Thursday, June 09, 2011

International imperialism

Once upon a time imperialism was rampant, with each nationalist country, Britain, France, Germany, Russia competing against each other to conquer areas of the world and turn them into colonies. Then the world grew up and the Empires were disbanded and the colonies became independent countries in their own right. But, the tendency was for these new countries (although often with ancient cultures) to degenerate into repressive dictatorships.

Many of the English-speaking former colonies, such as the USA, Australia, Canada, etc, developed a democracy of their own from their British roots. But, others have had a more difficult time reaching a stable and representative form of government. In this respect we could mention South Africa and Israel. But, the Arab world, Africa and some of Asia has been very slow in improving or have regressed from this ideal. Countries such as Zimbabwe, Burma, Cuba, Iran and Libya come to mind, and then there are the "failed states" of Somalia, Haiti, North Korea and also Yemen, which is rapidly joining this category.

In the case of Libya a new form of imperialism has developed, that can be termed international imperialism, whereby the international community thru such organizations as the UN and NATO, seeks to determine the form of government of other countries by force. This is military intervention to bring about "regime change." The basis of this approach can be seen in the actions that the UN and then NATO carried out in the Balkans in 1999 to rescue the people of Kossovo, who had been expelled from their country by the Serbian Army. By counter-attacking Serbia itself, the Serbian Army was forced to withdraw, and a new form of sovereignty-creation was imposed.

In Libya, the UN resolution (SC1973) that established the NATO task-force to prevent Col. Gaffai's armed forces from carrying out war crimes against his own civilians in Benghazi, has been expanded in phases from purely a "no-fly zone" to include all of Libya, and then command and control centers and finally any Gaddafi targets. But, NATO still maintains the fiction that they are not targeting Gaddafi himself, since it is supposedly illegal to target an individual leader.

What are the consequences of this trend? What if the UN decides to vote sanctions against Israel? Although ostensibly the General Assembly's resolutions are not binding and the Security Council will be blocked by a US veto, nevertheless there may be methods that will allow the majority of Muslim foes of Israel to take action. One way might be the "combining for peace" type of resolution that has been used before as in the Korean War to attain GA aims. While this is somewhat distinct from the SC resolutions that have been used in Kossovo and Libya, one never knows where this might lead if a Palestinian State has been voted for in the GA. For example, it could be decided that Israel occupies the Palestine State's territory as determined by the GA, and sanctions could be then followed by threats of international force or actual force.

I am very happy that Col. Gaddafi, a notorious, ruthless dictator, is being attacked by NATO. I am even happier that the UN SC is finally considering a move against Syria, after ca. 1,200 civilians have been murdered and 20,000 arrested by Assad's forces. But, we should never forget that there is an automatic majority of Israel-haters at the UN and the sanctioning and attacking of errant countries sets a dangerous precedent.

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