Ripping off the mask on US actions

US Mask Slips Off with Financial Blackmail at UN

Tasnim News Agency,

21 December, 2017

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – There appears to be no depth to which the US will not plunge in its efforts to bribe the world into pretending that the Zionist entity’s crimes should be ignored and that its gross injustices in the face of international law should be forgiven.

Today, Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations notified fellow member states that she would present the US President a list of all nations set to vote in the UN General Assembly to reject the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Al-Quds as the capital of the Zionist entity. This announcement itself is absurd, as the UN General Assembly does not vote via secret ballot and therefore the position of every member state present is known immediately after the votes are placed.

Later in the day, Trump expanded upon Haley’s illogical threat with a more concrete statement. He said that he was happy to withdraw so-called “aid” from countries which vote in the General Assembly to support Palestine’s legitimate position over Al-Quds.

For decades, the United States has made a mockery of the United Nations and the international law it is supposed to represent. Whether paying for fake “revolutions” in countries the US has no right to meddle in or ignoring the very real war crimes of its allies (let alone its own), the United States hides behind the language of “freedom and democracy” in order to use its financial and monetary might to enslave the world. If this wasn’t an insult enough, the US frequently attempts to play God and fashion all other nations, cultures and peoples in its own image, so as to better prepare them to act as underlings. Such a vulgar expression of self-styled superiority is at odds with the ideals of peace, tolerance, respect and international justice.

Today though, more and more countries are rebelling against this financial, military and ideological enslavement. There is hardly a more appropriate place to voice resistance to US global tyranny than in the UN General Assembly, the only place where all nations get to cast their votes and stake their claim on an issue of importance.

When it comes to the issue in question, Al-Quds could not be a more appropriate issue as the holy sites of the city are important not only to Palestinians but to peoples from around the world. By unilaterally proclaiming Al-Quds as the capital of an occupier regime, Donald Trump spat upon the very sanctity of the concept of international cooperation.

Trump acted not with the consent of the world but acted on the orders of the occupiers. One would hope that fair-minded Americans would be able to see that while the US meddles in the sovereign affairs of countless nations, it is the Zionist regime which uniquely meddles in the sovereign affairs of the United States. This was proved with concrete evidence very recently when it was revealed that the leader of the occupier regime colluded with members of Donald Trump’s presidential transition team and convinced them to try and persuade other nations not to condemn the illegal building of so-called “settlements” on Palestinian land at the UN. With many Americans concerned by still unproven allegations that Russia meddled in their sovereign affairs, they seem numb to the fact that the Zionist regime’s leader did this very thing. It would be comical if it weren’t true.

In this sense, any American who loves peace should feel both insulted and appalled simultaneously. It ought to be the duty of such people to peacefully express these feelings as much as possible. If free speech is still allowed in the United States, there is hope that this might happen.

Donald Trump already disgraced the UN above and beyond that of his predecessors when he threatened to “destroy” the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in front of the General Assembly. In same speech, he mercilessly threatened Iran and Venezuela, two countries which have never once in their history invaded or attempted to invade the United States.

Now though, the US is using financial blackmail to try and meddle in the foreign policy of sovereign states in front of the United Nations. While this is a disgrace, there is a positive element to this development.

Perhaps, nations that were naive enough to believe that they could receive US “aid” and still act freely in terms of policy making, will now realize that such an arrangement is not possible.

Aid is something given out of compassion. A purchase is the exchange of money for goods or services. This is what US aid is—it is a purchase disguised as an act of compassion.

Today, the mask slipped off for the world to see. In fact, Trump and Haley are proud of their position, waving their flag of blackmail as though a banner of pride. Such people cannot be taken seriously as political leaders concerned with peace. It is as though the idea of peace and justice has been transformed into a commodity to place on a shelf and sell as though it is worth less than a watch of gold.

While the Zionist regime leaders will certainly be happy with the remarks from the United States, their joy will soon be cut short by the reality that the wider world does not share their position. Even among nations who are far removed from the war against Palestine, Trump’s Al-Quds’s decision has represented a step too far. It also represents a slippery slope for other nations engaged in disputes or conflicts.

A nation must define its own capital city in accordance with international law. One day it is Palestine and the next day it could be another state—perhaps Yemen, where the Saudi regime already acts as though Aden rather than Sana’a is the capital. Such a precedent equates to little more than throwing decades of international legal status into a pit of flame.

When a majority of nations support the position of Palestine, the US will be doubly-isolated. First of all, the vote will prove that the US position on Al-Quds is totally rejected by the world and secondly it will show that even under the pressure of blackmail from a nuclear-armed superpower, the true global community will reject an injustice against an occupied people.

By Adam Garrie for Tasnim News Agency

Garrie is an expert in Russia, Eurasian, Middle Eastern and US history. He is a frequent Bullhorn on RT's CrossTalk debate show.

