The Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security under the UN Charter. It meets continuously and each member has a representative present at UN headquarters at all times. The Council can meet elsewhere and has done so in the past. When a threat to peace arises, the Council typically recommends parties resolve issues peacefully through negotiation. If fighting breaks out, the Council's priority is ending hostilities as soon as possible through ceasefire directives. It may also send peacekeeping forces. The Council can authorize enforcement measures like sanctions or military action. A member facing Council action may have its rights suspended or be expelled by the General Assembly on the Council's recommendation. Non-member states involved in a dispute may participate in discussions. The Council

1. Security Council
The Security Council has primary responsibility, under the Charter,for the
maintenance of international peace and security. It is so organized as to
be able to function continuously, and a representative of each of its
members must be present at all times at United Nations Headquarters.
On 31 January 1992, the first ever Summit Meeting of the Council was
convened at Headquarters, attended by Heads of State and
Government of 13 of its 15 members and by the Ministers for Foreign
Affairs of the remaining two. The Council may meet elsewhere than at
Headquarters; in 1972, it held a session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the
following year in Panama City, Panama.
When a complaint concerning a threat to peace is brought before it, the
Council's first action is usually to recommend to the parties to try to reach
agreement by peaceful means. In some cases, the Council itself
undertakes investigation and mediation. It may appoint special
representatives or request the Secretary-General to do so or to use his
good offices. It may set forth principles for a peaceful settlement.
When a dispute leads to fighting, the Council's first concern is to bring it
to an end as soon as possible. On many occasions, the Council has
issued cease-fire directives which have been instrumental in preventing
wider hostilities. It also sends United Nations peace-keeping forces to
help reduce tensions in troubled areas, keep opposing forces apart and
create conditions of calm in which peaceful settlements may be sought.
The Council may decide on enforcement measures, economic sanctions
(such as trade embargoes) or collective military action.
A Member State against which preventive or enforcement action has
been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise
of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly on
the recommendation of the Security Council. A Member State which has
persistently violated the principles of the Charter may be expelled from
the United Nations by the Assembly on the Council's recommendation.
A State which is a Member of the United Nations but not of the Security
Council may participate, without a vote, in its discussions when the
Council considers that that country's interests are affected. Both
Members of the United Nations and non-members, if they are parties to a
dispute being considered by the Council, are invited to take part,

2. without a vote, in the Council's discussions; the Council sets the
conditions for participation by a non-member State.
The Presidency of the Council rotates monthly, according to the English
alphabetical listing of its member States
.Topic A) Global controversy over Wiki leaks publications
Since its July release of over 77,000 classified government documents
from the Afghanistan War, the whistleblower website Wikileaks.org has
created serious controversy over the inherent conflict between national
security interests and government transparency. Just last week, Wiki leaks
released over 392,000 documents relating to the war in Iraq, sparking
condemnation from both sides of the political aisle.
Both these and the Afghanistan documents painted a picture of the
everyday fighting of the two wars. They also detailed many military
strategies and other sensitive information that the Obama administration
claims endangers troops and hampers the war effort. The Department of
Defense released a press statement saying, “We deplore Wiki leaks… By
disclosing such sensitive information, Wiki leaks continue to put at risk the
lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans
working with us.”
On the other side of the issue, the site exposed over 15,000 previously
undisclosed civilian deaths in Iraq and brought to light that the military
had lied about militants’ use of heat-seeking missiles against NATO
aircraft. Wiki leaks claims that it was merely exposing government abuse,
but the government claims that the site has undermined national
security by exposing classified information. This issue over the legality and
morality of exposing classified information is not new in the United States,
but is rather an issue with a rich and complicated history which raises the
fundamental question: who should have the authority to determine what
should and should not be published, the press or the government?
Wiki leaks is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide a forum for
anonymous sources to leak valuable information to journalists. The
organization claims as its goals the promotion of a free, unrestrained
press that closely scrutinizes government action to uncover abuse.
According to the website’s about page (accessed here), this goal stems
from the belief that “Better scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and
stronger democracies in all society’s institutions, including government,
corporations and other organizations.”

