France, Germany and Russia say that US-led attack on Iraq is illegal.

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday March 20, 2003 04:32 by Skeptic

Scott Ritter warns of UN irrelevance

Scott Ritter interviewed on Pacifica Radio on March 19th speculated that if the UN is not to become totally irrelevant then it must do something about this. He suggests an embarrassing situation in which Iraq attempts to invoke Article 51 (the same provision under which the UN Security Council authorised the repulsing of the Iraqi attack on Kuwait).

Ritter points out that the UN is being tricked (see Boutros-Boutros Ghali's speech) into being an underfunded provider of disaster relief to the victims of US aggression. I think it would be very helpful for IMC-Ireland to emphasise this point.

The French, Russian and German Foreign Ministers come out clearly in the AP newsstory above in declaring the attack as _illegal_.

Meanwhile Pacifica carries reports of the US corporate construction of patriotism: Clear Channel Communications (the owner of a majority of radio stations in the USA who banned hundreds of anti-war, anti-government and pro-peace songs) has been astro-turfing peace rallies. They have been able to extend their control of the airwaves largely as a result of the Federal Communications Committee relaxing monopoly rules and license sales rules. The FCC is chaired by Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell.

The US is now officially in Code Orange: one step below Code Red in which what amounts to martial law is declared and the right to assemble is revoked.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/
UN_IRAQ?SITE=MDSAL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT