The Left and Right Hands - IMF and World Bank

            The International Monetary Fund’s main purpose is to set international currency rates which allow the movement of capital across nation-state government borders.  The International Monetary Fund also establishes loans, payable with the strongest world currencies and repaid with the lower valued national currencies of the borrowing nation-state, issued to economically overextended nation-states usually struggling from the ills of post-colonialism.  The World Bank’s main mission is to reconstruct post-colonial and war ravaged nation-state economies while claiming that these efforts are humanitarian in nature.  The World Bank Group opens up recipient nation-states to foreign capital and international capital investment (along with the exploitation of natural resources) into these technologically under-developed and poverty stricken nation-states.  The institutions of the IMF and the World Bank are like right and left hands when it comes to international capitalism and private sector investments and exploitation of lesser developed nation-state natural resources.

            Using the IMF’s Poverty Reduction Strategy in Bangladesh as an example of that organization’s true capitalistic private sector motives, it is important to note that Bangladesh is rich in crude oil, natural gas, minerals, fertile soils and abundant water supplies for agriculture.  Loans from the IMF, and the World Bank, granted to poverty stricken, technologically under-developed nation-states also come with strict conditions and those conditions open the infrastructure of the nation-state to foreign private sector exploitation on domestic natural resources, and Bangladesh is a perfect example because “just under one third of all of Bangladesh’s conditions within its second Development Support Credit granted for 2005 were privatization-related (18 out of 53)”.  This was the case in 2005 and nothing has changed in 2012 as the IMF’s joint staff has reported “that private enterprise should form the basis for sustainable growth and employment in Bangladesh.”

            The World Bank’s private capitalist exploitative goals are no different than the IMF, only more guised in humanitarian claims.  World Bank efforts at developing the Marsh Lands in Rwanda open up private investment and privatized industrial capitalist exploitation of Rwanda’s natural resources in agriculture, such as sugar cane, and is evident by the increase in Sugar cane production and exports since World Bank assistance flooded that nation-state with loan conditions and private investment capital.  The World Bank’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy in Rwanda, launched in 2002, continues to operate in a manner of capitalist infiltration that “particularly supports the development of policies that facilitate increased private sector investment and involvement” and can be seen in the following strategy goals: “During the PRSF8-10 priority areas of support will be policy measures aimed at: (i) supporting the facilitation of trade and investments; (ii) increasing access to electricity and improved infrastructure services; (iii) raising private sector participation in the agricultural sector”

            The shrinking of the international economic system through globalization, led by the IMF and World Bank, is not a new stage of capitalist evolution, but a new phase of evolution in colonial exploitation as private international entities now conduct the capitalist exploitation of lesser developed nation-states behind the bright humanitarian flags waved by economic IGOs, instead of foreign nation-state governments as was the case during colonialism.  The old burdening expenses and political responsibilities of colonialism on nation-state governments have been brilliantly replaced by international private sector investments in order to exploit and rape natural resources in technologically under-developed nation-states in the name of capitalism and globalization. 

 

Bibliography

All Africa.  Press Release.  Rwanda: World Bank to Finance Private Sector Growth Policies in Country.  November 29, 2012.  (Accessed on December 9, 2012 from http://allafrica.com/stories/201112020627.html)

Index Mundi.  Bangladesh Crude Oil Production and Consumption by Year.  Accessed on December 9, 2012 from  http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=bd)

Index Mundi.  Rwanda Centrifugal Sugar Can Sugar Production by Year.  (Accessed on December 9, 2012 from http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=rw&commodity=centrifugal-sugar&graph=cane-sugar-production)

World Bank and IMF Conditionality: A Development Injustice.  European Network on Debt and Development, June 2006.  (Accessed on December 9, 2012 from http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedfiles/whats_new/reports/eurodad_world_bank_and_imf_conditionality_report.pdf)

International Monetary Fund.  IMF Country Report No. 12.294.  Bangladesh: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper––Joint Staff Advisory Note, October 2012.  (Accessed on December 9, 2012 from http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2012/cr12294.pdf)

 

World Bank and Rwanda

The World Bank Group consists of the International Development Agency, the International Finance Corporation, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Association. The originals goal of the World Bank was to rebuild, with interest, European nation-states after the destruction caused by World War II, but “this changed after the following the decolonization of countries formerly controlled by European states” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 211). The main emphasis of the World Bank today is to provide loans to natural resource laden, technologically undeveloped nation-states.