3. Wiki leaks promotes itself as a “new model of journalism” that vows to be
“fearless in our efforts to get the unvarnished truth out to the public.” To
achieve this goal Wiki leaks believes that the press should be wholly
unrestrained in investigating and exposing government abuse. The
government being investigated necessarily disagrees that the press
should have free reign over what they choose to publish. In the state’s
view classified documents are classified for a reason and revealing such
information to the public can have dire consequences when it comes to
security.
Tension between national security and freedom of the press is an
enduring feature of American politics. In 1971, The New York
Times published excerpts of the Pentagon Papers, classified Defense
Department documents detailing American involvement in Vietnam.
When the Defense Department sought to bar the Times from continued
publication, the case proceeded with lightning speed to the Supreme
Court. “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose
deception in government” wrote Justice Black for the majority, a
statement also quoted on Wiki leaks’ webpage.
The Court ruled that the government must demonstrate that “grave and
irreparable harm” would follow from publication in order to justify prior
restraint; a requirement it failed to meet in the case of the Pentagon
Papers. But though they reached a decision, the justices did not come to
a consensus as to the role of government and the press in balancing the
competing claims of security and liberty. The issue remains unresolved as
demonstrated by the Wiki leaks controversy.
Who would you trust to make decisions regarding release of sensitive
information?
Wiki leaks claims to engage in “principled leaking.” The organization is
quick to establish that it does not censor its news, but will take measures
to “protect life and limb of innocent people.” Likewise, editors Dean
Baquet of The Los Angeles Times and Bill Keller of The New York Times
claimed that the decision “to publish or not to publish” is a “responsibility
that falls to editors.”
Weighing the merits of publishing against the risks of making sensitive
information known, journalists claim the authority to decide which
materials to make public. Needless to say, the government disagrees. In
his dissent to the Court’s decision in New York Times Company v. United
States, Justice Stewart contended that as the Constitution gives the
Executive “a large degree of unshared power” over foreign affairs and
national defense and that it stands to reason that the Executive must
also possess the “largely unshared duty to determine and preserve”
security through decisions regarding confidentiality and classification of
documents.
Whether the government or the press is the proper authority to balance
the concerns of national security and liberty is debatable. The
government claims its interest is to protect the people from external

4. threat, the press from the dangers of over-powerful and unchecked
government.
Who do you believe should determine what should and shouldn’t be
published? Which concern should be paramount, national security or
government transparency?
Please post your thoughts in this page’s comments section; our goal here
is to spark an academic discussion of this important issue.
Topic B) Midle East because Israel, Lebanon and Syria problems
Lebanon vs Israel
As with many of the conflicts in the Middle East, the ongoing war along
the Israeli-Lebanese border is a part of the longer and larger Arab-Israeli
conflict. In 1948, five Arab nations, including Lebanon, invaded Israel in a
vain attempt to prevent the birth of the Jewish nation on land that the
Arabs felt belonged to them. The Arabs called the land occupied by the
Israelis "Palestine" and those Arabs living there as "Palestinians." As a result
of this and subsequent outbreaks of war, thousands of Palestinians fled to
neighboring Arab countries. Several Palestinian guerrilla armies formed to
fight a guerrilla/terrorist war against Israel. Their attacks on Israeli targets
prompted retaliation on the host nations of Jordan and
Lebanon. Palestinian power became so great in Jordan, that a civil war
was fought in 1970, resulting in the expulsion of Palestinian forces from
that nation. At this point, the Palestinian resistance moved to Lebanon, a
small nation located on Israel's northern border.
The newly resettled Palestinian forces, led by Yasser Arafat's Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), had two important effects on
Lebanon. First, their ongoing cross-border raiding brought violent
responses from Israel. These retaliatory raids caused death and
destruction for the local inhabitants of South Lebanon.Secondly, the
large influx of mostly Muslim Palestinians upset the population balance
between Lebanon's Christians and Muslims. These two religious groups
fought a civil war in the 1950's, and an uneasy peace had existed
since. By 1975, tensions between the Lebanese Christians on one side
and the Lebanese Muslims and the PLO on the other side, erupted into a
bloody civil war. The Lebanese Army and government dissolved as rival
Christian and Muslim militias battled for control of their nation. This
conflict caused Lebanon's only two neighbors to intervene in its

