Western world order clearly not working
If you have a friend, you listen to him. If you have made an enemy, you should listen very carefully to what he says and stop putting words in his mouth. This is the US problem with the Iranian president.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, his last speech in front of the world body as president of Iran. He called for a “new world order”, criticising capitalism and the United States and Europe for “trampling on the rights of others” and contributing to global poverty and humanitarian failures. Ahmadinejad cited environmental atrocities, as in the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Poverty is on the rise and the gap is widening between the rich and the poor,” Ahmadinejad said, adding the “current world order, founded on materialism, is aimed to monopolise power, wealth, science and technology for a limited group”. “Capitalism is bogged down in a self-made quagmire,” he said, calling for a UN restructuring.
Earlier, US President Barack Obama had issued a stern warning to Iran over its nuclear programme, with all of the givens of the Team B approach, and Ahmadinejad scoffed at the notion of an Iranian nuclear build-up. “A nuclear weapon? For what purpose?” He might have asked why Israel would explode a nuclear weapon on its own doorstep.
The speech was not attended by the US and Israeli delegations, in protest. Was this because they did not want to hear a different view of life?
Civilisation started with the Sumerians in modern-day Iraq. With two huge rivers and fertile land, they forged a new society based on agriculture. Life was good. Today farmers do not even own their own land, and mortgage their crops to afford the next crop. Bankers squander people’s life savings and pay themselves huge bonuses in the process. Is that progress after 5,000 years?
The monopolisation of power since the Second World War is quite evident in the wars that Ahmadinejad cited.
Erin Pelton, spokeswoman for the US Mission to the UN, complained that Ahmadinejad had not addressed the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people. Perhaps he did. Perhaps they would like to get on with life without the daily expectation of attack from Israel and the US.
In Iran, the West monopolised power to control the oil and thus the country’s finances for years. Control of world oil is constantly on the US shopping list. The control of nuclear energy features highly too. When the oil runs out, shop with Uncle Sam.
Richard Bowler
Bangkok
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