The World Bank’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy in Rwanda over the past five years, since the bloody civil war there ended in 1994, boasts of many accomplishments through a three phase adaptable loan: 1) Rural Sector Support project to increase production in the marshlands, 2) Land Husbandry, Water harvesting and Hillside Harvesting Project, 3) Annual Development Policy Operation. The positive results boasted by the World Bank range from the claim that the Rwanda poverty rate has dropped from 77.8% to 44.9% since 1995 and a growing Gross Domestic Product.

I understand that nothing is free in this world, especially when dealing with capitalism and the global private sector, so my first question was what natural resources were being exploited and profited from while the World Bank Group was improving the economy and working opportunities of the people of Rwanda. The first clue that I found was contained in a letter from Jessica Evans of the non-profit organization called Human Rights Watch addressed to Makhtar Diop, the World Bank Vice President for Africa.

“The World Bank is one of the most significant donors in Rwanda, with a lending portfolio of almost US$300 million in active projects as of March 2012, more than US$ 100 million of which is provided as general budget support annually. In addition, the World Bank is providing approximately US$ 88 million in Trust Funds to Rwanda. The World Bank is focusing on the key sectors of agriculture, energy, transport, skills development, demobilization and reintegration and private sector development.”

The next excerpt is from a report by the International Land Coalition entitled the Socio-economic impact of commercial exploitation of Rwandan marshes: A case study of sugar cane production in rural Kigali.

“Rwandan law provides strong incentives for investors to engage in commercial agriculture in the country’s marshlands. This should be seen in the context of a wider policy intended to transform and invigorate the agro-economy. By leasing these lands out to commercial enterprises, the Government wants to stimulate the use of more intensive forms of agriculture that can supply national or international markets.”

One of the answers concerning natural resources that I sought was Sugar Cane, but I assume there are also other areas.  The most economically powerful private sector investors will seek to exploit and profit from land and natural resources at every opportunity available. It has been that way for centuries. On the other side of the spectrum, Rwanda is one of the most densely populated nations in the world and was virtually destroyed after colonialism and the bloody civil war. It is a nation that truly needed reconstruction, and still needs reconstruction, if there was ever a case. In the case of Rwanda, the World Bank achieves its mission statement of improving poverty rates, enhancing economic and commercial investments (creating jobs), and assistance in strengthening a weak national economy while opening extremely profitable capitalistic markets for exploitation (through the import of technology for exploitation).

Human Rights Watch. Evans, Jessica. Letter for World Bank Vice President for Africa on Rwanda. September 5, 2012, (Accessed on December 6, 2012 from http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/05/letter-world-bank-vice-president-africa-rwanda)

Kruck, Rittberger, & Zangl, International Organization, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Lankhorst, M. &Veldman, M., Socio-economic impact of commercial exploitation of Rwandan marshes: A case study of sugar cane production in rural Kigali, International Land Coalition, 2011 (Accessed on December 6, 2012 from http://www.landcoalition.org/sites/default/files/publication/908/RCN_Rwanda_web_11.03.11.pdf)

World Bank. Rwanda. 2012. (Accessed December 6, 2012 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23276917~menuPK:64256345~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html)

(RESPONSE)

I am shocked you chose not to cover the plight of the Gazan people at the hands of Israel (sarcasm).  Has the World Banks influx of money to Rwanda proved effective?  I did find it interesting that the Rwandan government was so open to outside international investors operating in Rwanda, colonial governments do not have the best track record acting in Africa, especially in Rwanda.  I had no idea that Rwanda was such a player in the sugar case industry, is the sustainability of that crop, what makes it such a positive investment for outside companies?

