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Octafish

(55,745 posts)
Thu Sep 24, 2015, 09:42 AM Sep 2015

License to Kill - It's a Darwinian Universe (Samantha Power, wife of Cass Sunstein) [View all]



“The weak die out and the strong will survive, and will live on forever” ― Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank



License to Kill - It's a Darwinian Universe

by LUCIANA BOHNE
CounterPunch

Let’s face it: the United States feels entitled to a license to kill.

On 23 September, Samantha Power, US Ambassador to the United Nations, insisted that the Russian veto power in the Security Council was endangering its legitimacy. Russia had vetoed four Security Council resolutions on Syria. Understandably, the US rabid dogs of war are straining at the chain to which international law constrains them. How dare Russia oppose US plans for regime change in Syria and impede a further blood bath to achieve it?

An indefatigable humanitarian warmonger, Power resents Russia’s opposition to a resolution to bomb the hell out of “atrocities” in Syria, without specifying that the main “atrocity” in her government’s eyes is President Assad.

No, no—it’s her humanitarian concern over the 250,000 Syrian already dead (she means to add more by bombing in their names); it’s the refugees’ flight she means to stem (by blocking their path with bombs).

Russia is preventing all this humanitarianism: “It’s a Darwinian universe here,” she tells The Guardian. “If a particular body reveals itself to be dysfunctional, then people are going to go elsewhere, and if that happened for more than Syria and Ukraine and you started to see across the board paralysis … it would certainly jeopardise the security council’s status and credibility and its function as a go-to international security arbiter. It would definitely jeopardise that over time.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/24/license-to-kill-2/



“Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.” ― Audre Lorde



Russian vetoes are putting UN security council's legitimacy at risk, says US

Exclusive: Warning over body’s failure to act on Syria and Ukraine comes on top of wider criticism of its structure and the permanent members’ veto rights

by Julian Borger and Bastien Inzaurralde
The Guardian, Sept. 23, 2015

The United States has warned that Russia’s continued blanket use of its UN veto will jeopardise the security council’s long-term legitimacy and could lead the US and like-minded countries to bypass it as a decision-making body.

The warning comes as the UN reaches its 70th anniversary and the security council faces a crisis caused by its paralysis over Syria. It has failed to agree concerted action to try to stem the bloodshed, even after more than 220,000 Syrians have died and more than 11 million have been forced from their homes.

Russia has used its veto powers four times to block resolutions on Syria that Moscow sees as damaging to its ally, the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It has also forestalled common action on Ukraine where it is a party to the conflict, having annexed Crimea and pursued a covert military campaign in support of eastern separatists.

Samantha Power, the US permanent representative to the UN, said that the US and other countries had increasingly been going elsewhere to have atrocities investigated, and that a “forum-shopping” trend was likely to continue.

“It’s a Darwinian universe here. If a particular body reveals itself to be dysfunctional, then people are going to go elsewhere,” Power told the Guardian. “And if that happened for more than Syria and Ukraine and you started to see across the board paralysis ... it would certainly jeopardise the security council’s status and credibility and its function as a go-to international security arbiter. It would definitely jeopardise that over time.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/23/russian-vetoes-putting-un-security-council-legitimacy-at-risk-says-us



“Nature's stern discipline enjoins mutual help at least as often as warfare. The fittest may also be the gentlest.” ― Theodosius Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving: The Evolution of the Human Species
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