The Duplicitous Agenda Endorsed by the United Nations and NATO by Ramona Wadi!
(2019-10-04 at 14:46:19 )

The Duplicitous Agenda Endorsed by the United Nations and NATO by Ramona Wadi

To the undiscerning, the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) perform different roles in the international arena.

Yet both organisations have a common aim - the promotion of foreign intervention. While the United Nations promotes its humanitarian facade, NATO provides the militarisation of the United Nations purported human rights agenda.

NATOs participation at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September provided an overview of the current collaboration the organisation has with the United Nations. Jens Stoltelberg, NATOs Secretary-General, mentioned the organisations collaboration in "working closely to support Afghanistan and Iraq".

Since the 1990s, the United Nations and NATO cooperation was based on a framework which included decision-making and strategy on "crisis management and in the fight against terrorism." In 2001, United States President George W Bush launched his "War on Terror" which eventually expanded to leave the Middle East and North Africa in perpetual turmoil, as the coined euphemism morphed into the so-called Arab Spring.

While the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 were led by the United States, it is worth remembering that the absence of the organisation at that time is not tantamount to the exclusion of warfare from NATO member states. Notably, the United States invasion of Afghanistan invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that an attack on a NATO member state constitutes an attack on all member states.

"For NATO-United Nations cooperation and dialogue to remain meaningful, it must continue to evolve." The statement on NATOs website is a bureaucratic approach which detaches itself from the human rights violations created and maintained by both parties, which form the premise of such collaboration.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001), upon which NATO based its collaboration with the United Nations, reaffirms, "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence as recognised by the Charter of the United Nations."

The resolution provides impunity for member-states and other collaborators with the United Nations, including NATO, to define what constitutes terrorism while eliminating foreign intervention as a terror act, despite the ramifications which last long after the aggression has been terminated or minimised.

The United Nations-NATO duplicity is exposed in Mr. Stoltenbergs speech when he states, "NATO has also contributed to developing United Nations disposal standards to counter improvised explosive devices, which remain one of the greatest threats to peacekeepers."

Why are the United Nations and NATO selecting rudimentary forms of warfare over precision bombing which has killed thousands of civilians in the name of fighting terror or bringing democracy?

In 2011, the UNSCs arms embargo was supposed to prevent the proliferation of weapons to the rebels in Libya - a contradiction given the UNSCs authorisation for NATO to bomb Libya.

France, however, defied the resolution by publicly declaring its proliferation of weapons to rebels in Libya, on the pretext of their necessity to protect Libyan civilians.

NATO denied its involvement as an organisation in providing arms to the rebels, despite the fact that action was taken by a NATO member.

With the United Nations endorsing foreign intervention and NATO implementing the atrocities, the United Nations can fall back on its alleged peace-building and humanitarian roles, of which there is never a decline due to the irreparable damage both organisations have wreaked upon exploited, colonised and ravaged countries.

The cooperation lauded by NATO does not rest on a division of roles but rather on blurring the differentiation between war and humanitarianism, in order to generate both as a duplicitous agenda.

NATO maintains that the UNSC holds "primary responsibility" for maintaining international peace and security. What the statement evades is the individual interest of each member, as well as their collective framework as NATO members. To satisfy the UNSC, individual interests and NATO membership, a common denominator is imperative. For the perpetrators of foreign intervention, war constitutes the binding legacy.

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