Re: East Timor/United Nations

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael K. wrote:
> But East Timor is not the Korean War, and the UN has long ceased to be
> synonymous with US foreign policy.

Even the Korean War's use of the UN as a fig-leaf for US intervention was
an exception, the result of the USSR's representative's walk-out from the
Security Council.

We shouldn't treat the UN as merely a puppet of US foreign policy (as Louis
seems to do, just as he sees the "black bourgeoisie" in the US as mere
puppets of Nixon). Given the way the Security Council dominates, it
represents the balance of forces between the big powers, so that it usually
reflects the collective interests of the center, with the US riding herd,
especially nowadays, with the USSR off the stage. Divisions within the
imperialist bloc allow for some good things to happen. And the General
Assembly does have some power, so that people like Jesse Helms have to
fight to increase US influence.

The role of the US & UN in East Timor seems to be a matter of: "we messed
this place up" (by allowing our ally a free hand), but "there's no other
force to clean it up. Take it or leave it." Until the left actually has
force on the international level, we're stuck with that horrible choice.
Until then, we have to ferret out and tell the truth about what's happening
there. It's not the UN that will do good things in East Timor as much as
the left's efforts to countervail the greedy power of the US and similar
forces. Even that pressure can be perverted, however, as seen in the
leftist veneer that was sometimes used to dress up the war against Serbia.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine