Nation

The televised discussion in the Security Council
on Sunday evening, December 5, of the tragic
Pakistani-Indian war dramatically and painfully
displayed the impotence of the United Nations to
deal meaningfully with conflicts of this
sort. Nevertheless the discussion was highly
instructive. Indeed the telecast should be
replayed again and again, in all major population
centers, throughout the Third World, and, one
would hope without hope, in Russia and China. No
written report could possibly convey the depth and
quality of the hatred and fear which each of these
great "Socialist" powers now feels toward the
other.

Such vituperation has not echoed in the Security
Council for some time. India and Pakistan occupied
the sidelines and had little to say and not much
chance to say it. A worldwide audience should be
given the opportunity to view and listen to-and
reflect on-this graphic demonstration of the
virulence that prevails between China and Russia
today, linked though they are alleged to be by
fraternal Socialist ties and shared ideological
convictions. To the Chinese, the Russians are
"social imperialists" because of their harsh
suppression of the liberties of the Czechs - an
indictment that thoughtful men and women
everywhere must concede - and their support of
India. To the Russians, the Chinese are "traitors"
because they support the brutal and stupid
military regime in Islamabad that has subjected
East Pakistan to continued colonial exploitation
of the worst sort and would now put down, with
military force, the legitimate claims of the East
Pakistanis to a measure of self-government.

But in fact both the Soviets and the Chinese are
using the occasion of the Pakistani-Indian
conflict to play power politics with a
ruthlessness and cynicism that earns for each the
designation of "social imperialist." On the basis
of the Security Council exchange, Third World
countries will hardly find in either China or
Russia a model of Socialist decorum. Any African,
Latin American or Asian people who looked to
either for leadership and guidance would deserve
the fate that its "liberation" would entail. The
existence of the United Nations, then, found
justification if only for the reason that it made
possible this demonstration of how far short of
the Socialist ideal both great powers fall.

But the non-Communist great powers did not set
China and Russia a glorious example. Britain and
France, whose spokesmen were reasonable and
conciliatory, are as deeply involved in the
background of the dispute as China and
Russia. Both supplied India with arms, even as the
United States was inflating the military ego of
the West Pakistani regime. What is one to say of
the hypocrisy of this Administration which,
despite the record in Vietnam, including the
stepped-up air attacks, has the audacity to
charge, India with being the aggressor in this
conflict? And what can be said in defense of all
those other U.N. members, the small as well as the
great powers, who made no effort to stop a
conflict which has been easily foreseeable since
last March? Few of them have convincing alibis;
most them, in one way or another, are accomplices
of the mischief-making great powers.

It may have occurred to some of the millions who
viewed the late-hour telecast of the Security
Council debate that it took place on the eve of
the thirtieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl
Harbor, a circumstance that merely underscores the
present disunity of the great powers that fought
as allies to win World War II. Those who reflected
on this sad circumstance may also have noticed
that the two great powers least directly
implicated in the Pakistani-Indian dispute are
Germany and Japan, whose past infamy now belongs
to history. And it may also have occurred to those
conscious of the juxtaposition of events, that the
day any war starts is a day of infamy.