Posted by John, September 25th, 2009 - under Imperialism, Russia, UN Security Council, United Nations, United States.

Tags: China, France, Gaddafi, Great Britain

Ignore the way he spoke; much of what Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi said in his speech to the United Nations about the UN was both sensible and defensible.

Gaddafi tore up the UN Charter. I would too.

This is a document of lies about democracy, peace and security and universal rights; rights that the imperialist powers trample over every day.

Gordon Brown in speaking after Gaddafi’s said he had come to defend the UN Charter, not to tear it up. He called on all nations to support its universal principles.

Perhaps Britain and the other members of the Security Council – the US, China, Russia and France – could begin by doing just that.

It is not the poor and oppressed nations who invade other countries and kill millions; it is not the poor and oppressed nations who enslave Africa and many other parts of the world in poverty; it is not the poor and oppressed nations whose militaries threaten the world; it is not the poor and oppressed nations who imprison Palestine; it is not the poor and oppressed nations who threaten us all with nuclear annihilation.

Here’s one quote from Gaddafi’s speech, a quote that most people can agree with:

Superpowers have interests and they use the power of the United Nations to protect their interests. The third world is terrified and being terrorised and living in fear.

Gaddafi’s point was that the UN is the plaything of the big powers. When these robber baron nations agree (for example over Afghanistan) then they mount joint imperialist wars against the oppressed nations.

When they disagree (for example over Iraq) the imperialist powers act unilaterally.

Either way the end result is a world living in fear – fear of imperialism and its soldiers, drones, mass killings and the misery and the poverty they inflict.

If the choice is between the principles of the UN or their own imperial interests, the major powers choose their own interests every time.

Let’s take the UN commitment to peace and security.

The five permanent security council members have used this as a smokescreen to launch war after war since the UN was established.

Gaddafi named a few. Korea, the Suez canal, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were at the top of his list.

He called for an investigation into these wars, with a view to prosecuting those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

There is nothing remarkable about this.

Any decent international human rights lawyer not caught up in the imperialist project can tell you that every US president since the establishment of the UN charter is a war criminal.

But given the fact that the US military is as big as the next sixteen nations combined, you just cannot prosecute them.

But it is not only ‘direct’ imperialist wars that we should consider.

As Gaddafi pointed out, since the establishment of the UN there have been 65 wars. That’s just over one a year.

Almost all of them are the consequence of imperialism, especially the rivalry between the major imperialist powers.

Gaddafi called the Security Council – made up of the five major imperialist powers and some elected nations – the Council of Terror.

He’s not quite right there because that gives the impression that these major powers act in concert. They don’t often do so because their interests don’t often coincide.

But they are the council of terrorists.

The US, often with Britain and sometimes with France in tow, has killed tens of millions around the world and displaced hundreds of millions to protect its pre-eminent role in the global economy and extend its Empire.

The British and French brutally established their colonies across the globe.

Russia, in its state capitalist days, held Eastern Europe in its grip. Now it rules Chechnya and parts of Georgia brutally through puppets and troops.

The Chinese occupy Tibet and terrorise national minorities like the Uighur.

In the long term the Chinese pose the major threat to the American empire so US foreign policy is dominated by its attempts to both encircle and engage the Chinese ruling class.

It is this clash between imperialisms which is the driver for war in the world today. Until working people in those countries overthrow their imperialist rulers there can be no peace.

Even most of the current wars are caused by imperialism or are proxies for imperialists fighting for influence and power.

Afghanistan is in part a US attempt to encircle China.

The invasion of Iraq with its million dead and millions dispossessed was mainly about the US controlling the flow of oil from the Middle East to China and showing the rest of the world that the US was the most powerful military power in the world. If you don’t obey us you could end up like Iraq.

Gaddafi also called for the will of the member nations to prevail over those of the five imperialist powers on the Security Council.

Again, there is nothing remarkable about this. It is perfectly legitimate to call for the democratisation of the UN.

It won’t happen because the UN is the creature and plaything of imperialism, not its master.

Lenin called the League of Nations, the precursor to the UN, a unification “on paper only; in reality it is a group of beasts of prey, who only fight one another and do not at all trust one another.”

He called it a Thieves’ Kitchen, a “piece of fakery from beginning to end; it is a deception from beginning to end; it is a lie from beginning to end.”

The same is true of the UN.

The predilection of the Thieves’ Kitchen for war since 1948 just shows this reality.

Gaddafi also called for the West to pay $7.7 trillion in compensation for its past and present stripping of the wealth of Africa.

Again, there is nothing remarkable about this. Early capitalism was built on the labour of slaves and their trade.

The spread of capitalism to Africa saw its wealth and productive base stolen or destroyed.

Capitalism’s wealth is built in part on that destruction. Imperialism condemns Africa to a lifetime of poverty. The UN perpetuates that.

A humane society would take steps immediately to organise production to satisfy the human needs of all – including our billion African brothers and sisters – to food, running water, housing and energy.

Such a society is only possible through the democratisation of production, that is through democratic working class revolution.

The West, and its mendicant media, will make fun of Gaddafi.

Let’s cut through the bullshit.

Gaddafi was right. The UN is part of the problem, not the cure.

When we see George W Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard, along with the new crew of criminals like Obama, Brown and Rudd, in leg irons at the Hague then and only then will we know that there is justice in the world.