(REBUTTAL)

When I started looking into Rwanda, which I knew was a nation-state economy that was being rebuilt from the ground up after years of colonial exploitation and the bloody civil war there, I decided to research there instead.  I think capitalist economic exploitation can be found in almost all World Bank missions, but even holding that view, I must admit that in some cases it is a two-way street, especially in densely populated, poverty-stricken places like Rwanda.  While international corporations profit of the exploitation of lesser technological nation-states and their rich natural resources, that exploitation does build a fragile economy and creates jobs in economically devastated states.  In the case of Rwanda, the World Bank talks of technologically modernizing irrigation of the marshlands through private investment (which has elevated cane production for international private profits), as the marshlands are rich for sugar cane production.  I was researching on the largest sugar producing company, Madhvani, in Rwanda since 1995 and how the government has conducted land reforms (which has opened the land for international private investments). 

This link shows the increase of sugar cane production since 1995.  It is obvious in the growth that private investment has had a large impact.

http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=rw&commodity=centrifugal-sugar&graph=cane-sugar-production

World Bank, Gaza and Israeli Occupation

Gaza has been occupied by Israeli military forces and blockaded, under an economic stranglehold, from the rest of the world for decades.  The coast to the Mediterranean is blockaded by Israeli Naval forces to the point where humanitarian assistance from other nation-states can not even come through without Israeli interference.  The illegal Israeli apartheid wall and numerous Israeli military checkpoints have blocked Gaza off from all trade routes and Israel has continued to confiscate land and erect illegal settlements, despite international condemnation.  How can an economy exist if it can not freely export or import?  It is almost like colonialism, only more barbaric. 

There is heavy capitalist exploitation, guised in humanitarian efforts, at work in this area.  How much does it help the Palestinian people though?  Lets look at how the World Bank and private investments play into this situation.  Here is an excerpt from an 2005 article written by the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign entitled "'Developing' Israeli Apartheid: The World Bank, International Aid and The Ghettoization of Palestine"

"While Palestinians are imprisoned, facing continued denial of their rights and aspirations, the Bank portrays a golden economic opportunity of a cheap, controlled labour force. The Bank’s blueprint for a new export-based economy, subservient to the strategic needs of Israel and global capital - with Israeli/foreign investment creaming off the profits - merges with the Occupation’s destruction of Palestinian farmland and local markets. Indeed, the Bank's reports hardly refer to agriculture at all, traditionally the core sector of the Palestinian economy. Instead, imposing Israeli-run industrial zones, military checkpoints and Jewish-only road systems onto the West Bank are policies that reflect the Bank’s overall strategy for a Do-It-Yourself Apartheid Guide for the 21st century.

As with any other “Third World” population that the World Bank subjugates into the global economy, the role assigned to the Palestinian people is simple: to cheaply produce goods for export to wealthier countries, strengthening economic dependency on global capitalist systems. The Bank insists that Palestinians must not only be willing to accept brutal military occupation, dispossession and expulsion, but must also sustain their oppressor's economy through primary goods and industrial output. Furthermore, walled-in Palestinians are marked as a captive audience, forced into a system of dependency upon the Occupation for even the most basic needs. Israel has drained Palestine of her natural resources, stealing around 80% of Palestinian natural water outputs on an annual basis. Now, in Gaza, the Bank states Palestinians who have been robbed of their water for decades should enter into trade agreements with Israel whereby they can buy back – “at Israeli commercial rates” – the same water stolen by the Occupation.

The convergence between Zionist actions and World Bank economics is clear, with international investment transforming the destruction and dispossession caused by the Israeli colonization policies into the Bank’s new showcase project: a series of massive Israeli industrial estates built on annexed Palestinian land. The so-called Tulkarem Peace Park, for example, is to be built on farmland stolen from the village of Irtah; land that sustained 50 families for generations and formed an integral part of community and family life. Now their only source of employment will be as an exploited worker on an Israeli industrial estate surrounded by walls, checkpoints and prison gates.

The World Bank ignores the inherent illegality of such estates and instead celebrates that they will employ cheap labour "with a minimum of red tape," i.e. the absence of trade unions, health regulations and other worker's rights. Israel’s most toxic and environmentally destructive forms of industry will be transferred to the West Bank, where Palestinians work for around a quarter of the wages in Israel (though even this is still too high in the opinion of the Bank's reports). They may try and dress these sweatshops up as liberation and independence, but they represent nothing more than a devastating system of racial capital not seen since the days of Apartheid South Africa."

