Calling the Shots
How Washington Dominates Today's UN
Phyllis Bennis

6" x 9" • 372 pages
ISBN 1566563534 • paperback • $18.95 •

"An eye-opening account...a valuable reference work." –Small Press

"While many Americans are just becoming aware of the United States' extraordinary dominance over the UN, Phyllis Bennis has long been a 'prophet,' warning of the catastrophic consequences of its disproportionate influence over this international body." –The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences

new revised & updated edition with a new preface by Denis Halliday

The United Nations remains a favorite scapegoat for U.S. and allied failures in places like Rwanda, Iraq, Kosovo, and East Timor. Few look beyond the headlines to the primary responsibility of the United States for what are all too often called "UN failures."

Filled with tales of UN intrigue and diplomatic carrots and sticks, Calling the Shots exposes how U.S. financial and political bribes are backed by threats and punishments for recalcitrant nations who refuse to toe the U.S. line. The new edition examines U.S.-UN relations at the close of the 20th century: now $1.6 billion in debt to the UN, Washington increasingly undermines or even ignores the world organization, seeking to replace the UN's authority with that of favored military alliances such as NATO. Hopes rise for a new internationalism, as citizens organizations join with the UN to create the International Criminal Court, to ban anti-personnel land mines, to protect children from the ravages of war, but the U.S. stands aloof.

Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. Her earlier books include Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader and Altered States: A Reader in the New World Order. She is a long-time analyst and frequent commentator on UN and Middle East affairs; she recently accompanied a group of congressional aides to Iraq to examine the impact of UN sanctions there. Former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday was the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, who quit his job to protest the impact of sanctions on Iraq's civilian population.

Olive Branch Press

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