The Saker poses a legal question to Alexander Mercouris (email exchange)

[Note: today I emailed my friend Alexander Mercouris to ask him a question about the UN General Assembly vote on the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Alexander’s reply was so interesting that I asked him if I could post it here, to which he has kindly agreed. I am most grateful to him for that. The Saker]

Dear Alexander

I just read this: http://theduran.com/general-assembly-vote-jerusalem-nikki-haley/

Where the author mentioned that:

“the UN General Assembly convened today under the extraordinary procedure created by UN General Assembly Resolution 377 (V) (A) on 3rd November 1950. This procedure – known as “Uniting for Peace” – can be invoked by the UN General Assembly whenever the UN Security Council is unable to reach a consensus on any issue which affects peace.”

the author further writes:

“However though a resolution of the UN General Assembly made in accordance with the “Uniting for Peace” procedure is legally binding on UN Member States, there is no mechanism to enforce it, as there is when the UN Security Council votes for a resolution made under Chapter VII of the UN Charter”

I was not aware of this procedure and I wanted to ask you this: has the Russian protection of the Crimean referendum and the subsequent admission of Crimea into the Russian Federation ever been condemned by the UN General Assembly under that procedure?

Specifically, is Russia currently in violation of international law regardless of any issues of enforceability.

Last but not least, do you know of other instances when the UNGA voted under this procedure to basically overrule the UNSC?

If you could clarify this for me I would be most grateful.

Kind regards,

The Saker

——-

Dear Saker,

I can answer all these questions.

(1) “Uniting for Peace” was a device sponsored by the US in 1950 in order to circumvent Soviet vetoes during the Korean war. At the time it was legally controversial and as Professor Tomuschal (quoted in the article) has pointed out, it actually contradicts the UN Charter. However in 1950 the US controlled the UN and the international court system as totally as it ever has done since (thus the Soviet vetoes) and it was able to get the “Uniting for Peace” procedure accepted.

(2) It has however only been invoked very rarely, in total no more than eleven times (the UN General Assembly vote on Jerusalem being the eleventh).

(3) The point about a “Uniting for Peace” Resolution passed by the UN General Assembly is that it becomes a part of international law. I can therefore be cited as legally binding in cases before the International Court of Justice (“the World Court”) or indeed other international courts. However it is not legally enforceable except through the UN Security Council. Since the “Uniting for Peace” procedure is by definition only invoked when the UN Security Council cannot agree this has robbed it of its effectiveness.

(4) Now comes the key point.

The UN General Assembly has NEVER declared the the Crimean referendum and the unification of Crimea with Russia illegal under the “Uniting for Peace” procedure.

To my knowledge the only time the “Uniting for Peace” procedure was used against Russia was in 1980 to declare the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan illegal. Though Russia is in a consistent minority in the UN Security Council the US has never succeeded in mobilising sufficient support against Russia in the General Assembly to secure a “Uniting for Peace” resolution against it on any issue since the 1980 vote on Afghanistan.

The UN General Assembly did vote on the question of the Crimean referendum in March 2014 but the resolution was non-binding and was not brought under the “Uniting for Peace” procedure.

Moreover only 100 out of the 193 UN Member States supported it (11 states including of course Russia voted against it; 58 states including India and China and totally 58% of the world’s population abstained, and 11 states including Iran and Israel failed to take part in the vote, which is a form of abstention).

This was virtually a defeat for the US and Ukraine because for a resolution to pass the UN General Assembly it must have the support of more than half of all UN Member States ie. – since the UN has 193 Member States – at least 97 UN Member States must vote for it.

In other words the resolution on the Crimean referendum was not merely non-binding but it only just squeaked past with just 100 votes in favour.

Given that the US had the automatic support of all the NATO/EU states in the voting that underscored how little support for the US/Ukrainian position on Crimea there actually is outside the Western Alliance with key countries like China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan and Vietnam refusing to support the resolution.

Needless to say the US has not risked another vote on Crimea since then, whereas during the 1980s it staged UN General Assembly votes criticising the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan regular as clockwork every year.

Needless to say the March 2014 UN General Assembly vote on Crimea is not something that you hear Western commentators bring up precisely because it was so close to being a debacle.

The result is that there is NO legal finding either by the International Court of Justice or by the UN General Assembly or by the UN Security Council that Russia is in violation of international law on the Crimea issue and those who say it is have no international consensus on this issue behind them.

I presume you are familiar with the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Kosovo which says quite clearly that unilateral declarations of independence such as the one made by Crimea in 2014 are not contrary to international law even if made in contravention of the constitution of the country the region making them is seceding from?

That too means that the Crimean declaration of independence of 2014 and Crimea’s subsequent decision to join Russia is NOT contrary to international law. Putin repeatedly points this out but the US – which lobbied the International Court of Justice hard for the Advisory Opinion on Kosovo (just as it lobbied in 1950 for the “Uniting for Peace” procedure) prefers to forget it and you never seen the Advisory Opinion on Kosovo ever brought up in any Western discussion of the Crimean issue.

It is of course because of the Advisory Opinion on Kosovo and the UN General Assembly’s failure to pass a binding “Uniting for Peace” resolution declaring Crimea’s union with Russia illegal that Ukraine has never brought legal action against Russia on the Crimean question in the International Court of Justice.

I trust this answers your questions? Please do not hesitate to contact me is there is any other point you want me to clarify.

Best Wishes,

Alexander