Commentary: Last Hope - Or Last Hurrah?

"Not only is it a flagrant violation of international law, it's a slap in the face of the UN," I vented to a friend about the US's recent imperious shenanigans abroad.

His response was chilling.

"Like most of the wars that have occurred since more than five people on a side could heft a club," he posited quite matter-of-factly, "People aren't likely to ask permission to have them."

The words sank in slowly. I thought they spoke more to the heart of an appalling human condition than to the arrogance of military power. The suggestion was one of a certain innate, visceral human impulse for resolving disputes through violence - a trait traceable, one would imagine, to the primal fight-or-flee instincts of our hominid forebears.

If true, very little has changed.

So, what now, then? Do we simply accept this bias for belligerence as an unalterable genetic aberration and merrily butcher our way to extinction?

If his observation is valid, this alone would provide ample cause for mankind to abolish the UN, burn the Nuremberg Principles, dismantle all civilized strictures that govern international decorum, and wind back our evolutionary clock a few millennia to the state when we eagerly hefted clubs to settle disputes.

After all, one would think if we humans were indeed locked into some lawless, combative mindset that is fundamentally incapable of change, the UN would serve no purpose other than as a farcical façade to our intrinsic beastliness.

So is there any hope?

While this gunslinger mentality may not be etched in our genes, clues throughout history point to a proclivity for - even a morbid fascination with -confrontation, aggression and all the other nasty facets of human behavior that we, to this day, continue to proudly play out on the global stage.

Beyond the epic operas of rage we've enacted through endless wars, and all the gratuitous savagery of the Hollywood creations we seem to so gleefully relish, a case could be made that we have come to take for granted a certain primal strain of viciousness that lurks within us; a sort of grotesquely retarded alter ego that we know exists, but prefer to leave shackled, raging, in its hidden cage.

Even after the dusts of modern wars settle, and freshly placated foes sit optimistically together in newfound trust and hope - not even then do we drag this fiend to the fore, tear out its vile soul and declare, "Enough!"

That seems too difficult a commitment to make. Neither is admitting to our barbarian bent. So we delude ourselves by draping this inner beast with ornate rules and laws and conventions, and pat ourselves on the back for having neatly solved the problem.

Take, for example, the much-touted Geneva Accords.

These "civilized" conventions were drawn at the end of major global hostilities during a period that was heralded as the new dawn of peace, when humans could finally sit together and settle their differences sans clubs.

A sensible person could be forgiven for assuming that the blueprint for such a noble vision might have included a resolution that would outlaw - outright - all future wars of aggression.

Hardly.

What emerged amidst much self-congratulatory fanfare was a "civilized" set of rules that would outline the methodology of all future wars.

Madness, evidently, can be methodized. At least the high priests who stir up these tribal infernos clearly think it can.

Consider the Geneva Convention's prohibition of the infamous "dum-dum" bullet. Does it really matter if the neat little entry hole a projectile makes at the front of the cranium leads to a cavernous exit at the back? Dead is dead. (But strangely, these very "conventions" freely allow the use of depleted Uranium shells, which leave in their radioactive wake a carnage of innocent children whose only crime was to have played, years later, in soil contaminated by these shells' residues.)

The "conventions" solemnly prohibit the use of anti-personnel ordnances that contain common hardware such as nails. Does this in any way diminish its dosage of death? (Oddly, the same conventions permit the use of aerially delivered scatter munitions that vomit their lethal shards on innocent civilians years after the war has ended. And MIRVs - Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicles - on ICBMs that rain hell on several cities simultaneously with a venom that could annihilate millions.)

Nukes, we reluctantly concluded, were a trifle too savage - but only after we had satisfied ourselves of their devastating efficacy through field-tests that vaporized a good portion of the Japanese civilian population. (Curiously, FAPs - Fuel-Air Explosives - are entirely acceptable even though their lethality far exceeds that of most portable tactical nukes. Thousands of Afghans and Iraqis were kind enough to oblige by actively participating in these very convincing tests.)

What the "modern rules of war" that we've painstakingly sewn into the Geneva Accords basically tell us is this: Since we clearly can't heal ourselves of this nasty habit of butchering our fellow humans, when we do set off on our rampages we should do so with a sense of "decency" and minimal mess.

Our knuckle-dragging ancestors may have been too uncivilized to scrape their opponents' brains off the glacial sheet once their clubs had done their work, but we are deemed far too civilized to leave behind us such a ghastly mess.

If we truly believe that killing can be legitimized and sanitized through "conventions," then we, as a species, succeed only in demonstrating our utter disregard for - or ignorance of - the sanctity of human life.

Cruise missiles don't make us "evolved" or "advanced" or "intelligent." They drag us down to the level of Neanderthals, albeit ones in tailored suits.

Are we doomed, then, to a future of rampant bloodshed?