The World Bank transferred 14.3 million to the Palestinian Authority in September 2012 with much of that financing coming from Britain and Australia.  The following link is a list of World Bank operations in Gaza and the West Bank.  When looking at the areas of operation, I attempt to identify job creation, possible importing and exporting (through Israeli occupation), and motives for foreign capitalist investment and profiteering.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWESTBANKGAZA/Resources/WestBankandGazasnapshotBetaJuly3-2012.pdf


Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, 'Developing' Israeli Apartheid: The World Bank, International Aid and The Ghettoization of Palestine, May 18, 2005, (Accessed on December 8, 2012 from
http://www.stopthewall.org/developing-israeli-apartheid-world-bank-international-aid-and-ghettoization-palestine)

World Bank

The World Bank Group consists of the International Development Agency, the International Finance Corporation, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Association.  The originals goal of the World Bank was to rebuild, with interest, European nation-states after the destruction of the 20^th century wars, but “this changed after the following the decolonization of countries formerly controlled by European states” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 211).  The main emphasis of the World Bank today is to provide loans to natural resource laden, technologically undeveloped nation-states.

The World Bank’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy in Rwanda over the past five years, since the bloody civil war there ended in 1994, boasts of many accomplishments through a three phase adaptable loan: 1) Rural Sector Support project to increase production in the marshlands, 2) Land Husbandry, Water harvesting and Hillside Harvesting Project, 3) Annual Development Policy Operation.  The positive results boasted by the World Bank range from the claim that the Rwanda poverty rate has dropped from 77.8% to 44.9% since 1995 and a growing Gross Domestic Product.

I understand that nothing is free in this world, especially when dealing with capitalism and the global private sector, so my first question was what natural resources were being exploited and profited from while the World Bank Group was improving the economy and working opportunities of the people of Rwanda.  The first clue that I found was contained in a letter from Jessica Evans of the non-profit organization called Human Rights Watch addressed to Makhtar Diop, the World Bank Vice President for Africa.

“The World Bank is one of the most significant donors in Rwanda, with a lending portfolio of almost US$300 million in active projects as of March 2012, more than US$ 100 million of which is provided as general budget support annually. In addition, the World Bank is providing approximately US$ 88 million in Trust Funds to Rwanda. The World Bank is focusing on the key sectors of agriculture, energy, transport, skills development, demobilization and reintegration and private sector development.”

The next excerpt is from a report by the International Land Coalition entitled the Socio-economic impact of commercial exploitation of Rwandan marshes: A case study of sugar cane production in rural Kigali.

“Rwandan law provides strong incentives for investors to engage in commercial agriculture in the country’s marshlands. This should be seen in the context of a wider policy intended to transform and invigorate the agro-economy. By leasing these lands out to commercial enterprises, the Government wants to stimulate the use of more intensive forms of agriculture that can supply national or international markets.”

The one of the answers I sought was Sugar Cane, but I assume there are also other areas.

In conclusion, the most economically powerful private sector investors will seek to exploit and profit from land and natural resources at every opportunity available.  It has been that way for centuries.  On the other side of the spectrum, Rwanda is one of the most densely populated nations in the world and was virtually destroyed after colonialism and the bloody civil war.  It is a nation that truly needed reconstruction, and still needs reconstruction, if there was ever a case.  In the case of Rwanda, the World Bank achieves its mission statement of improving poverty rates, enhancing economic and commercial investments (creating jobs), and assistance in strengthening a weak national economy while opening extremely profitable capitalistic markets for exploitation (through the import of technology).

Human Rights Watch.  Evans, Jessica.  Letter for World Bank Vice President for Africa on Rwanda.  September 5, 2012, (Accessed on December 6, 2012 from http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/05/letter-world-bank-vice-president-africa-rwanda)

Kruck, Rittberger, & Zangl, International Organization, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Lankhorst, M. &Veldman, M., Socio-economic impact of commercial exploitation of Rwandan marshes: A case study of sugar cane production in rural Kigali, International Land Coalition, 2011 (Accessed on December 6, 2012 from http://www.landcoalition.org/sites/default/files/publication/908/RCN_Rwanda_web_11.03.11.pdf)

World Bank.  Rwanda.  2012.  (Accessed December 6, 2012 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23276917~menuPK:64256345~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html)

 

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund organization consists of 188 nation-state members and is aimed at international trade cooperation, the elimination of global trade barriers and enhancing international monetary cooperation. The IMF also claims to promote employment and the reduction of world poverty, but I believe these claims can be argued. The IMF is based on “fixed, but adaptable, exchange rates” for world currencies (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 193). The developed gold/dollar standard is the basis for “supply and demand on international financial markets which determine the value of a currency” and has proven that “the free exchange of one currency for another” is required for “smooth payment transactions necessary for international trade” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 193).

