(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Now the fight should be raised for loyalty to the UN Charter – and not just to every decision in the Security Council – to become part of Norwegian foreign policy. The United States has always been skeptical about approving binding international agreements that restrict its own freedom of action, whether it concerns climate destruction (Kyoto), the International Criminal Court or the UN in general. The United States, which has never respected the principles of the UN Charter, has in recent years increasingly shown that the United States gives the bluff in the UN when appropriate. It was no exaggeration when SV's last national meeting stated that the United States today is the biggest threat to world peace.
As early as 1991, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark focused on the fact that his own country's government used economic pressure to get its will in the UN. The Security Council's yes to the United States' first war against Iraq in 1991 is one example. Ramsey Clark then claimed that "the UN – a supposed peace-building institution has allowed itself to be corrupted into a force for war and war crimes." He pointed out that in the autumn of 1990, the United States spent tens of billions of dollars to get other states to change their position. "This is a systematic bribe to force the UN countries to approve of this war," said the renowned top lawyer, who a few years earlier had sat at the president's meeting table.
We also remember that until 11.9.2001 September XNUMX, the CIA controlled the listening of UN ambassadors' calls from an office in the World Trade Center. Nor does the United States pay its share of UN spending.
It does not bode well when SV's leadership now believes that partnership with the US is more important than the content of the UN Pact. And the difference SV's leadership makes between Norwegian troops in Iraq and Afghanistan seems in principle. After all, the United States attacked both states without any UN decision at first. After the occupations were a fact, then a United States-loyal Security Council has made various resolutions that provide some kind of UN approval of continued war and occupation. One might say that the Security Council's post-approval of the occupations is even more servile than when the United States bought a majority for the first Iraq war in 1991.
It can be argued that the Iraq war differs from the US campaign in Afghanistan in that the UN Secretary-General told the BBC as recently as 16 September last year that the war and the invasion were illegal. But then the Security Council's resolution no. 1483 of 23 May 2003 had long ago put the UN stamp on continued occupation, which Krohn Devold has since invoked on every occasion. – Exactly the same thing has happened in Afghanistan, only with the difference that it is SV who persistently invokes the Security Council's US loyalty as a justification for sending Norwegian soldiers to foreign wars. When the NATO-led ISAF force – with nearly 400 Norwegians – according to the US and NATO plan is to take over all military responsibility in Afghanistan during 2006, Norwegian NATO troops in Afghanistan will play the role that 60.000 war opponents prevented Bondevik from taking on. in the US war on Iraq.
Today's US-dominated UN is acting contradictory. UN pact bans war of aggression. The Security Council nevertheless endorsed the US wars, in advance as in 1991 or afterwards, as in present-day Iraq and Afghanistan. The UN's position is undermined when the United States – with Norwegian support – abuses the UN in this way. If Kristin Halvorsen succeeds in securing Norway a promotion from poodle to partner with George Bush, it is not good news for those who want a Norwegian foreign policy that is loyal to the principles on which the UN Charter was built in its time. As Dagbladet wrote in a leadership position on 27 August: "It is foolish to claim that this is not a change of line."
Erling Folkvord, Storting candidate for RV in Oslo