5. affairs. Soon after the war's beginning, Syria sent a 40,000 man-strong
"peace-keeping" force into Eastern Lebanon. Though officially a force for
peace, the Syrians soon took the side of the Muslims and PLO and
actively battled the Lebanese Christian forces.Israel began aiding the
anti-Muslim forces with weapons and other assistance.
As the Lebanese Civil War raged on, the PLO continued attacks on
northern Israel. By 1978, Israel decided to invade Southern Lebanon,
which was now almost fully controlled by the PLO.
-- Israeli Invasion of Lebanon (1978) --25,000 Israeli troops invaded
southern Lebanon on March 14, 1978 in a campaign to drive the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) out. This attack was in response
to PLO raids into northern Israel from their bases in southern Lebanon.
After the 1970 Jordanian Civil War, in which the PLO was driven out of
Jordan, southern Lebanon came under Palestinian control, with Yasser
Arafat's forces creating a virtual 'state-within-a-state." Their control
became so dominint, that southern Lebanon was nicknamed
"Fatahland," after al-Fatah, the name of Arafat's main PLO faction.
This Israeli military offensive forced an estimated 285,000 people to
become refugees, with over 6,000 homes destroyed or badly
damaged. Between 1,100 and 2,000 Lebanese civilians were
killed. Twenty Israeli soldiers died, and an unknown number of Palestinian
fighters. The PLO forces retreated ahead of the Israelis and continued
their attacks on Israel.
Tactically, the Israeli invasion was unsuccessful. Their target, PLO military
units, left the area. Israel had failed to prevent the PLO retreat.
As the Israelis withdrew in June, 1978, they turned control of the
occupied territory over to the South Lebanon Army (SLA), led by Major
Saad Haddad, a renegade Lebanese Army officer who set up his own
militia. The SLA served as Israel's proxy in south Lebanon, often engaging
the PLO in combat.
An estimated 285,000 Lebanese and Palestininian civilians became
refugees due to Operation Litani.Estimates of civilian deaths in Lebanan
range from 1,100 to 2,000. 20 Israelis soldiers were were killed.The PLO
suffered an unknown number of casualties.

6. 1981 --In response to PLO rocket attacks, Israeli forces began heavy
bombing of PLO targets in Lebanon. The United States negotiated a
cease-fire.
1982 -- Operation Peace in Galilee (June 6, Israel began its 1982
offensive into Lebanon in response to two specific terrorist acts; the
bombing of a bus in northern Israel, and the assassination attempt on the
life of Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov. Calling
this invasion "Operation Peace in Galilee," (Galillee is the biblical name
for northern Israel), Israel invaded Lebanon up to the outskirts of the
Lebanese capital, Beirut.
While eventually allowing the PLO to leave Lebanon, Israeli forces
remained in control of south Lebanon near the border until 2000, when
the troops were withdrawn in order to end the ongoing guerilla war with
the Shiite Lebanese militia called Hezbollah.
1993 --Israeli Forces launched Operation Accountability (July 25-July 31,
1993), a week-long military campaign directed at Hezbollah ( this conflict
is called The Seven-Day War by the Lebanese).
In June, 1993, Hezbollah launched rockets against a settlement in
northern Israel, and then in July, 1993, both Hezbollah and the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) launched attacks which killed
five Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in Israeli-occupied southern
Lebanon. Israel decided to respond to these attacks by making southern
Lebanon an inhospitable environment for Hezbollah.
During Operation Accountability, Israeli forces destroyed or damaged
thousands of houses and buildings, causing some 300,000 Lebanese and
Palestinian civilians from southern Lebanon to migrate towards Beirut and
other areas outside of the combat zone. Israeli forces also targeted
Lebanese infrastructure, (power stations, bridges, and roadways. This is a
tactic that would be repeated in future Israeli attacks on Hezbollah and
Lebanon. Hezbollah responded with more rocket attacks on Israeli
civilian targets.
At least 118 Lebanese civilians and two Israeli civilians died during this
operation.
1996 -- Operation Grapes of Wrath (April 11-April 27, 1996) --Israel's
massive air and artillery attack on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon
which attempted to end shelling of northern Israel by the Iranian and
Syrian-backed Lebanese Islamic militia. Israel forces launched 1,100 air
raids and fired nearly 25,132 shells at Hezbollah targets during the sixteen-
day offensive. A United Nations camp at Qana, Lebanon, was hit by
Israeli shelling, killing 118 Lebanese civilians who sought shelter

