Knoxville Journal

As it has countless times in the past, the Communist
bloc on the United Nations Security Council over the
weekend used veto power to prevent the U.N from taking
any action to halt armed international conflict‹ this
time between India and Pakistan.

Defeated were resolutions which would have called for
withdrawal of all troops that had ventured beyond their
own borders, an immediate ceasefire and establishment of
a U.N. observer team to help prevent future outbreaks of
fighting.

At this writing the United States and certain other
nations interested in halting the Asian war were
considering taking the proposals to the General
Assembly, where no veto power exists.

The Soviet Union, with aid from Poland, succeeded in
thwarting Security Council action in this case, Just as
it has many times in the past. The United Nations' basic
"peace-keeping" body thus has been rendered impotent,
and a mockery has been made of the world organization's
basic goal of peaceful international relations.

Significantly, this was the first crisis to come before
the Security Council since Nationalist China was kicked
out in favor of Communist China. Peking backed Pakistan,
but Moscow wound up supporting the position of India
despite the fact that India had invaded Pakistani
territory. (India had been among those nations voting
earlier to oust Taiwan and seat Peking in its place.)

The Soviet Union openly condemned Pakistan as the guilty
party in starting the armed conflict, as did the Indian
government. This was based largely on the contention
that Pakistani efforts to control the rioting in East
Pakistan resulted in an influx of Pakistani refugees
into already overpopulated India.

On the surface it would seem that India has violated the
terms of U.N. Charter by invading a neighboring country
on the justification that it did not agree with the
internal policies of that country. In one sense,
however, the latest Indian-Pakistani conflict can be
seen as a renewal of the long-standing dispute over
territory mutually claimed by the two countries. While
Indian troops were racing to capture all of East
Pakistan, troops from West Pakistan moved into Indian-
held portions of Kashmir.

The clash also has certain trappings of another war
between those supported largely by the United States and
those backed by Soviet military aid. The curious
circumstance of the United States and Red China winding
up essentially on the same side in support of Pakistan
and in opposition to the Soviet Union also raises
complicating questions.

For the moment, however, the India-Pakistan conflict
again illustrates the grand impotence of the United
Nations in dealing with armed clashes between member
nations, an impotence attributable to the Soviet Union's
use of its veto powers.