Our guest writer is Kim Swift who has written for us before. After the article under "References" is a continuously updated article documenting our policy of continuous wars, an article on how to participate in UN activities through the NPA, and other sources of information.
I. "America's Role in the United Nations Security Council"
We need to view the United Nations Security Council as the global security/policing function and stop viewing ourselves as the exception to international law. Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations is “Actions with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression”. Article 39 of Chapter VII states, “The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken… to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
America can bolster rather than impede the function of the United Nations Security Council and help resolve seemingly intractable problems and establish peace and justice. Especially since America is one of five permanent members of the Security Council and has veto power, we must find ways to apply pressure so that America acts on matters of principle and conscience to help pass resolutions in the Security Council. These resolutions are binding under international law. Tragically a recent vote in the Security Council to require that the Israelis and Palestinians resolve their impasse and negotiate a solution within a year failed by just one vote. We must work diligently to overcome vested one-sided interests and change the stance of America in the Security Council so that America is a catalyst for meaningful action in the Security Council to resolve conflicts rather than an impediment.
II. Questions about peace to ask candidates:
Will you reset our foreign policy based on international law, human rights and diplomacy? International law includes the requirement per the United Nations charter that the United Nations Security Council authorize military action and a ban on torture per the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Will you restore America to be a beacon of human rights as it was when Eleanor Roosevelt helped write the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Will you foster diplomacy and disavow wars of aggression, e.g. NATO 's bombing of Serbia and President George W. Bush's war against Iraq?
Especially since America is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, will you work to strengthen the effectiveness of the United Nations Security Council to perform its global security/policing function to resolve conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Syria?
Will you per the Geneva conventions condemn attacks on civilians and the civilian infrastructure and disavow such attacks, e.g. NATO's bombing of civilians and the civilian infrastructure in Serbia?
Will you end the illegal and immoral drone assassinations in which the President acts as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner over people halfway around the globe?
Will you restore Thomas Jefferson's principle of "peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none"?
Will you follow the constitutional requirement that Congress declares war and end presidential wars and any other military engagements or commitments without a declaration of war from Congress?
Will you help break the stranglehold of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about and help end the financial and moral bankruptcy of empire?
Will you help end the spiral of violence in the world today that has come from "might makes right" policies, and disavow such policies, e.g. when NATO chose war over peace in bombing Serbia after it failed to negotiate in good faith at Rambouillet?
Will you speak against war and the horrors of war, e.g. going over the top of trenches into machine gun fire in the hideous insanity of World War I, a senseless conflict between empires and alliances of nations that cast millions to their deaths?
Will you work towards eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world?
Will you support the right of each citizen to be a conscientious objector, to elect on matters of conscience not to serve in a war? The right of the people to exercise their conscience is paramount over the power of the state to enforce a draft. This right leads to the final destination of ending war altogether.
References:
2-So You Want to Volunteer for the United Nations
3-Afghanistan: An American Holocaust
4-When Clinton Lied, Yugoslavia Died
5-Gary Swing on Bernie Sanders
6-Martin Luther King Jr. and Peace