7. there. Nearly 640 Hezbollah rockets hit northern Israel in this time period,
particularly the often-hit settlement of Kiryat ShemonaIsrael's ally and
proxy force, the South Lebanon Army (a mixed Christian and Shiite
Muslim militia under the command of renegade Lebanese Major Saad
Haddad), also engaged in ground fighting with Hezbollah. At least 350
civilians were wounded in Lebanon , and 62 Israeli civilians were
wounded in Israel.
2006 --In response to the killing of three Israeli soldiers and the capture of
two others in July, 2006 Israel found itself immersed in yet another
Lebanese war
Lebanon vs Syria
It dominates Lebanon's foreign policy and has effectively occupied
large sections of its smaller neighbor for nearly 30 years. There are
currently some 15,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon, and Hezbollah --a
militant Shiite group supported by Syria and Iran--has long operated in
southern Lebanon. The United States has repeatedly demanded that
Syria withdraw its troops and refrain from interfering in Lebanese politics.
Was Syria responsible for the assassination of Rafik Hariri?
There are many suspicions that it was, but no proof. On February 14, a
massive car bomb in Beirut killed Hariri and more than a dozen others
and wounded more than 100. Syrian officials deny involvement. In
September 2004, the Baathist government of Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad pressured Lebanon's parliament to amend the constitution and
extend the presidential term of Emile Lahoud, a Maronite Christian widely
seen as a Syrian puppet. Then-Prime Minister Hariri, a billionaire
businessman who had led the post-civil war rebuilding of Lebanon,
resigned in protest in October.
How long have Syrian troops been in Lebanon?
Since 1976. Full-scale civil war broke out in April 1975 between the
Maronite Christian groups of the Lebanese Front and the Lebanese
National Movement, which was made up of left-leaning Muslims who
wanted a greater share of political power.Fighting was intense, and in
June 1976 the Maronite-dominated government asked for support from
Syria.
Syria had previously mounted several failed diplomatic efforts to stop the
war. For then-Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad--the current president's
father--the Lebanese conflict presented a range of possibilities, all of
them unappealing: sectarian strife spilling over into Syria, which had its
own Christian-Muslim tensions; an Israeli invasion of Lebanon; or the
establishment of a radical, left-wing Muslim state, if the Lebanese
National Movement won. Assad sent in troops to strengthen the Maronite

