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September 30, 2014 - No. 78
UN Security Council High-Level
Meeting on Terrorism
Resolution 2178 Unanimously Passed
but Obama Diplomatically Rebuked
- Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya -
UN Security Council passes
Resolution 2178, September 24, 2014.
The United Nations Security Council held a high-level
meeting on terrorism on September 24, 2014. UN Security Council
Resolution 2178, which underscored the need to prevent the travel and
funding of foreign terrorists, was unanimously approved and passed by
its five permanent and veto-holding members --
Britain, China, France, Russia, and the U.S. -- and its elected
non-permanent members -- Argentina, Australia, Chad, Chile, Jordan,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nigeria, South Korea, and Rwanda -- which have
chairs for two-year terms.
The Syrian government hailed the passing of the
resolution as verification of its claims about the nature of the
anti-government forces that the U.S., Britain, France, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon's perfidious Hariri-led
March 14 Alliance have been supporting. Syrian Information Minister
Omran Al-Zoubi hailed Resolution 2178 as a political victory for Syria
on September 28, 2014.
The September 24 meeting was chaired by the U.S., which
since the start of the month of September received the rotating UN
Security Council presidency from Britain. Moreover, U.S. President
Barack Obama was personally chairing the situation while U.S. Secretary
of State, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha
Power, and U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice all sat behind
him. The resolution had been circulated before the session and approved
before opening remarks and statements were made.
Anti-war action by
Edmonton Coalition Against War and Racism, September 27, 2014.
Australia, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Chad,
Chile, France, Jordan, Kenya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the former
Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria,
Norway, Qatar, Rwanda, South Korea, Turkey, and Trinidad and Tobago
were all represented by either their head of
state or head of government. Archbishop Pietro Parolin, Vatican City's
Secretary of State (which is the equivalent of a prime minister) was
also present, as was Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the EU's
European Council. Albania, Algeria, China, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia,
Kazakhstan, Senegal, Serbia, and
New Zealand were represented at the ministerial level while Egypt,
India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Spain, and the UAE
were represented by cabinet advisors, special envoys, and lower ranking
representatives. Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Al-Jaafari was also
in attendance.
The UN Security Council Resolution 2178 is described by
the U.S. Department of State, in a factsheet it released on the same
date (September 24, 2014), as a legally binding document that requires
all countries to prevent foreign terrorist fighters from either
entering or transiting their territories and to establish
domestic laws to prosecute these foreign terrorists domestically.
UN Security Council Resolution 2178, itself, states that
the UN Security Council "through the resolution, decided that all
States shall ensure that their legal systems provide for the
prosecution, as serious criminal offences, of travel for terrorism or
related training, as well as the financing or facilitation of such
activities." It goes on to say that it has been decided that all member
states of the UN "shall prevent entry or transit through their
territories of any individual about whom that State had credible
information of their terrorist-related intentions, without prejudice to
transit necessary for the furtherance of judicial processes.
It called on States to require airlines to provide passenger lists for
that purpose."
Although it is de-contextualized as Argentina, China,
and Russia would all stealthily point out in diplomatic terms, the
content of UN Security Council Resolution 2178 in principle was sound.
Therefore, it got the unanimous support of the entire UN Security
Council. In practice, it is a totally different story.
Liars in High Office: A Pageantry of Dishonesty
Almost the entire meeting about UN Security Council
Resolution 2178 was a pageantry of hollow rhetoric and beautiful lies.
The room was filled with soulless poets. Most the noble words by the
gathering of careerists had no bearing with reality.
The biggest state-sponsors of terrorism were in attendance in the
chamber presenting themselves as champions of justice and as
adversaries of terrorism. Aside from a few comments by countries like
Argentina, Russia, and Syria, the entire meeting was almost totally a
fiction.
Listening to the session, one could see which countries
and governments were truly independent and which countries and
governments were proxies and clients of Washington. The U.S. vassals in
the chamber all catered to Washington and Obama's ego. Washington's
vassals took turns to acknowledge Barack Obama's
leadership ad nauseum. UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria,
Canada, Jordan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Norway, Qatar, South Korea,
and the FYR of Macedonia all thanked Obama for his leadership like
subordinates paying homage to their overlord. If Obama did not have
to leave before they talked, the representatives of the Netherlands and
Morocco would have most probably saluted him for his leadership too
like the leaders of Norway and Canada did in his absence. Algeria,
Chad, Pakistan, Senegal, and a few other countries also thanked Obama
for calling for the high-level UN
Security Council meeting, but their tone was not as obsequious as those
of countries like Jordan, Qatar, and NATO member Bulgaria.
