Sometimes (usually?) others make points that I would like to make but in a much
more eloquent fashion.  I hope that I am not abusing the forum to forward this
letter, which is relevant to many recent discussions about Kosovo, and was sent
to several Canadian corporate newspapers (Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Vancouver
Sun) as well as to Canadian Prime Minister Chretien and Foreign Affairs
Minister Lloyd Axworthy, among others.

>
>
> Dear Sir:
>
> Veterans Against Nuclear Arms is shocked at the Government of Canada's
> support for the NATO air attacks launched against Serbia on Wednesday,
> March 24, 1999. These attacks were made without any authorization from
> the Security Council of the United Nations Organization.
>
> Article 39 of the U.N. Charter states:
> "The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the
> peace, breach of peace, or act of aggression and shall makerecommendations,
> or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and
> 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security."
>
> The Charter does NOT say that the President of the United States or the
> Prime Minister of Canada "shall determine what measures shall be taken..."
> It is clear that the Security Council was not consulted by Washington, the
> prime mover of these NATO air attacks, because Russia would have vetoed
> them.  The decision was therefore made to launch the attacks without any
> authorization from the Security Council.
>
> NATO, in making these attacks, is like a man who says:  "I do not like what
> my neighbour is doing on his property, but if I go to the police it will
> take far too long for the law to arrest him, charge him, take him to court
> and try him.  The law is too slow and inconvenient for me. Therefore I will
> take the law into my own hands and attack him myself."
>
> Any magistrate in the world recognizes this kind of thinking.  Any
> magistrate will tell you that this kind of thinking threatens society with
> lawlessness, anarchy and gangsterism.  The effects of this kind of
> thinking among nations are no different.
>
> Any historian in the world recognizes this kind of thinking.  Any historian
> will tell you that it was such international lawlessness and anarchy that
> led to the two terrible world wars of this century.
>
> It was precisely to avoid international lawlessness and anarchy and its
> devastating effects that the United Nations was founded in 1945 at the end
> of World War II, the most terrible war in history.
>
> We veterans of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms experienced World War II, and
> many of our members saw front line service and saw the bloodshed and
> misery of this war at first hand. For us veterans and for many others
> therefore, the United Nations is a very precious organization, founded, as
> its Charter states, "... to save succeeding generations from the scourge
> of war...".  The United Nations Organization has literally been paid for
> with blood.
>
> To see the United Nations Organization starved for funds by the U.S.A.,
> the world's richest nation; to see it marginalized and ignored; to see it
> perverted by Washington into an instrument of death and destruction
> through the sanctions on Iraq, a perversion so cruel, so long sustained
> and so blatant that the Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
> himself, Denis Halliday, resigned last September from his 34 year U.N.
> career in protest; to see Washington defy the authority of the U.N.
> Security Council by making bombing attacks on Khartoum, on Afghanistan, on
> Iraq and now, through NATO, on Serbia; to see all this, is an outrage to
> us veterans of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, as it is, we believe, to
> most Canadians.
>
> And further, to see Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada support these
> lawless, aggressive and brutal acts and finally, this week, to order
> Canadian forces to take part in the bombing of Serbia, causes us to ask the
> following questions:
>
> --Does this Canadian government no longer support the rule of
> international law through the United Nations?
>
> --Is this government content to see Washington, or NATO or any other
> country or alliance in the world usurp the authority of the United Nations?
> And finally we ask this question:
>
> --How aggressive, how belligerent and how reckless does the course of the
> foreign policy of Washington have to become before this Prime Minister and
> this government of Canada, will diverge from it, and restore Canada to its
> lawful, proud and widely popular role of a world peacemaker?
>
> Yours truly,
>
>    David Morgan, National President,
>    Veterans Against Nuclear Arms (VANA)
>    240 Holyrood Road, North Vancouver,
>           BC, V7N 2R5  CANADA
>    Tel: 604-985-7147   Fax:604-985-7147
>    e-mail: <[log in to unmask]>