'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Fallujah, Grozny, Jenin...

The International Committee for the Red Cross, which is the global guarantor and depository for the laws of war, yesterday issued another of its strong statements about the actions of the combatants (including American combatants) in Iraq.

Since the situation is so grave, and the ICRC statement so precise and well-crafted,I'm going to copy the whole text of it into this post. After that, I have a few reflections of my own.

Here's the statement:

As hostilities continue in Falluja and elsewhere, every day seems to bring news of yet another act of utter contempt for the most basic tenet of humanity: the obligation to protect human life and dignity. This week it was the killing of a wounded fighter and of yet another hostage – humanitarian worker Margaret Hassan – that shocked the world. Like any other armed conflict, this one is subject to limits, and they must be respected at all times.

For the parties to this conflict, complying with international humanitarian law is an obligation, not an option. There is an absolute prohibition on the killing of persons who are not taking active part in the hostilities, or have ceased to do so. It is also prohibited to torture them or to subject them to any form of inhuman, humiliating or degrading treatment. Furthermore, the parties to the conflict must provide adequate medical care for the wounded – friend or foe – on the battlefield or allow them to be taken elsewhere for treatment. They must do everything possible to help civilians caught up in the fighting obtain the basics of survival such as food, water and health care. The taking of hostages, whether Iraqi or foreign, is forbidden in all circumstances. If these rules or any other applicable rules of international humanitarian law are violated, the persons responsible must be held accountable for their actions.

Regrettably, recent events have again shown just how difficult it has become for neutral, independent and impartial humanitarian organizations to assist and protect the victims of the conflict in Iraq. Once again, the International Committee of the Red Cross appeals for everything possible to be done to allow such organizations to come to the aid of the thousands of Iraqis who are suffering.

... So, I've been thinking about this lengthening series of deeply shocking assaults by powerful national armies on urban areas that we have seen in the dawn of the 21st century: Grozny (continuing), Jenin (mainly in 2002), and Fallujah (today).

And we had dared to hope, back before this century dawned, that it could be an era of development, democratization, and nonviolence?

One thing I note, in reference to these three assaults, is how much the states that have "recognized" nuclear arsenals actually benefit from that status. For it is the five states so endowed-- the US, UK, France, Russia, and China-- that have veto powers on the UN Security Council. So when Russia, say, or the US, conducts a large-scale action that clearly violates the most basic tenets of humanitarianism, the Security Council--a body in which the hopes of most people for the survival of this world are vested-- is actually quite powerless to act...

When Israel launched its assault against Jenin, its close ties with the US gave it some protection from any effective intervention by the Security Council. (I forget whether a US veto was actually cast on that occasion, or merely threatened?) But still, within a couple of weeks of the assault, international pressures had mounted to the point where the IDF was forced to let humanitarian workers into the refugee camp that had been the locus of most of the violence.

As far as I can tell, the US occupation forces in Fallujah have little intention of allowing independent humanitarian agencies into the city, despite its clear obligation to do so under the Geneva Conventions (especially the Fouth GC, which lays out the obligations for any country that's running a military occation of a "foreign" land.)

How handy to be a "recognized" nuclear-weapons state, eh?

What I would like us all to do, starting from this terrible travesty of an international "intervention" that the US launched in Iraq last year, is to start questioning all the pillars of the international "system" that has allowed this train of events to happen. And then, to brainstorm on how the system should be changed, the better to protect the rights and interests of the peoples who are marginalized not just from power but also, it seems, from any effective protection of their existence within the present system.

One first task, given that the policy and media circles in the west have become so exercized about the "threat" that Iran might acquire a nuclear weapon, is to mount a campaign for all states, especially the recognized nuclear-wepons states, to abide by their existing commitments under the landmark Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that entered into force in 1970.

In Article VI of the NPT, all the signatories (including all the nuclear-weapons states) solemnly undertook,

to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Let's see, 1970 to the present: that's 34 years. Enough time, you might think, for these crucial negotiations on nuclear disarmament and "complete and general disarmament" not just to have started, but also to have finished and been completely implemented by now...

We could and should have been living in an essentially demilitarized world by now! If, that is, the five nuclear powers who just happen to also rule the world through the use of their Security Council veto had wanted that to happen.

But they didn't. Even the end of the "Cold War", and the effective victory of the NATO powers in that contest, was not used by the victors as an opportunity to start implementing their own solemn obligations under the NPT.

Okay, and beyond disarmament issues, another (linked) pillar of the system that evidently needs reforming is that of the existence of veto powers at the UN.

I know that in Japan and elsewhere there have for a long time been many earnest discussions over how to "reform" the Security Council membership system to give more weight there to powers other than the five present (nuclear-armed) veto-wielders. Most of those suggestions have involved the creation of additional permanent seats on the SC, alongside the five existing permanent members-- but with the additional permanent seats NOT being endowed with a veto.

Personally, though, I think abolishing the veto would be the first thing to do, and then--in the context of much broader reforms of the whole UN system-- changing the way the membership of the SC is composed. The veto is an outrage, and allows each of these five nuclear powers to hold the rest of the world hostage whenever it sees fit.

I really can't see any justification at all for retaining the veto.

Perhaps, back in the past, people used to make arguments that nuclear weapons were so special and so scary that it would be wise to try to contain the destabilizing power that these weapons would give to those who possess them by giving these particular governments a special dose of political power within the UN system? (I seem to recall having read arguments like that back in the past.)

But now, we know that there are at least four states that have "unrecognized" nuclear weapons capabilities-- Israel, India, Pakistan, and most likely also N. Korea. But no-one that I've heard of has proposed "rewarding" those naughty proliferating states by giving each of them a permanent seat and veto power within the Security Council. Why not? One reason is that actually, disproving earlier fears, the acquisition by these states of nuclear weapons has not totally destabilized the intertnational system. That's good. They have, by and large, been fairly responsible in their use of them. Certainly, none of them has yet actually employed a nuclear weapon in a conflict situation.

So that means that any "need to rein them in" argument for giving the recognized NW states a veto on the Security Council has lost its force. In the asbsence of veto powers, would any of the P-5 rush out and starting using its nuclear weapons aggressively? I doubt it. Like the unrecognized NW states, they could be expected to use the nuclear-weapons status for pressure and for all kinds of other political advantages... But guess what? They already do that. So nothing erlse would be new.

So that means that the global community could go right ahead and abolish the iniquity of "veto power" without expecting instant global chaos and nuclear war... Except, oops, I forgot, the veto-wielders would never let that resolution pass, would they?

I guess the rest of us will just have to continue our global campaign on this one...

Anyway, as you can see, I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about the big-picture, international-system types of issues that are raised by this whole dreadful phenomenon of Bushite America running amok in the world. I think it was my dear friend Mike MccGwire, a veteran strategic-affairs analyst who lives in England, who remarked back at the beginning of the present US-Iraq war on how ironic it would turn out to be if the people who ended up saving the integrity of the international system from the ravages wrought upon it by the Bushites turned out to be a coalition of Islamic fundamentalists hunkered down inside the ruined cities of Iraq.

The more that time passes, the more I think he might have been right. But oh, my God, the costs that people--especially the Iraqis--are having to bear along the way!