In order to keep the healthy flow of world currencies and the profitable interest rates that go with exchanging them, moving across nation-state borders, the IMF offers loans to boost and reform nation-state banking systems and national economies. I will not claim to be an economist, but I feel that there are mass private profit incentives behind the main driving force of global currency promotion here.

The following excerpts from the textbook should be noted:

“After agreeing to such a loan the IMF disburses it itself by making available, to the state concerned, funds in widely accepted foreign currencies obtained from other states either as quotas or as a loan. The borrowing state ‘purchases’ these foreign currencies with its own currency.” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 198).

“When repaying, the state in question will repurchase its own currency with the foreign currency.” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 198).

“Loans are are provided under an arrangement which stipulates in advance the performance criteria for success or failure of the recipient’s agreed reform plan.” (Kruck, Rittberger & Zangl, 193).

The nation-state of Bangladesh, under an Extended Credit Facility arrangement with the IMF, received their first review in 2012. The IMF found that Bangladesh’s economy performed well and their Gross Domestic Product is predicted to grow by 6 percent in fiscal year 2013. The IMF also continued to maintain pressure on Bangladesh to control its budget deficit, by not exceeding 4.5% of the FY13 GDP, and kept a focus on regulated national banking under amendments to the 1991 Banking Companies Act.

Looking at the IMF loans to Bangladesh and the banking reform being conducted by the centralized bank there, it seems that these reforms are in accordance to IMF goals of stabilizing national currency values internationally to support the global economy. It would seem that the most industrialized nation-states hold the most valuable currencies, but still need to establish the currencies of technologically underdeveloped nation-states within the international market in order for obtaining the natural resources (of the underdeveloped nation-states) into ‘play’, incorporated into global trade, and therefore available for international corporate manufacturing and profit.

Byron, Rejaul. Reform Takes Hold in Banks. The Daily Star. January 4, 2010, (accessed on December 6, 2012 from http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=120385)

International Monetary Fund webpage, Statement at the Conclusion of the IMF Mission on the First Review Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement with Bangladesh, December 6, 2012 (accessed on Dec 6, 2012 from http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2012/pr12472.htm)

Kruck, Rittberger, & Zangl, International Organization, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Globalization

If you really think about it, one of the earliest examples of globalization in its infancy was the Holy Roman Empire.  The Roman Empire, a collection of nation-state kingdoms, was heavily reliant on agricultural feudalism for flattening, furrowing and fertilization.  I tend to find portions of multiple schools of thought concerning the history of globalization.  The globalization process developed over three historical stages.  The first was the era of mercantilism (more exports than imports, same basic concept of a modern Gross Domestic Product) and colonialism, which included the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the colonies of North and South America.  The second phase was the era of British hegemony, Pax Britannica, which saw the birth of multinational (or international) corporations and continued through the two major European wars of the 20^th century where a collective hegemony of nation-states was born under the name of the United Nations.  The third stage, prematurely named the Pax Americana phase, bore witness to the dominant globalization of international corporations and banking systems backed by the strict international regulations, depending on what nation-states are being scrutinized, and the collective military might of IGOs such as the United Nations (the collective hegemony) and NATO.

The most important factor of this three-phase globalization process is technology.  In the first phase, the power of wind and water (windmills) enhanced the exploitation of natural resources and agricultural production to the point of ending feudalism.  In the second phase, the Industrial Revolution originated in England and began to reach the shores of the young United States at the end of the 18^th century.  In a few short decades as industrial technologies increased, the technologically advanced North was in a Civil War against the agricultural South and slavery in the United States was soon abolished (as an outdated mode of capitalist production due to new technology).  The third phase, which we are currently in, has been informally dubbed the ‘information age’.  The internet has flattened and shrank the globe as fiscal transactions and currency exchanges are conducted with a few strokes of the keyboard and international business meetings can be conducted through video conference calls.  I tend to view the description of Pax Americana for this era as somewhat premature.