Protest against President
Obama's warmongering in the name of fighting terrorism,
UN Headquarters, New York
City, September 29, 2014.Washington's puppets and subordinates all used the same
talking points that the U.S. Department of State had been pushing for
days. Their statements could have very well have been written for them
by the U.S. Department of State. This was very clear in the case of the
speech made on behalf of the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan by King Abdullah II. Using trademark U.S. Department
of State dramatic language, he started by calling what was happening
"the fight of our times." The Jordanian dictator pushed the U.S. points
of global reach and -- using the latest catchphrase that the U.S.
Department of State has taken a shine
to -- called for "a holistic approach" to fighting the ISIL and other
terrorist organizations. Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane
also called for the same "holistic approach" that King Abdullah II was
promoting. These statements were following in John Kerry's footsteps
after he had called for a "holistic
global campaign" during an earlier UN Security Council meeting on
September 19, 2014.
Abdullah II pushed for absolute submission and
capitulation to Washington's new crusade in his speech. With a
ridiculously somber tone, he demanded immediate action and said that
"there has to be a zero tolerance policy to any country, organization,
or individual that facilitates, supports, or finances terror groups
or provides weapons or promotes propaganda, whether through media
outlets or misusing religious clerics, that incites and helps recruits
fighters to these terrorist groups." "Countries cannot comply in one
theater while making mischief in another," he added.
While the UN Security Council several made statements
about stopping the purchase of stolen oil from Iraq and Syria, one of
the key facilitators, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, sat in
the room. Like Obama and Cameron, Erdogan pretended that NATO member
Turkey had no role in the theft of Iraqi
and Syrian resources. Instead, President Erdogan took the opportunity
to claim that the Syrian government was behind the creation of the ISIL
death squads. The next day, on September 25, Syrian Foreign Minister
Walid Al-Muallem would state that Turkey had not even stopped training
and arming the death squads
or stopped them from pass through the Turkish border into Syria.
Erdogan would also call for a no-fly zone in Syria. It
would later be reported that this topic was discussed between Erdogan,
Obama, and U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden.
Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani would
speak after Erdogan. He too would not flinch throughout the meeting
whenever the ISIL death squads and their funding were mentioned.
Instead when it was his turn to speak, he pointed his finger at both
Syria and Iraq as the sources of the terrorism
problem. Ignoring the role that Qatar and its allies have played, the
Qatari autocrat blamed both Damascus and Baghdad by saying that Syrian
state repression and Iraqi state repression is what created the
problems of terrorism.
Gjorge Ivanov, the president of the FYR of Macedonia,
used the meeting to advocate for Euro-Atlantic expansion. President
Ivanov called for the swift entry of his countries and the entire
western portion of the Balkans -- meaning Albania, Bosnia, the
breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, Montenegro, and
Serbia -- into NATO and the European Union as soon as possible.
When it was Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's turn to
talk, he brought up sanctions. The Dutch official used the UN Security
Council meeting to emphasize the importance of sanctioning states that
do not comply.
Argentina Exposes the Dirty Hands at the UN Security
Council
Using somewhat of a Socratic approach, Argentine
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner questioned the
hollowness and double-standards in the room. She did so diplomatically
and in a very polite way without mentioning the U.S.
directly most the time, but she was clearly challenging the U.S. and
revealing its dirty hands. Along with the Syrian Ambassador to the UN
Bashar Al-Jaafari, her statements were the harshest and pointed out how
Washington was creating international instability and that its
campaigns to fight terrorism were really
not showing any results and only feeding a cycle of violence. Anything
that would indicate the guilt of the U.S. in fueling terrorism and
nurturing the ISIL was not included in the UN Department of
Information's text on the meeting.
Once she took the microphone,
President Kirchner explained that Buenos Aires saw merits in the UN
Security Council Resolution 2178, but said that Argentina had several
important questions and hesitations. Her questions were really
criticisms of the U.S., at least partially. She started off by pointing
out how
in 2013 there was pressure on Argentina from the U.S. Congress when it
signed an agreement to cooperate with Iran to address the 1992 and 1994
terrorist attacks inside her country. She explained how Argentine
dialogue with Tehran in 2013 was deemed unacceptable and that her
country was slandered as a terrorist
state, but how it has been okay for Washington itself to talk to the
Iranians. After this Kirchner mentioned that Al-Qaeda did not emerge
overnight and was trained to fight against Moscow. Then she said that
the Arab Spring was spearheaded by the same type of militants that have
formed the ISIL, but that these
combatants were presented to the world by the U.S. as "freedom
fighters" in 2011. Perhaps she was trying to point out how ISIL's
strength and reach has been deliberately exaggerated to justify U.S.
intervention, but she then told the entire UN Security Council that
Argentina did not take the ISIL threats to kill her
seriously.