8. government, which he calculated he could manipulate, many Mideast
analysts say.Assad's move earned the wrath of the Muslim world,
because he backed the Christian side. Still, small contingents of troops
from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Sudan later joined the Syrian-
dominated Arab Deterrent Force. The war lasted 15 years.
What caused the war?
Tensions among Lebanon's Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, and
the Druze Muslim sect. Those groups had long jockeyed for power and
influence. Under the French occupation, which lasted from the end of
World War I until independence in 1943, a "confessional" system evolved
that reserved certain government posts for each religious group. Under
this system, Christians had the upper hand in the national assembly--the
Chamber of Deputies--that chooses the president. This arrangement
bred resentment among Lebanese Muslims, especially as they grew to
outnumber Christians.
In the early 1970s, the arrival of Yasir Arafat and thousands of his fellow
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) militants exacerbated Christian-
Muslim strains and swelled the Muslim ranks with thousands of
experienced gunmen. Lebanese Muslim groups supported the PLO
fighters, recently expelled from Jordan, while Maronite Christian groups
worried that PLO raids against Israel would invite retaliation and
destabilize Lebanon. Throughout the 1970s, the PLO increasingly used
Lebanon as a base from which to attack Israel. Israeli forces invaded in
1978 and 1982; after the second invasion, they remained and occupied
a strip of southern Lebanon for nearly 20 years. Egypt, Iraq, and Libya
supported Muslim factions in the civil war, while the United States and
Israel backed Christian groups. During the long course of the conflict,
Syria alternately supported the Christian amd Muslim sides.
What ended the war?
The October 1989 Taif Accords , an agreement brokered by Arab
nations, particularly Saudi Arabia, that gave Lebanese Muslims a greater
share of political power in Lebanon and formalized "preferred relations"
between Lebanon and Syria.Syria's internationally recognized role as "the
guarantor of Lebanon's security" was also established in these accords,
says Murhaf Jouejati , director of the Middle East Studies program at
George Washington University.
What impact did the Taif Accords have on the Syria-Lebanon
relationship?
Experts say the agreement gave Hafez al-Assad effective control over
most of Lebanon in return for a promise to maintain internal stability. The
Syrians were supposed to set a timetable for a withdrawal of their troops
to the Bekaa Valley, a strategic security zone between Syria and
Lebanon, by 1992 or another date negotiated with the Lebanese
government. Lebanon has never asked Syria to leave.Syria maintains
that its troops--whose numbers reached a high of 35,000-40,000 in 2000--

9. are a stabilizing factor and claims it would withdraw them immediately if
Lebanon asked.
What has happened in Lebanon since the war ended in 1990?
The country has been rebuilding. Hariri, who became prime minister in
1992, spearheaded an ambitious public-private partnership that rebuilt
Beirut, which was known as "the Paris of the Middle East" before the civil
war. The skyscrapers and luxury hotels in the city's downtown reflected
an economic resurgence that steadily erased some of the evidence of
the devastating war. The war also decimated Lebanon's security forces;
it rebuilt them with Syrian help, Jouejati says, to its current troop strength
of some 70,000. Politically, there has been "a slow mending of the
fences--yet you could feel that there was no sense of a Lebanese
national unity. Sectarianism remained the primary definer of identity,"
Jouejati says.
What is the US position on Syria?
The US government has long said Damascus is a state sponsor of terrorism
and has banned foreign aid, American investment, and the sale of
military equipment or dual-use items to Syria.
What has the United Nations' attitude been toward Syria?
The United Nations has a long history of urging foreign troops, including
Israeli, Syrian, and Palestinian fighters, out of Lebanon. In 1978, UN
Resolutions 425-427called for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanon; in
1982, after the second Israeli invasion, the Security Council passed a raft
of resolutions, including 508 , 509, and 515-521, deploring the violence of
that year and asking all parties to cease fighting and withdraw their
troops. Since Israel pulled out in 2000, attention has focused again on
Syrian troops. UN Resolution 1559 , passed in September 2004, is the latest
Security Council action on foreign presence in Lebanon.
What does Resolution 1559 say?
Resolution 1559, sponsored by the United States and France and
supported by Lebanese reformers like Hariri, calls for "foreign forces" to
leave Lebanon and end their interference in Lebanese affairs. It does not
refer to Syria by name.
It also calls for the disarmament of militias. All militias were supposed to
be disarmed after the civil war, but the Lebanese exempted Hezbollah,
which they call a national Lebanese resistance movement aimed at
fighting Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon. In January, UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan appointed a special envoy for the implementation
of Resolution 1559. Terje Roed-Larsen, formerly UN special coordinator for
the Middle East peace process, began meeting with Lebanese and
Syrian officials in early February.
What impact will Hariri's assassination have on the Syria-Lebanon
relationship?

