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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56544.htm

Rules-Based Order’ Is Cover for Destructive Western Hegemonic Ambitions

The future of world peace and security depends on the vast majority of nations succeeding in upholding the UN against Western malign efforts. 

Since Joe Biden became U.S. president, the new administration in Washington has made repeated references to “rules-based order” in international relations, accusing Russia and China of undermining this putative order.

This is as audacious as a poacher appointing himself to be the gamekeeper. For there is no power as rogue and reckless as the United States and its Western minions when it comes to eviscerating international law. The litany of illegal wars, destroyed nations, and inhumane economic sanctions is testimony to that.

However, what is going on here is a daring cosmetic facelift for the same old ugly conduct. The Biden administration’s lofty rhetoric is meant to distinguish the new administration from the previous Trump White House and its “America First” mantra. President Biden and his aides are trying to project a seeming return to multilateralism as opposed to Trump’s in-your-face nationalism. And so we hear a lot about the U.S. vowing to uphold the rules-based order.

The difference is merely rhetorical. The consistent reality is that the United States and its Western allies are seeking to pursue a unilateral approach to international relations. The Biden administration is just a little more adept compared with Team Trump at public relations and media spin to cover this reality of American hegemonic ambitions.

Lest we forget, hegemonic ambitions are anathema to a democratic world order based on equality among nations and universal respect for international law.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov nailed the charade this week in public comments following a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Moscow. In remarks to media, Lavrov said: “We noted that Russia sees some Western countries’ attempts to promote unilateral approaches in circumvention of the established collective mechanisms for developing international law-based solutions as one of today’s key challenges. We consider developing certain rules behind the back of the greater part of the international community and then imposing them on others as universal norms unacceptable and dangerous practice.”

Lavrov went on with more biting comments: “We are witnessing situational coalitions and partnerships being created outside the UN, which arrogate to themselves the right to speak and act on behalf of everyone else”.

This was a veiled reference to the United States trying to deploy the G7, NATO, the Quad, Five Eyes, and so on, as hostile geopolitical instruments to hamper Russia and China.

What is happening at an accelerated rate under the Biden administration is highly corrosive to international law and threatening global security. The United Nations and the global architecture of international relations established after the Second World War are being substituted by Western ad hoc definition of rules.

The so-called “rules-based order” is in reality rules defined by the U.S. and its allies which make others conform to their desired order.

As Lavrov points out, this is tantamount to usurping the United Nations, the UN Charter and the already existing body of international law by a wholly new Western-defined regimen which is then imposed on others. Such an outcome would be a complete negation of the postwar order that has existed. Far from “order”, it is a dive into disorder and confrontation, the like of which preceded the UN in the 1930s leading to world war.

Russia, China and other nations are well aware of the deception being perpetrated by the United States and its European and other Western allies.

Last week in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Lavrov elucidated further the bankrupt rationale of the Western powers. It is worth quoting him at length. He said: “Realizing that it is impossible to impose their unilateral or bloc priorities on other states within the framework of the UN, the leading Western countries have tried to reverse the process of forming a polycentric world and slow down the course of history…

“Toward this end, the concept of the rules-based order is advanced as a substitute for international law. It should be noted that international law already is a body of rules, but rules agreed at universal platforms and reflecting consensus or broad agreement. The West’s goal is to oppose the collective efforts of all members of the world community with other rules developed in closed, non-inclusive formats, and then imposed on everyone else. We only see harm in such actions that bypass the UN and seek to usurp the only decision-making process that can claim global relevance.”

The supreme irony is that virtue-signaling Western powers are accusing Russia and China of undermining international “order” when they are the ones who are wielding an axe at the only truly universal system of multilateralism – the United Nations and the UN Charter. The Charter, established after the war in 1945, mandates all nations to respect equal sovereignty, to repudiate illegal military force without the authorization of the UN Security Council, and to desist from interfering in the internal affairs of other states.

The unilateral use of military force and imposition of economic sanctions against other nations has become a routine, egregious violation of the UN Charter by the United States and its Western allies.

If the United States and others really did believe in upholding rules and order then they would abide by the only universally recognized rules of international law that already exist as enshrined in the UN Charter.

