Andre Gunder Frank

Model United Nations

There is NO UN any more, Model or otherwise

--- the Gulf War violated 7 different articles of the UN Charter - in re Bosnia, the UN abdicated its responsibility to keep the peace and transferred it to NATO, a MILITARY alliance! - in re Kosovo, the entire UN system was circumvented - and thereby emasculated and in effect destroyed - by NATO and its member states, which [not] incidentally also violated the first three requirements of the FIRST paragraph of NATO's OWN charter; moreover the democratic process was also violated - and if once, why not again in the future, - in that NO single parliament was even consulted about launching and waging that AGRESSIVE war against a UN member state [well, not quite member since that also was in dispute] [In Canada, Prime Minister Chretien said publicly that we cannot afford to submit the NATO war proposal to the Canadian parliament, because there would be some opposition in the parliament and that showing this to the world would play into the hands of Milosevic. In plain english: We MUST abrogate democracy at home to wage war abroad. Later his Minister of ""Defense" stated publicly that Canada reserves the right to so intervene militarily again, NO MATTER what international law --thus including the UN to which Canada is signatory -- may be!!].

Also [not] incidentally, the CONSTITUTIONS and LAWS of many member states were also violated,not the least among them that of the US and of Germany, in the US its own law is violated by violating international treaty obliagations, inlcuding being signatory to the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions etc etc, which become part of US domestic law through ratification by the US Senate].

--- in re Afghanistan, the whole kit and kaboodle is dumped into the trash basket of history. - progressively in all of the above, centuries of WORLD HISTORICAL creation, development and use of INTERNATIONAL LAW and of CIVILIZATION [another of our discussion strings!- that is now history, as the saying goes- all history may not be ''bunk'' contrary to Henry Ford, but THIS history of CIVILIZATION has certainly been made ''bunk''] by being abrogated and destroyed by not even by the proverbial stroke of a pen but by the launch of a bomb. How cynical was the Vietnam era of ''we have to destroy it to save it." How MUCH MORE CYNICAL is the ACTION of WE HAVE TO SAVE CIVILIZATION BY DESTROYING IT, including especially its perhaps MOST IMPORTANT achievement, which is the creation of INTERNATIONAL institutions - the UN!- for the prevention of international war!! [Not] incidentally, a [US & UK created] Nuremberg Trials contribution to the canon of international law was the ome that says '' the WORST crime against humanity is that of making war,'' and another of which was that ''those who wage war [eg. Herman Goering in the dock there] are to be held PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE for the war they make''.

Cynicism to the cynicism power is the in the case of Kosovo in fact and in the case of Afghanistan proposal is - after emasculating the UN - to use the UN flag [thats about all that remains] as a fig leaf for the ''legitimation'' of the military occupation and government by the very powers that already emasculated the powers of the UN !! At its presentsession in New York, the UN and its Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed the very heads of government whose states are today violating and emasculating the very UN itself.

QED: A ''model UN''?