The problem with globalization is that with each stage of advanced technology, the required amounts of manual (human) labor for capital profit are drastically lowered while the human population continues to grow.  We saw Feudalism abolished after the first stages of technological advancement with wind/water power at the beginning of colonialism (powered by new technologies in ships and sea navigation).  We saw slavery abolished under the technologies of the Industrial Revolution because slavery became an outdated mode of capitalist production.  Under the technologies of the information era, which should be called the consumer era, we see incredibly high levels of poverty, incredibly high incarceration rates and very high levels of unemployment in the majority of the western nation-states that emerged out of the Holy Roman Empire.

Globalization flattened the globe because it removed all barriers for trade and capitalist production (stripping the Earth of her natural resources through new technologies) and linking nation-states to the gold/dollar standard, international trade agreements, most favorite nation status (lower tariffs), and international banking organizations such as the IMF and World Bank.  It has furrowed and watered the global society to produce a world economy which has raised international corporations as powerful as many of the nation-states they manipulate.  But did globalization fertilize and protect the soil beneath it?  What happens to the soil when you continually use that plot of land for constant agricultural production?  The soil becomes depleted of nutrients and there is mass erosion. 

Henry Nau. Perspectives on International Relations. 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2012), 261-284.

 

 

Just War Theory

            Just War Theory is a centuries old philosophical perspective on the ethics of war based largely on hypocritical Greco-Roman Christian values.  It is an ideological morality that has subconsciously and consciously contributed to shaping and influencing the behavior of international state actors and international organizations for centuries, in earnest fashion and also on behalf of hidden motives.  The three levels of the Just War Theory are boisterous moral justifications deduced from long ago crumbled empires and states which, throughout history, were led by casts of actors comprised of religious zealots, imperialist and colonial expansionists, military dictators and aggressive predators dressed in humanitarian democratic guise.  A review throughout the history books of the world show us that no evil nation-state, alliance or empire has ever won a great war, which only verifies to a rational mind that it is the winners of conflicts that write the histories and shape the theories.  Just as all codes of moral ethics, the Just War Theory has been, and will continue to be, empty rhetoric which is propagated by the most powerful to justify shifts in international relations caused by their pursuit of, expansion of and protection of economic, military, and territorial power by nation-states and their mutually beneficial allies.

Jus Ad Bellum

              The first, and most important, portion of the Just Law Theory, the justification of entering into a state of war, is a list of conditions aimed toward heads of nation-states to morally justify conflict.  These ethical categories can be easily manipulated to the masses in order to justify aggression or military actions of ulterior motive.  The first principal requirement is just cause, a very ambiguous term.  In 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, could their actions have been justified by overpopulation and regaining land stripped by the Treaty of Versailles? Was the British, French and American response to that invasion due to sincere concern for the Polish people or was this a repetition of pre-WWI European balancing of power?  The actions of Germany can be justified just as the actions of the Allied forces can be justified; it just depends on who is writing the justification.  Considerations of morally appropriate intentions for war can also be easily twisted.  In 2003, the United States invaded and toppled the government of Iraq on the allegations that Saddam Hussein was producing nuclear weapons. By 2006, videos of Saddam Hussein’s death by lynching, an immoral event itself, and news reports of the Central Intelligence Agency admitting that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq were all over the internet.  Was this just an honest mistake?  When considering the unilateral action of United States’ aggression of the Iraq war, the proper international authority was never given by the United Nations Security Council.  In a 1994 news interview, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the invasion an illegal act according to UN charter and was “without UN approval and much broader support from the international community”.  Even with UN approval, the majority of Americans, still in frenzy from the newly unveiled “War on Terror”, were told by their government that it was a just military invasion and most Americans believed it.

