[Marxism] Obama 'Accessory' To War Crimes If No Prosecution

[Lajany Otum]

>
> What happened in your "old country" is irrelevant in terms of the US.
> The UN has always functioned as a kind of steering committee of those
> major powers and when something needs to be done that directly crosses
> the national interests of one of those superpowers, it doesn't follow
> through.  The UN has almost never addressed any of these questions
> when doing so might cross the US interests.
> 
> To have them "clucking" or doing much of anything about the conduct of
> US officials in connections with "war crimes" is something new.  It's
> impact remains unclear, but international public opinion was a major
> consideration in the civil right legislation.
>

The UN does not function as "steering committee" with autonomy to form 
important decisions, but rather lends an after the fact veneer of legality to 
decisions that have already been made elsewhere, i.e. by Washington with 
a greater or lesser degree of support from the subordinate powers of 
Western Europe and Japan. Analysis of any major incident in which the 
UN has played a significant role during the last sixty years will bear this out. 
To pick two examples, the sanctions regime against Iraq under the previous 
Clinton administration, nor the murder of Lumumba in the Congo were, 
though carried out under the banner of the UN, were cooked up in Washington 
and London, and Washington and Brussels respectively, quite independently 
of the UN, which simply functioned as an handy legal cover for the banditry 
by the imperialist powers in either case. 

This does not mean of course that conscionable individuals in the UN 
structure have not spoken out against the policies of the imperialist powers,
but it is a gross and seemingly wilful misinterpretation of the facts to claim
that such officials are able to influence the conduct and behaviour of Washington 
more than they can the conduct of local notables who control African states such 
as the one I used to live in. I mean, how many UN officials have had to resign or 
been sidelined after criticising Botswana or Burundi, but where is Hans von 
Sponeck today? My point however, was that I am rather used to hearing people 
in such places express illusions in the autonomy and civilising function of the 
UN, but find it rather surprising to hear the same expressed here in relation to 
the ability of UN officials to influence imperialist powers.

Which brings me to the question of war crimes and torture. These are 
essential tools for the maintenance the position of Washington and its 
subordinate powers in the world system and, not withstanding the recently
reshuffled management, it is virtually guaranteed than neither war crimes nor 
torture will effectively criminalised without sustained pressure from mass 
movements of the sort that brought an end to US war crimes in Vietnam or 
forced the US to pass civil rights legislation and for which wishful thinking
about the UN makes a more or less worthless substitute. 

At "best" we should expect torture by the new regime to be carried out 
under more effective CIA wraps, or through outsourcing arrangements with the 
various goons and thugs that are allied with the US in the third world. But 
it is delusional to think that the US is going to allow its conduct, or the 
conduct of its officials, to be subject to scrutiny under "international law". 

As Richard Nixon might have said, when the US does it, that means it 
isn't illegal. 

Lajany Otum