by Carla Stea
Global Research, January 10, 2012
United Nations Security Council decisions are portrayed as “the will of the international community,” and Security Council action in support of a national agenda confers moral authority upon that agenda. For this reason it is crucial to understand the tactics by which UN Security Council independence is frequently usurped, and the methods of coercion, intimidation and bribery used to extort approval from reluctant members of the Security Council, or from those members adamantly opposed to a particular course of action.
Twenty-two years ago, as a result of the Untied Nations Security Council adoption of Resolution 678, which authorized the use of “all necessary means” to end the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and “approved” the launch of the first United Nations supported Persian Gulf War, former United States Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, who had witnessed the devastating consequences of that war’s saturation bombing of Baghdad, stated that “The United Nations, which was created “to prevent the scourge of war,” has become an instrument of war.”
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Security Council has been in danger of becoming a political battering ram used for the purpose of “legitimizing” the neo-imperial adventures, and the reassertion of Western dominance over former colonial territories in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East . Since 1991, the United Nations Security Council has often been referred to as “an arm of the Pentagon,” or “an annex of the US State Department.”
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