If we are, should we even bother to erect these institutional façades in our attempts to give this odious business of death the false perfume of decency?

If there is still hope, can our madness be "managed" through civilized legislative organs such as the UN?

In the final analysis, it would appear that we have available to us only two options.

1. We embrace the UN and make it work
2. We bury it and pummel ourselves to death

Option 1: Our last hope. Prudence, if not jurisprudence, would demand that we accept and fully commit to the Law of Nations: what is lawful or unlawful for one Nation is equally lawful or unlawful for every other Nation.

But for the UN's decrees to have teeth, it must first have credibility.

Given the US's recent highhanded actions, whatever credibility the UN may have had in the past has been, at best, severely undermined.

In the eyes of the current US administration, the relevance of international organizations such as the UN depends primarily upon their willingness to rubber-stamp US policy - legal or illegal, moral or immoral.

The French, for refusing to be a party to our invasion of a sovereign state, are now the US's enemy de jour. (Virtually the rest of the world, too, saw more sense than to round up a lynch mob and ride into Baghdad, but that didn't stop us from saving our most scathing vitriol for the French - an easier, juicier target.)

This is tantamount to the class bully ordering others to join in on some illicit caper, and then lambasting those who didn't for having had the good sense not to.

Iraq was invaded, ostensibly, for violating one solitary UN resolution (and even that, as unfolding facts attest, based on fabrications concocted by the current US administration.)

Meanwhile, a slew of far more serious transgressions, committed across decades, by Israel have been artfully downplayed and swept under the rug. That country - the only nuclear power in the region - holds the dubious distinction of having violated more UN resolutions than all other nations combined.

But when one has a superpower for a best friend, it seems one can thumb their nose at the UN's edicts with no fear of reprisal.

For the UN to function impartially and be recognized as a serious, credible legislative body, there remains much work to be done.

A good start would be to rescind, forthwith, two of its glaringly abused loopholes:
A. The right to abstain, and
B. The power of veto

To vote on issues upon which hinge the fate of thousands of human lives can never be a casual option. Voting in such crises is a humanitarian duty. A vote in the Security Council should be seen for it was meant to be: a dignified act of the highest responsibility that reflects a sincere commitment to the well-being of one's fellow man.

One would think that for a nation to "abstain" on a vital humanitarian issue such as war would lay bare in its character a vein of callousness and opportunism - if not downright cowardice.

And when a superpower threatens to revoke financial aid to poverty-stricken nations in order to coerce a vote to advance its own agendas, it amounts to nothing short of thuggery. If ever there were an affront to civilized democratic conduct on the global stage, this kind of bullying surely constitutes its sordid low-water mark.

Similarly, the power of veto should be abolished forthwith.

Now here is an absurdity if ever there were one.

In a truly democratic process, no one nation should wield the power to kill a tabled issue for any reason - certainly not an issue that deals with the declaration of war.

After all, if any issue placed on the table can be summarily squashed by one disagreeing nation, why bring the issue to the table at all?

Indeed, why have the table?

A member of the Security Council who is vehemently opposed to the passage of a bill should have no greater "right" than the right to vote. In this regard, it is fascinating that the one nation that haughtily pontificates the virtues of "democracy" to the rest of the world is the very one that has more "vetoes" to its credit - twice as many - than any other.

While we're at it we should review the laws that pertain to "wars of aggression" which are unabashedly twisted by powerful nations to suit their own agendas. These laws, which embody the very essence of the UN's raison d'etre, have become utterly meaningless in a world where the dominant superpower believes it has the right to make "preemptive" strikes against any nation it even suspects of presenting a potential threat to its security - no matter how tenuous the evidence.

The UN should outlaw all wars of aggression - irrespective of their initiators. When faced with maniacal despots and their bald acts of adventurism (E.g., Saddam's invasion of Kuwait), and remedial action is deemed absolutely necessary and unavoidable, the UN must act through consensus as it did in Gulf War I, when virtually the whole world (including the Arab nations) joined in - and not unilaterally as did the US in Gulf "War" II, when virtually the whole world stood opposed.

Yes, if deemed absolutely unavoidable, wars can be waged in the cause of the greater good through democratic processes that bear the stamp of consensus.

But an attempt by one nation to forcefully install a "democratic" government in another - regardless of the rationale - must be unequivocally condemned as an act of aggression against a sovereign state.

And when such an invasion is called as a "war," it only adds insult to injury.

Gulf War I was a war.

Gulf "war" II was an invasion of a sovereign state in contravention of international law.

The installation of a "democratic regime" in Iraq, the world was told, was one of two reasons for invading that country (the other, of course, being the cache of phantom WMD.)

Spain, our staunchly "democratic" ally in this offensive, gave the world a splendid demonstration of the quintessence of democracy - it defied the will of more than 90% of its citizens who were opposed to their government's participation in the invasion.

