Here, I must beg to differ with Shakespeare. The word is not a stage, as The Bard put it. Rather, it is a market where everything is for sale. Consider the following. Back in October, the UN published its Annual Report of the Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict. This blacklists the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing of so-called rebels in Yemen as being responsible for “the killing and maiming of children with 683 child casualties”; while pointing to attacks that have ended up targeting schools and hospitals.
Naturally, the Saudis denied the findings as being nothing more than “inaccurate and misleading information”. But António Guterres, the new UN chief, has stood firm. Yet it was a different story last year. Back then, his predecessor, Ban-Ki moon, in his own words, was coerced into removing the Kingdom from the “list of shame”. Riyadh, you see, had threatened to cut funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This was no double bluff. Not when one considers that the Kingdom is the fourth biggest donor to the agency, contributing some $100 million last year. Moon slammed the move as “unacceptable”.
Fast-forward to today, however, and this year’s report offers another compromise. Meaning that it now distinguishes between parties that have not “put in place measures during the reporting period aimed at improving the protection of children” and those that have. Frankly, it is mind boggling to think that this is what it has come down to; that the killing of a few less children is to be applauded. As if the actual lives lost matter not.
All of which brings us to the hard to swallow truth of things. Namely, that there is hierarchy in life even when it comes to innocent children. After all, take the case of the UAE. The latter is both a member of the coalition targeting Yemen as well as a donor to the
UNRWA. And not only that; it had also arranged an air ambulance to transport Malala from Pakistan to Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham. Yet what of the hundreds of innocent children — no different to Malala — who have been killed by the Gulf Cooperation Council’s military aggression in one of the poorest countries in the world? Unfortunately, we live in a world where even children are seen as being worthy or unworthy of saving. And the whole world knows into which category Yemen’s children fall.
This year’s UN report on Children in Armed Conflict has blacklisted Riyadh over military aggression in Yemen. But this comes with a compromise. Namely, the distinction between parties that have not acted to protect children and those that have. Yet how mind boggling to think that the killing of a few less children is to be applauded
The more money and guns a nation has the more power and influence does it wield in the international realm. The International Criminal Court (ICC) established by the Rome Statute is tasked with prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The ICC can prosecute citizens of any state regardless of whether the latter has agreed to be bound by the Court’s authority — as long as crimes have been committed on the soil of a member state. However, in practical terms it can prosecute neither American citizens nor those of US ally nations. This is because after President Clinton inked the Statute — in came President Bush who promptly signed into law the American Service members Protection Act (ASPA). This empowers whoever sits in the White House to deploy troops to The Hague to effectively ‘rescue’ any of the country’s nationals who may be threatened with prosecution. This get-out-of-jail card has been dubbed ‘The Hague Invasion Clause’.
The ICC, in reality, can begin proceedings upon UN Security Council recommendations. Yet in the case of Saudi Arabia, the UNSC is unlikely to act given the very real likelihood of the US vetoing such moves; or else invoking the APSA. And then there is the not so small matter of Riyadh possibly retaliating by stalling its contributions to the world body. Thus the UN and its various agencies — that are mandated by the international community to strive towards securing a just and peaceful world for all — are rendered impotent at almost every turn by the richest and most powerful states.
It may be no exaggeration to say that money buys the American presidency. Meaning that it is always the candidate with the most money at his disposal — provided by the Super PACs (political action committees), which, in turn, are funded by large corporations — who has the greatest chance of settling into the White House. This trend is repeated when it comes to both Senate and House elections, too.
And it is more or less the same sordid story when it comes to the murky world of private mercenaries. It matters not how many times Blackwater has reinvented itself — Erik Prince remains the world’s premier war baron; capitalising on the modern day gold rush in the wake of the US deciding to prioritise minimising combat casualties and reducing active deployments to war zones. The business of private mercenaries is nothing new. But in today’s America it serves the need of successive administrations for secrecy; thereby circumventing transparent public debate when it comes to military engagement in far flung war zones. At best, this represents a symbiotic relationship between a presidency that thrives on ‘confidentiality’ — which, of course, is anathema to what democracy stands for, but well, never mind — and those who profit from this need.
Saudi Arabia has long been exporting Wahhabism throughout the Muslim world. We are yet to recover from this veritable Frankenstein’s monster that was vivified by the West in its quest to defeat communism. Today, there has been much noise surrounding the anti-corruption jihad currently waged by the 32-year-old Crown Prince. However, much of this is white noise. Meaning that there is more than likely a hidden agenda at play here. For if he were truly concerned about clamping down on graft — he would surely take action against those who sought to blackmail an already dysfunctional world body into submission and all to prevent any kind of mainstream discussion on war crimes committed in the Kingdom’s name in Yemen.
Thus there is only one moral of this story and it is that money might not be able to buy you love but it can buy just about everything else: be it justice or the American presidency or even reputation. In a different world, what Riyadh did would be called bribery; nothing more and nothing less. Unfortunately, we live in a world where corruption is the norm. Only the means vary. But one thing remains the same. Those who are flush with both cash and arms exploit those who are not.
The writer is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Houston, and he teaches political science at the Lone Star College in Houston
Published in Daily Times, December 6th 2017.