Just prior to the launching of an illegal and fraudulent war on Iraq, Bush gave his ultimatum to the UN, either it legitimises his war or else it would become irrelevant like the League of Nations. When it became apparent that France, and possibly Russia, China would veto a second UN resolution authorising the use of military force, the Bush-Blair spin called it an “unreasonable” veto, and threatened to ignore it. Now Bush has exercised his veto power in defending his client state Israel when the over whelming majority inside the security council unanimously voted in favour of the proposed UN resolution, which condemned Israel’s belligerency (please note it was only a condemnation not even a threat to use force or enforce economic sanctions). So the question is, which veto is reasonable and which one is unreasonable?
In order to find the answer no great minds are required. Firstly, for the sake of simplifying the issue we will overlook the number of times UK and US have exercised their veto powers over the last fifty years. Secondly, we can safely assume that one of the purposes behind the UN is to reflect the voice of the majority of the world’s nations (international consensus) and its population in line with the much talked about democratic principals. Ironically, democracy also happens to be one of the reasons why the UN was trampled upon by the coalition forces to oust Saddam. Consequently it is not unreasonable to take this principal as a yardstick to evaluate, which veto is reasonable and which one is unreasonable.
France, Russia, and China reflected the opinion of their own populations as it was indicated by their opinion polls and the large frequent public demonstrations. The combined alliance of France, Germany, Belgium, and Turkey along with the largest demonstrations held all over Europe (including the pro-war UK and Spain), it would be sound to assume that France was also representing the opinion of the entire European continent. Most certainly you can also safely add the 1.2 billion Muslims (perhaps with the exception of some of the wealthy Kuwaiti’s, Saudi’s, other Gulf states and the Iraqi National Congress), hence covering South-East Asia, Central Asian republics, Middle East and most of Africa. Vast majority of Latin and Central American countries, Canada, Japan, and India were also opposed to the war, indicated by the same massive frequent demonstrations, and the opinion polls. So! it would be fair to conclude that the veto threatened by France and the other security council members were not unreasonable by the above democratic principal since they were clearly representing the majority of the worlds nations and its population.
As for the recent veto, it was only the US that exercised this power, whilst eleven members of the Security Council voted in favour and three countries abstained. Clearly this is democracy working in reverse, since it is the will of the minority prevailing over the majority. What happened to democratic principals now? Or is it that the US and the UK Intelligentsia only feels and understands “democracy” by bullying, and abusing the entire Arab/Islamic world for not being “democratic”, whilst upholding the racist and apartheid state of Israel as being a model of democracy in the region? There is well known Islamic principal which the Americans should now learn, “actions are the only proof (evidences) of ones belief and integrity in upholding a certain principal”. The US veto was representative of the minority view with respec! t to the nations of the world and its population but it was not even representative of its own population, because Bush himself was fraudulently elected, and his government is also illegal and unrepresentative by the extension of that same reason. In addition the current US government is far more representative of the large Multinationals and the powerful right wing Likudniks (Neo-Cons). Let us not forget the powerful corporate funded media manipulation that contributes towards shaping public opinion, is it any surprise that 60% of the Americans still believe the Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 operation.
This is not the first time that the US has exercised her voice in opposing the rest of the world, if we cast our mind back to the conference held in South Africa, when the over whelming majority condemned Israel as a racist apartheid state, the American delegation walked out, which was headed by Colin Powell. One would have assumed that he would have understood what those terms meant, and why they were being applied to Israel, since by his own admission he himself was subjected to racism in the past.
