Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)
On November 1st, Christopher Black, who is one of the world’s leading international lawyers, headlined “The Collapse of International Law” and made his case that (and how) it was destroyed by the increasing hypocrisy that exists throughout The West and that is actually being applied (though pervasively being ignored in The West — but not elsewhere, where the hypocrisy is much noted). The blatancy of that lie has now become so clear that there is public discussion in some countries regarding whether the United Nations itself has run its course, and that nations which don’t agree with its decisions should simply resign their membership in it. The case that Black lays out is incontestably true, and he analogizes today’s U.N. to the post-WW-I League of Nations, which similarly had been produced by victor’s ‘justice’ in the wake of a World War which degenerated into yet more wars between contending empires such as had caused WW I, and then, again, it caused WW II, which was ‘justified’, in both instances (I and II), as being something more than a reshuffling between empires, which is what the post-WW-II international order and its United Nations — like the earlier League of Nations — turned out actually to have been (treating powerful aggressors as-if they weren’t aggressors at all).
This is not at all to deny the fact that the German Government’s share in the guilt for WW II was far higher than was the case in WW I, nor is it to say that the U.N. that was supposed to prevent there being any future World War was designed for that purpose as poorly as had been the League of Nations that likewise was supposed to prevent there being any future Word War. And, now, the U.N. could go the way of the League of Nations.
In fact, though the intensely anti-imperialist FDR had invented, initially conceived, and even named, the United Nations in August 1941, even prior to America’s entrance into WW II, and he did so on the conviction that WW I had been caused by contending imperialisms and so imperialism itself must terminate and become replaced by a global federal republic of all nations, which he then worked on designing the U.N. to be, he died on 12 April 1945, just weeks before the 25 April 1945 till 26 June 1945 global San Francisco Conference that was to start the organization by drafting its constitution or “Charter.” FDR’s successor, Harry Truman, became the organization’s chief designer, but many features in it were already unstoppable because of FDR’s work on it; and, so, the U.N. that exists today operates under a Charter that is a combination of the anti-imperialist FDR and the pro-U.S.-imperialist Truman, who, on 5 January 1946, wrote to his right-hand man, James Byrnes, “At San Francisco no agreements or compromises were ever agreed to without my approval.” Today’s U.N. was Truman’s creation, more than anyone else’s: Truman’s was the guiding hand that wrote all of it. It’s not 100% his; he compromised where he had to, but he was the document’s ultimate editor. Everything that’s in it was acceptable to him. The Conference’s attendees had far less power over the final document than he did. Everything that’s in it had received his “approval.” And, then, during the Potsdam (Germany) Conference, which was to be the new President’s introduction to other world leaders, he became convinced mainly by his hero, the pro-U.S.-imperialist General Eisenhower, but also by the pro-English-imperialist Churchill, that if the United States would not come to rule over the entire world, then the Soviet Union would, and so Truman finally decided, on 25 July 1945, that this was the case, and that the U.S. must therefore win control over the entire planet. It meant that FDR’s plan, for his U.N. to be designed to be the global democratic federal republic of all nations, and to be the source and the power to produce and to enforce all international laws and no national laws — that there would be no authority or power for the U.N. over domestic or “national” (i.e., intra-national) laws — never was able to come to fruition. (On 25 July 1945, Truman not only decided that a U.S.-v.-U.S.S.R. war must follow after the Allies’ anti-fascist war, but demanded from Stalin that America must have a say-so in what domestic laws would be in the countries that the Soviet Union had conquered from Nazi German control; and, Stalin, of course, said no to that.) The ONLY influence that (according to FDR’s plan) the U.N. would have regarding NATIONAL laws would be the international community’s free-speech right to comment about those, but nothing mandatory — ONLY advisory. Truman’s U.N. is what we instead have; and, as Black’s recent commentary makes clear, it’s dying, if not already (in fact) dead. The U.S. and its allies have long been violating international laws; and, as Black points out, always did it with absolute impunity. So: in what sense can this even possibly be international justice, or even international law? Or any kind of international democracy of nations?
This explains (as Black makes clear) not only Israel’s actions regarding the Palestinians; but, also, America’s actions regarding Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China, Libya, Syria, and others. Regime-change here there and everywhere — except in the U.S. empire itself. However, because Western media suppress, if not totally block, such information (the illegality of those U.S. actions: coups, invasions, and illegal sanctions) (and they even penalize publishers that report, instead of hide, this illegality), the U.S. and its allies are able to get away with calling themselves “democracy” (which is clearly a lie). Censorship is the handmaiden to any dictatorship, and the killer of any democracy.
If there doesn’t exist a democratic federal republic of all nations regarding international laws and their adjudication and enforcement, then any nation’s being any sort of democracy (other than a rhetorical one) is and remains impossible. Where international dictatorship (i.e., empire) exists (and this is the system that Truman imposed and which has grown since), democracy isn’t even possible. FDR was working on a solution to that problem but it got terminated on 25 July 1945 by Truman. Subsequently, that Trumanism became called “neoconservatism,” but it’s really a support for the U.S. Government to win control over the entire world. FDR had the opposite aim: to outlaw ANY empire.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.