Jus In Bello

            The codes of proper conduct during conflict and the assumption that all violators will be held accountable is more philosophical theory without substance, especially on the modern international stage.  When the nation-state of Israel, using the tired justification claims of self-defense,  rains down scores of bombs on crowded civilian population centers in Gaza, murdering women and children, who holds that government accountable for such human rights violations?  Is the answer the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council?  The same permanent member-states such as Britain, France and the United States who have to plead with Israel before the international community to stop building illegal settlements and then remain silent or even worse use their Security Council veto, when Israel is condemned before the United Nations for their unilateral actions which result in human rights violations?  The United Nations is clearly a hypocritical and hollow international front for a collective hegemon that expertly utilizes ideologies from the Just War Theory as international propaganda.  The United Nations has never placed pressure on Israel for unilateral aggressions, or for human rights, against Gaza and Lebanon, or Israeli unilateral strikes against Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007.  The same United Nations stood limp when the United States undercut Security Council authority and invaded Iraq unilaterally with no factual evidence of nuclear weapons outside of what the American Israel Public Affairs Committee whispered to Congressional members.

             Nations will quickly act their international role and deem nation-state leaders human rights violators, especially if the nation-state in question is endowed in natural resources like oil, just as the UN Security Council did to Libya’s Gadhafi because he would not step down from power in the midst of an inorganic “Arab Spring” as Egypt’s Mubarak had.  Yet, when economic interests do not coincide amongst the hegemonic collective of the UN Security Council, civilian blood runs thick in the streets of Syria while Security Council permanent member-states secretly fund rebels against government, or government against rebels, as they silently shrug.  Jus in Belo, with all its magnificent moral rules and perspectives, in the nation-state format, is nothing except further empty rhetoric.  When an individual or group of soldiers commits an atrocity, those events are politically meaningless enough to the big picture that those individual soldiers can be sacrificed up by their nation-state within the collective hegemony to the altar of United Nation hypocrisy.  From a nation-state perspective, Jus In Belo is an ideology that is unrealistic in nature because there is no morality among the United Nations Security Council permanent member-states, as these nation-states are simply powerful nation-states with powerful friends and their international interests determine what human rights violations are, and when and where they have occurred.

Jus Post Bellum

            The third and last philosophical rhetoric of the Just War Theory is the termination of conflict and the seven rules of moral redemption during the exit stages of military occupations or so-called peacekeeping missions.  When has this type of morality ever truly occurred in a post-war or military occupation withdrawal?  In South Korea and Japan where there are still permanent U.S. military bases?  The collective hegemony learned from their flaws of leaving Germany intact after WWI, which resulted in the reemerging challenging factors of WWII.  For the past sixty years, military occupations or UN peacekeeping forces have been left on the ground to solidify puppet governments propped up in the void of the toppled regime.  The moral Jus Post Bellum methods can be seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, with international banking systems and international corporations growing fat off the military occupation, being applied by the same forces that caused the destruction in the first place.  In addition, the failures of Jus Post Bellum, when UN Security Council permanent member-states, such as Britain and France, have shallow interests that are not worth the expense of peacekeeping or nation-rebuilding efforts, can be recalled in the so-called peacekeeping missions in Somalia and Rwanda which were results of European colonialism and imperialism.

Conclusion

            Augustine, Aquinas, Grotius, Suarez, Vattel and Vitoria were priests, philosophers and theorists.  We have all dreamed of a just world and we have all, from mightiest coalition of nation-state powers down to the most unimportant individual man, morally justified actions.  The modern principals contained in the Just War Theory are no more than antiquated thoughts from the age of philosophers.  These moral principles no longer truly exist, if indeed they ever did, among the modern international nation-states on the international stage where world power has become consolidated.  In honor of those long ago idealists with pen and theory, the powerful international hegemony has certainly adopted their theory as propaganda and put it to use for their own political benefits.        

References

 

BBC News, “Iraq War Illegal, Says Annan”, BBC News, September 16, 2004 (accessed on December 1, 20012 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3661134.stm

Borger, Julian, “There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq”, The Guardian, Oct 7, 2012 (accessed on December 1, 2012 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1)

CBS News, “Israel’s assault on Palestinian Militants in Gaza Takes Rising Toll on Civilians”, November 18, 2012 (accessed on December 1, 2012 at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57551631/israels-assault-on-palestinian-militants-in-gaza-takes-rising-toll-on-civilians/)

 Kirkpatrick, David, “Egypt Erupts in Jubilation as Mubarak Steps Down”, New York Times, February 11, 2011 (accessed December 1, 2012 from (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/world/middleeast/12egypt.html?pagewanted=all)

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