 Kirchner went on to point out how
the U.S. has presented
one new threat after another. The threat to the world was Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction a decade ago, the threat then
became the Iranian nuclear energy program, then it eventually turned
into Syria, and it was the ISIL death squads at
the current juncture of the UN Security Council's meeting.
Very importantly, President Kirchner told Obama that
Washington's methodology and methods for fighting terrorism are not
right and that military force is not the answer. She said it defies
logic to use the same methods that are constantly failing and making
things much worse instead of solving the problem. The U.S. approach to
fighting terrorism has only made terrorism proliferate and violence
spread. Cristina Kirchner then said that Israel is also a part of the
problem, pointing out that the Israeli massacres of civilians has only
created anger and militancy in the Middle East. She then reminded the
UN Security Council that
the government of Syria in 2013 was presented as a great enemy, while
the people fighting it were presented as "freedom fighters" by the U.S.
The world, however, became aware and openly admits that those so-called
"freedom fighters" are terrorists she added. President Kirchner
additionally asked President Obama
and the UN Security Council who had armed these groups fighting inside
Syria -- an answer that everyone in the room knew the answer for -- and
then asked about the ISIL's oil revenues and who is providing it with
arms
She concluded that Argentina will help fight global
terrorism, but it had to be done in a legal framework and with respect
for human rights -- all of which were shots at Washington again.
Looking at Obama, Kirchner concluded by pointing out that Argentine had
a lot of untapped energy, but said she wondered
if it was a curse because it seemed to her that all the countries with
oil are riddled at problems -- this was another hit at the U.S. for its
interference in the affairs of energy-rich nations.
It would be Syria that would partially answer some of
Cristina Kirchner's questions. Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar
Al-Jaafari would point out that it was several of the member states
gathered in the room that were disingenuously denouncing terrorism that
in reality were the parties financially, technically,
and diplomatically supporting the terrorists and death squads inside
his country. He also pointed out how the Israeli ally of some of the
U.S. had downed a Syrian jet that was on a mission against the same
terrorist forces that they claimed to be fighting.
Russia and China Diplomatically Point the Finger at the
U.S.
Although Russia and China approved UN Security Council
Resolution 2178, they have very different agendas and made it clear
that a global campaign on terrorism has to be led by the United Nations
and the UN Security Council and not
by the U.S. government and Pentagon.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for an end
to double-standards. Lavrov also called for an end to the illegal oil
trade of stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil and an end to the dissemination of
weapons from post-Jamahiriya Libya. The Russian official called for a
UN forum to be convened for the task of
honestly analyzing how terrorism has proliferated in North Africa and
the Middle East. He pointed out to the NATO bombing of Libya and the
support that some of the members of the UN provided for the
anti-government fighters in Syria.
Sergey Lavrov's point was simple. Russia was asking for
the United Nations to look at the roots of terrorism and not just to
respond to their symptoms by fighting terrorist groups militarily after
they emerge as threats. Foreign Minister Lavrov was asking the UN
Security Council to examine how the ISIL was
created. In other words, he wanted the UN to acknowledge the role of
the U.S. and its allies in creating the death squads and terrorist
movements ravaging Iraq and Syria.
Like his Russian counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister
Wang Yi called for also looking at the root causes of terrorism.
Foreign Minister Yi emphasized that the United Nations and the UN
Security Council had to coordinate the "global war on terror." Although
he did not state it explicitly, what Yi meant was
that Washington should not call the shots, because it would misuse the
campaign for its own interests.
Taking a diplomatic jab at Washington like his Russian
counterpart did before him; Wang Yi called for consistency and an end
to double-standards. China's position was that international law and
norms must be followed.
Who is a terrorist and who is not? Like so many
international agreements and documents, such as the Geneva
Communiqué concerning Syria (which was created on June 30,
2012), there will be different interpretations of Resolution 2178. The
U.S. and other members of the UN will use it to suit their own
interests.
There are universal and categorical definitions of what foreign
terrorist fighters are. For example, Washington could use it designate
Hezbollah fighters in Syria as foreign terrorist fighters while Russia
and China will use it contest support for the militant separatists in
the North Caucasus and East Turkistan.