10. Experts say the killing has focused both national and international
attention on the Syrian occupation and revealed deep anti-Syrian
feeling in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of mourners at Hariri's Beirut
funeral February 15 called for Syria to leave Lebanon. Angry mobs
attacked Baath Party headquarters in Beirut and Syrian workers and
trucks in other cities, including Tripoli and Hariri's hometown of Sidon. "The
majority opinion in Lebanon is that Syrian troops should leave," says
Richard Murphy, a former US ambassador to Syria. Expelling all the Syrians
from Lebanon won't be easy: in addition to the soldiers, there are more
than 1 million Syrian workers in Lebanon, a country of roughly 4 million
people, and thousands of undercover Syrian intelligence agents, experts
say. "The Syrians are deeply integrated into the fabric of Lebanese
society," Murphy says.
Was Hariri's death the main cause of anti-Syrian agitation?
No; experts say anti-Syrian sentiment had been slowly building. "In the last
year or so, as the economic resurgence continued, Lebanese voices
were getting louder about the need to redefine the relationship with
Syria--namely, to modify or end completely the Syrian occupation," says
Hussein Ibish, the Lebanese-born vice chair of the Progressive Musli
Union and former Washington, DC, correspondent of the Beirut-
based Daily Star . Syria's interference with the Lebanese Constitution last
fall angered many Lebanese. The constitution states that a presidential
term is six years, and candidates are required to wait six years before
running again. But in September, Syria forced through a change that
extends current President Emile Lahoud's term by three years. "It was a
very crude and totally gratuitous display of power by the Syrian regime,"
Ibish says.
What role did Hariri play in the opposition?
Before last fall, Ibish says, the opposition had been mostly limited to
supporters of Michel Aoun--a Christian general who declared himself
president of a divided Lebanon in the late 1980s and was later
deposed--and other disparate groups. As anger over Syria's interference
with the constitution spread, though, experts say the opposition
coalesced into a more vocal, organized movement. It attracted the
support of high-profile Lebanese like Walid Jumblatt, a longtime leader
of the country's Druze community, as well as Maronite Christian
leaders. Hariri, who provided financial support to the opposition and had
hinted at a return to politics, would have made a formidable opposition
candidate: a charismatic, experienced, wealthy, urban Sunni who
appealed to all of Lebanon's distinct communities, experts say. "This is
why people are not hesitating to blame the Syrians" for Hariri's death,
Ibish says."They're the obvious beneficiaries." He says Lebanese anger
over these two events--the Constitutional interference and Hariri's killing--
could mark a tipping point that might cause "a dramatic change in the
relationship between Syria and Lebanon."
What are the chances of another civil war if Syria pulls out?

11. This is a concern, experts say. Some see parallels with Iraq, where most
Iraqis want the United States forces to leave--but not immediately, for
fear of the instability that would result. "Some people say the Syrian iron
fist is keeping all these groups together, and if you remove the fist they'll
be at each other's throats again," Jouejati says. "I get the sense that the
rehabilitation of Lebanon has been mostly physical--infrastructure and
such--but the social structures have not been rehabilitated."Other
experts agree that the country's deep ethnic and religious divisions still
exist."In Lebanon, people have been traumatized by [the experience of
the] civil war," Ibish says. "The only thing that ended that war was Syrian
control, and people don't forget that."
What's next on the political agenda?
Lebanon will hold parliamentary elections in May, which experts say will
test the strength of the pro-Syrian and opposition factions. Lebanese
officials announced after Hariri's death that the elections would take
place as scheduled. Jouejati and other experts say this election will likely
show strong gains by opposition leaders energized by recent events.