear weapons (43/75N) and on verification (43/81B). It was joined only by France in opposing a nuclear test ban (43/64), and opposing an amendment conference to achieve a nuclear test ban (43/63B).

"Unthinkable" Negotiations.

Bush has adamantly rejected all of the proposals and great opportunities for negotiation to achieve some measure of justice and world rule of law. There already exists a substantial body of law which has been approved as the law of the planet. Included among these are covenants and conventions on human rights. They are all already legally in force by treaty, even though the U.S. government has not yet ratified the conventions and covenants on Civil and Political Rights, on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, on Discrimination Against Women, on Racism, or the American Convention on Human Rights.

The current crisis provides a great opportunity to achieve some compliance with these (and other) laws of the planet. An International Peace Conference on the Middle East could help bring some democracy to the area. Bush has declared that democracy and enfranchisement of women for Kuwait are illegitimate since to Bush the only "legitimate" government for Kuwait is to turn it over to fellow oilmen--the Al-Sabah patriarchy.

An International Peace Conference could help reduce racism, intolerance, and discrimination. Provisions from the laws of the planet might be injected into national constitutions much like the U.S. Bill of Rights. A Peace Conference could also help achieve some economic justice by reconsidering the borders inherited from imperial days which have served to separate people from the (oil) wealth with "lines drawn in the sand" more successfully than anywhere else in the world.

A basic principle of justice is equal applicability and enforcement of the law. Selective enforcement is a recognized legal defense. Iraqi proposes that UN resolutions be uniformly enforced.

1) Iraq proposed that the first resolution ever passed by the UN--to eliminate weapons of mass destruction--be implemented in the Middle East. The UN study on the Establishment of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East (A/45/435) noted, "All states in the area have declared themselves in favor of a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone...". Bush adamantly refuses to consider the removal of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, then uses the potential for the development of such nuclear weapons as the most salable excuse he has yet invented to launch a war.

2) Iraq proposed that all military occupying forces in the Middle East be withdrawn, in accordance with UN resolutions. George I peremptorily rejected such a proposal. He prefers to launch a war in order to maintain military occupying forces in the Middle East rather than countenance the removal of occupying forces. Security issues cannot be satisfactorily addressed by nation states alone. Security, in the broad sense, is of critical importance.

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