Newman writes:
> 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.
-How come Iraq is under the authority of the United Nations Charter? The
U.S.
-isn't.
It actually is under its authority. It just has a veto. But once it allows something to pass, it is under its authority, which it has acknowledged on a number of minor regulatory-like issues if not on the large issues of war and peace, where it uses its veto.
>The U.N. Charter was
>a scrap of paper a month ago. Now it is a scrap of paper which has been
used
>for latrine purposes. Any government that considers itself bound by the
U.N.
>Charter now is a government of dupes and fools. Law that restrains only
the
>powerless and not the powerful has no moral force, and, if you think about
it,
>no practical force either.
I actually don't disagree with the last sentence, since I've argued it in the past in discounting the reality of international law. I'm not making an argument that in practice the UN is an effective global authority-- I'm just arguing that neither is national sovereignty as a concept either. From a practical viewpoint, neither the idea of UN authority nor national soveriegnty principles have restrained brutality over the last couple of centuries.
The point is what the left should be arguing for and my view is that they should argue consistently for human rights and democracy and social equality as ideal values. Part of that is arguing that non-violence is usually the best tactic in pursuit of those values, although there are exceptions-- which is exactly where the social values should be in the front of the argument, not silly legalistic distinctions around national sovereignty.
In Iraq, there was a brutal nasty regime that the American public rightly felt should in the ideal be eliminated. It was up to the left to articulate a strategy and analysis of why non-violent solidarity with the Kurds, Shia and other forces seeking democratic change was a more effective option than war. The peace movement failed to engage that issue substantially and mostly said do nothing.
And that was a substantial reason that large chunks of even liberal opinion moved into supporting the war. You can excuse it by saying they were all misinformed by the media and such, but it's worth understanding and emphasizing that two months ago, only about one-third of the public supported war without significant global support, as signified by UN endorsement, and now an additional 40% of the public now supports unilateral intervention. It is the failure of the antiwar forces to hold that 40% of the public that needs to be analyzed.
-- nathan newman