It is because Russia and China are strong enough to insist on the UN Charter and international law that the rogue states of the U.S. and its Western accomplices are compelled to make up other rules in order to satisfy their dictatorial hegemonic desires. In attempting such a de facto coup against the United Nations, the Western powers are endangering global security. They are trying to turn the clock back to a law of the jungle era akin to the 1930s.

The future of world peace and security depends on Russia, China and the vast majority of nations succeeding in upholding the UN against Western malign efforts. How paradoxical is arrogant Western propaganda.

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https://stephenlendman.org/2021/05/plea-to-halt-israeli-aggression-goes-viral/

Plea to Halt Israeli Aggression Goes Viral

Wednesday is day-10 of Israeli aggression against two million besieged Gazans — along with perpetually terrorizing millions of other Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 

In Gaza, there’s no end of aggression so far because apartheid Israel has lots more mass slaughter and destruction in mind as it continues raping and destroying the battered Strip.

Its people are trapped in the world’s largest open-air prison, victims of Israeli viciousness.

On Tuesday, Norwegian Refugee Council’s Karl Schembri said Israeli occupation of historic Palestine and “systematic injustice” against its people are “root causes” of ongoing violence — that won’t end as long as the status quo is unchanged.

Musician/composer/activist Roger Waters condemned Israeli “apartheid.”

He and likeminded activists support Palestinian “resistance…and the global struggle against imperialism and settler colonialism.”

Political analyst Marwan Bishara accused Netanyahu of using days of terror-bombing and shelling of Gaza “to stay in power,” adding:

“We all know, if he loses the premiership, he is more likely to end up in prison because he’s on trial over serious charges for” fraud, bribery and breach of trust.

“He is cynically using the tragedy of Gaza, continuing the war and rallying support among right-wingers in Israel as well as the US (and West) to stay in power.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif tweeted:

“As US-made munitions rain down on innocent Palestinians, (Biden regime) gives another $735M in ‘precision’ missiles to Israel to kill more children with more precision.

Then US blocks the mildest possible #UNSC statement.

The world is watching as Israel & its enabler(s) show their ugly faces.”

Ten-year-old Gazan Nadine Abdel-Taif captured the heart of millions.

Her video plea for violence in the Strip to end went viral — viewed over 11 million times.

Standing beside the rubble aftermath of her neighbor’s destroyed home — killing 8 children and 2 women — she wept emotionally saying the following:

“I’m always sick. I can’t do anything. I’m only 10.”

“What am I supposed to do? Fix it? I’m only 10. I can’t even deal with this anymore.”

“I just want to be a doctor or anything to help my people. But I can’t. I’m just a kid.”

“I don’t even know what to do. I get scared, but not really that much. I’d do anything for my people. But I don’t know what to do.”

“All of this (rubble) when I see it, I literally cry every day.” 

“I said to myself, why do we deserve this? What did we do for this?” 

“My family said they just hate us. They just don’t like us because we are Muslims. It’s not fair.”

Separately, she said “(e)very day (and) night…we hear the missiles. In the mornings, we hear the cries and screams of people.”

“No one can sleep at night. I try to sleep, but I can’t, because of the missiles and the cries of children. I just put a pillow on top of my head.”

She can’t bear going outside because “the first thing you’re going to see is people lying in the streets” wounded or dead, their bodies dismembered.

“I just want to stop my life from being sad. I just want to be a regular person” like others where there’s peace, not war.

Nadine accomplished far more than she could have imagined.

She’s the image of long-suffering  victims of Israeli apartheid contempt for millions of illegally occupied Palestinians and besieged Gazans.

As bodies of dead and wounded are removed from rubble by the hour, the Palestinian toll in Gaza and throughout the Territories likely exceeds 250 on Wednesday, thousands of others in harm’s way injured, many seriously.

According to Haaretz on Wednesday, “senior Israeli officials want to end the Gaza war, but Netanyahu wants a clear victory.”

On Tuesday, OCHA said Israeli terror-bombing and shelling of Gaza destroyed or badly damaged around 450 (mostly residential) buildings — displacing tens of thousands of surviving Palestinian family members, now homeless.

Israel bears full responsibility for crimes of war, against humanity, and slow-motion genocide against millions of long-suffering Palestinians its ruling regimes want eliminated.

Their state terror continues endlessly because of unwavering support from the US-dominated West — financing and cheerleading Israeli aggression, rejecting peace, stability and compliance with the rule of law, notions their ruling regimes abhor.