Granted, most weeks are bad weeks for U.S. diplomacy, but this week was particularly rocky because it marked the 68th session of the U.N. General Assembly. On Tuesday, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff pulled no punches in a speech highlighting how the NSA violated international law through its indiscriminate collection of personal information of Brazilian citizens and economic espionage targeting the country’s industries (two days later it was revealed the NSA also planted bugs in two Indian embassies).
Following Rousseff’s address was Obama, who gave a speech which was widely panned for its hypocrisy and falsehoods. Dave Lindorff of This Can’t Be Happening! described it best:
Whether he was declaring that “together we have worked to end a decade of war” even as he was just blocked from unilaterally launching a war against Syria, or saying “we have limited the use of drones,” when his administration has upped their use from 51 strikes in Pakistan under the prior Bush administration to 323 so far under his own administration, as David Swanson has so meticulously documented in his Top 45 Lies in Obama’s Speech at the UN, it was all lies.
But for Americans, perhaps nowhere was his lying so blatant and obscene as when he vowed that “we will not stop asserting principles that are consistent with our ideals, whether that means opposing the use of violence as a means of suppressing dissent…” This, after all, was being said just one week after the second anniversary of the launching of the Occupy Movement, which we now know, thanks to documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice under the Freedom of Information Act, was crushed nationwide by a campaign of violent police assault coordinated at the highest levels of the FBI, Homeland Security Department and other federal police and intelligence agencies.
In contrast, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivered a speech with a more cooperative tone, calling for peaceful dialogue. But he was also blunt in calling out what he sees as the greatest threat to peace, as shown in his closing remarks:
This propagandistic discourse has assumed dangerous proportions through portrayal and inculcation of presumed imaginary threats. One such imaginary threat is the so-called “Iranian threat” -which has been employed as an excuse to justify a long catalogue of crimes and catastrophic practices over the past three decades. The arming of the Saddam Hussein regime with chemical weapons and supporting the Taliban and A1-Qaida are just two examples of such catastrophes. Let me say this in all sincerity before this august world assembly, that based on irrefutable evidence, those who harp on the so-called threat of Iran are either a threat against international peace and security themselves or promote such a threat. Iran poses absolutely no threat to the world or the region. In Fact, in ideals as well as in actual practice, my country has been a harbinger of just peace and comprehensive security.
Read the complete transcript here: http://publicintelligence.net/iran-un-speech-2013/
In a recent Global Research piece by Ryan Mallett-Outtrim, it was reported that on Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro cancelled plans to attend the U.N. General Assembly. Though he did not give too many details for security reasons, he did state:
There were two serious provocations, one more serious than the other, how I understand it…When I got into Vancouver I evaluated the intelligence which we received from several sources…I decided then and there to continue back to Caracas and drop the New York trip to protect a key goal: safeguarding my physical integrity and protecting my life.
Read the full article here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/argentina-brazil-bolivia-venezuela-and-latin-america-at-odds-with-the-us-at-the-united-nations/5351705
In light of suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Maduro may have good reason to be cautious.
Later that day Bolivian President Evo Morales gave what will probably be the most memorable speech of this year’s UN General Assembly. Some of the highlights:
What peace can we speak of when military spending sacrifices the human rights of our peoples? How is it possible, when there are so many unemployed, for your (US) government, for your president, to spend 700 billion dollars on the military? It is not possible for these huge amounts of money to be spent on the military and on espionage when there are so many brothers and sisters in the United States without homes, without jobs, without schooling. I simply cannot understand how they can spend so much money to interfere in other countries while leaving their own unprovided for.
…You do not combat terrorism with more military spending or by training more military forces. As far as I know you fight terrorism with social policies, not with military bases, you fight it with religious tolerance, with more democracy, more equality, more justice and more education.
…Those who decide wars are large arms industries, the financial system and the oil companies. Plutocracy has replaced democracy.
…How can we be safe at a meeting of the United Nations here in New York? Some do not believe in imperialism and capitalism and feel totally unsafe…The headquarters should be in a state that has ratified all UN treaties.
…I would like you to be aware that the United States harbors terrorists and the corrupt. They take refuge here, and the United States does not help in the fight against corruption.
At the close of his address, Morales suggested “we think seriously about constituting a Tribunal of the People with international bodies and the large defenders of human rights to begin a lawsuit against the Obama government.”
You can read more about the speech and listen to the full translated version here:
After the Crash 