The US asserts that its aim is to promote democratic values around the world in the face of attacks from totalitarian ideologies ranging from communism during the Cold War to Islamic fundamentalism today.

But incidents occur every few months in some part of the world that contradict this lofty rhetoric and expose the dark underside of American policy. It is abundantly clear that the US is far more interested in propping up pliable regimes that serve US corporate interests than in any meaningful notion of democracy.

Obviously, the UN would be rendered organizationally impotent should the world's superpower feel it can continue to bulldoze its way across the rights of sovereign nations. Should the US's arrogance go unchecked, "terrorist" organizations in every part of the globe would feel their only available response would be to launch the kinds of offensives at which only they excel.

And so it is indeed ironic that in its alleged mission to scotch "terrorism," the US is in fact fanning it.

Before the situation spirals into chaos, it is vitally important that pressure be brought to bear on the US by a unified front of nations acting through the UN's General Assembly. The current US administration must be made to realize that non-military measures - a comprehensive global economic boycott of all American products, for instance - will be brought to bear against this country should it continue to violate international law.

The UN is the planet's last hope. It is our responsibility to preserve and strengthen this noble organization so that we may bequeath it to future generations of inhabitants of this planet - if only as the one sane act of our times.

Option 2: We jettison our higher evolutional aspirations along with the UN and its entire litany of "conventions" and dig in to the serious business of war - dum-dum bullets, mustard gas, nukes...the works.

Let's stop deluding ourselves with all this "civilized" puffery, resign ourselves to the fact that we are nothing more than pathological barbarians and pummel ourselves to extinction.

And this would offer some delicious prospects for a truly fiendish battlefield.

If it comes down to a free-for-all in today's nuclear-equipped global theater, the potency and invulnerability implicit in the term "superpower" would vanish in an instant.

The US may lay claim to possessing the wickedest nuclear arsenal on earth. But at last count, almost a dozen other nations (including the ex-Soviet fragments) were amply stocked with warheads, which, in aggregate, could comfortably blow the planet up a few times over.

And no one is immune from attack - not even the world's preeminent superpower, which has yet to deploy a foolproof ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) umbrella that could shield its citizens from attack.

In such a damn-the-torpedoes assault by a first-strike (preemptive?) aggressor, all the advantages of stealthy airpower, precision munitions, and naval might that go to create the aura of invincibility of a "superpower" would suddenly be rendered moot.

Nukes, alas, can't tell superpowers from tin can dictators when they belch their deadly megaton yields.

And the next "Iraq" (North Korea?) will not be a conventional cakewalk.

It just might be this planet's last hurrah.

The current US administration may now strut about swelled-headed that its fearsome military might gives it the right to dismiss the UN's charter with impunity.

But such imperiousness can succeed in intimidating weaker nations only in the context of a conventional war.

When the nukes begin to fly, all the chest-thumping claims of military clout would amount to naught. Of course, the US would easily obliterate any nation that dared launch a first strike against it.

But at what cost to itself?

And if these devices were delivered stealthily via ground, how would we determine the identity of our foe? Ground Zeros, alas, leave zero forensic signatures.

Would our knee-jerk reaction then be to vaporize eighty percent of the world's population that despises our interference in the internal affairs of their countries? (Isn't that why they hate us in the first place?)

The nuke is the great modern equalizer, the ultimate implementer of the level battlefield. Why else would this diabolical weapon be coveted by weaker nations-especially the reckless ones who could care less about the "deterrent" value implicit in their possession?

If we are to avoid a holocaust, the US and the UK must reenter the comity of nations and play by the UN's rules - or expect to see the planet divided along ominous new fault lines and witness anarchy on an unprecedented scale.

The cold war may not have been a good thing, but the balance of power that existed between the US and the Soviets for over half a century created a modicum of stability. It acted as a brake on their interventionist impulses.

That brake, alas, went the way of the Soviet Union. As the world continues to witness with ever-mounting concern, this has freed the US to play, essentially unchallenged, its arrogant, self-appointed role as the world's domineering policeman.

Imposing its "democratic" values through global "crusades" may win the current Administration the short-term fruits of victory - but at a long-term cost that is incalculable.

It is a terrible shame that those at the helm of today's preeminent superpower possesses neither the wisdom nor the foresight to see this looming, very real, possibility.

In a civilized world, the UN will remain significant as long as it represents world opinion. It is not the US that determines its relevance, but a shared global vision of peace and international legal and humanitarian order.

If we choose to part ways with this global vision, it is we Americans who stand to lose, and not the rest of the 5.75 billion people on this planet.

©Copyright 2003 by AlternativeApproaches.com

About the Author: Nila Sagadevan holds a degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Edinburgh. A former commercial pilot, he works as a communications consultant, and lives with his wife and son in Laguna Hills, CA. He may be reached at nila@omnicomltd.com.