The Beginning of a New Phase in the Post-9/11
Inquisition?
South Korean president Park Geun-hye -- the daughter of
South Korean dictator, military strongman, and U.S. puppet Park
Chung-hee -- stated that the U.S. and its allies need to go after
"cyber and nuclear terrorism" when it was her turn
to address the UN Security Council. She advocated for tighter controls
over the internet as a means of fighting terrorism. Prime Minister
David Cameron also said that websites must be controlled, blocked, and
removed. There was what appeared to be a general call for policing
social media in the chamber for combating
terrorism.
Rehashing the main points and entire sections of his
speech to the UN General Assembly from two days earlier, on September
22, Cameron said that those he described as preachers of hate needed to
be dealt with firmly. He clarified that this included "non-violent"
people who believed that Muslims were being
persecuted and said that the roots of the problems included the
worldviews that the tragic events of 9/11 and the London 7/7 attacks
were staged. Schools and universities would need to be cleared of
groups and individuals that had these views.
David Cameron declared that a new security regime was
being put into place in Britain to seize passports, force restraints of
movement on people evaluated as risk, and even keep citizens from
returning to their own homelands. Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper
also said that Canada was doing the same
thing and revoking citizenships.
Not only are the steps that Prime Minister Cameron and
Prime Minister Harper presented unconstitutional in their own
countries, they will be used by self-declared democracies to hold their
own citizens in undisclosed conditions or indefinite detention and
imprisonment once they have their citizenships removed.
Citizenships will be removed to evade and get around the legally
guaranteed rights of citizens for due justice -- non-citizens are not
treated equally under the law. The revoking of citizenships can also be
used to push dissidents opposing and challenging government policies.
The so-called defenders of "freedom of speech" are also
opening the door for more intrusive censorships, especially when
Cameron advocates for going after individuals that believe that the
U.S. and British governments are involved in the murder of their own
citizens. Moreover, David Cameron advocated for
the removal of the beheading videos being uploaded onto the internet by
the ISIL.
Anti-war protest
outside British Parliament as MPs debate undertaking airstrikes against
ISIS, September 26, 2014.
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Cameron's demands were made purportedly, because of the
violent nature of these videos. For many years, videos of this nature
have been uploaded onto the internet and it has never been questioned
by either the U.S. or Britain or many of their allies? Why now, after
all these years? Could it be because enough
people are asking embarrassing questions about the videos and the
circumstances behind them? This is why a campaign had started earlier
in the U.S. to prevent U.S. citizens from watching the videos. The Times even conceded on August 25,
2014 in an article by Deborah Haynes that the video of James Foley was
staged by writing it "was probably staged, with the actual murder
taking place off-camera, according to forensic analysis."
Believe or think otherwise that the beheading of Foley,
which was seen on the video, was not his actual death, the point is
that there is more to the demands for this type of censorship. Nothing
was demanded when Nicholas Berg was executed in 2004 or after years of
videos being posted of hundreds of Syrians
being beheaded.
What is happening is a new phase of the inquisition or
inquisitorial mentality that emerged after the tragic events of
September 11, 2001 (9/11). No one is allowed to question the legitimacy
of the witch hunts and increasing control over movement and lives that
is being done in the name of fighting terrorism
and security. "Fear and insecurity prevail over common sense," is the
way that Michel Chossudovsky fittingly describes the inquisitorial
process.
While the whole structure of this post-9/11 inquisition
is based on warped narratives and lies, everyone has to pay lip service
to the same lies; everyone is forced to work within the boundaries of
the consensus and boundaries drawn by the inquisition. This is exactly
what happened on September 24, 2014 at the
UN Security Council. The gathered world leaders paid lip service to
fight against terrorism without addressing those really behind it and
supporting the death squads, which is why the meeting was truly a
pageantry of lies and disregard. Even those that are opposed to U.S.
foreign policy were forced to criticize and
challenge Washington within the framework of the consensus, never
directly pointing the finger at it for being the author of the
instability and death squads in Iraq and Syria.
Hypocrisy prevails in the United Nations and inside the
UN Security Council. Only Argentina, China, Russia, and Syria raised
their voices to challenge the false record being created to carry on
the global inquisition. Buenos Aires, Beijing, and Moscow, however, all
had to, more or less, challenge the U.S. within
the framework of the consensus that Washington was navigating and
heavily influencing. While Syria was more open in its criticism,
President Kirchner, Foreign Minister Lavrov, and Foreign Minister Ye
were more subtle and diplomatic.
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