[lbo-talk] Iraq war "clearer" to Americans than WW 2

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Apr 8 09:48:55 PDT 2003


Nathan Newman wrote:


>And Iraq is ultimately under the authority of the United Nations Charter and
>national security council. You oddly reflect the Americanist assumption
>that "national sovereignty" is fully preserved despite a nation signing the
>United Nations treaty.

Neither this war nor the one on Yugoslavia was approved by the SC, was it?

The "national security council" is an interesting slip - surely you don't mean the similarly named agency of the U.S. government, which in the real world seems to judge of who's sovereign and who's not. I'm guessing the five permanent members of the SC are exempt from constraints on sovereignty, since they can veto any resolution directed against them. So your world is on in which the strong can dictate to the weak - not much different from classical imperialism, but with a thin coating of legality brushed on.

Doug



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