The UN, US and Iraq IV

The only usefully spent humanitarian $ is one spent for a bomb! Humans only get in the way of sucessful Imperialism!!!!! The only good human is a dead human!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think you have an obligation to the UN. But at the same time I find it odd to fault them for lack of muscle when the main reason for that is that the muscle is trying to undermine them.

If the US did not try to undermine the UN issues about the UN having weight would not be relevant.

During the March for war the undermining of the UN was duplicitous. It was faulted for lacking muscle by the US, while the US was actively using it's muscle to undermine them.

The UN was told that anything but agreement with US demands would render them irrelevant but to the UN being a rubber stamp for teh US would be irrelevance just as well.

Those who argue that the blue helmets have no muscle are also curiously poosed to giving the UN muscle. When they consolidate around something like the ICC the argument is that giving them any power would be used aginst the US.

There is great duplicity in these arguments. You can't both fault an entity for lacking power and also argue that they should be denied it. A more honest argument would be that the UN is disliked among some quarters because it represents an equalizing force in geopolitics and those with power do not wish to have it neutralized by rule of law.

Yes ---- It's too bad a really good diplomat and humanitarian (in everyone's acount) had to die to point out the incompetence of the UN----They were using the same guards that pulled the wool over the eyes of UN inspectors just before the war. And they turned down any security assistance from the coalition forces---which in hindsight was a blessing for us but a trajedy for the people in the building.

thud

You can't stop it, perception, can't you?

But the US refused them protection, which it is obligated to provide under the Geneva Convention. Part of the problem was the underling who turned away US military protection (which he ahd no right to do, and I wonder how his job search is going today...) did so in order to avoid furthering the impression that the UN is a US mommett. And yes, I do lay this particular dilemma at the feet of Bush and Co.

I am surprised someone here hasn't blamed Bush for Christ's crucifixion yet.

That would be suicide.

Also interesting is the fact that all the while the U.S. was maligning and trying to discredit the U.N., it was trying to get U.N. approval and cooperation in the U.S. war against Iraq. So, is the U.N. important or not to the U.S? And, if it isn't, why does the U.S. continue to press?

The U.N. charter spells out certain do's and don't's, and is composed of many members. Each of these members has a weighted vote. Now, the reason this is considered a U.S. war is that there is no coaltion of nations, despite the hype. What is talked about is the naming of nations who have said maybe they agree and maybe they don't. The actual help given, or even promised, is too small to consider. So the vaunted coalition is not much more than vaunted.

The help has to come from a true coalition of strong U.N. members, who are quite publicly unenthusiastic.

If the UN is as you say, perception, why does the administration consider them important? They did before - they sent Powell to make an adress. Now they deny, but the UN role is still obviously important. Don't you see a contradiction there? If we don't need the U.N., why aren't we winning (whatever that means now) without them?

Perception also requires some depth.

I believe that many of the religious and xenophobic (but why should they love foreigners) nutters operating within Iraq do not see any difference between the US/Brit military and the UN. The Red Cross are afraid, too. So it was maybe a bit naive of the UN to try to operate without military-style security.
But what a horrible dilemma- if they, the UN, were seen to be working with the military, they could not achieve the dissociation which they need to be successful in building a stable society and local governance.
So taking that risk, they lost lives. But they are not giving up, they are turning the other cheek, they are working desperately for a fix.

Bush fears the truth getting out, that he knowingly lied to the American people and the world, that he falsified information and that he continues to do so. He'll never ask for UN help because it will mean the end to his political career.

Not that that's a bad thing.

Craven

I think the UN is fairly good at providing humanitarian aid if security is provided by someone else. Anything else is pretty much of a joke.

If I were president of the US it would be a cold day in hell before command of my troops would be turned over to a Blue Hat from the UN. The same goes for any international court with jurisdiction over my troops. The people of the US did not elect a president to turn vast power and resources over to a possibly corrupt UN.

Craven said:
UN is disliked among some quarters because it represents an equalizing force in geopolitics and those with power do not wish to have it neutralized by rule of law.

The problem here is that your above statement was, I suspect, the reason the UN charter was written without teeth.
Many people are in denial that the UN charter does not have any teeth and they think Kofi Annan can wave a magic wand and make things happen. You have seen that even when the security council votes to do something it probably won't get done. The UN is irrelevant----get over it people.

The UN is not irrelevant just because some wish it so. Perception, you seem to have missed my point about faulting the UN for being toothless and also refusing to give it teeth.

Richard Perle seems to have decided that we need to get the hell out of Dodge:



Yahoo!

So Unicef, the WHO, etc.. are not working? What cave have you been hiding in?

Look people, just because a lot of you don't like my opinions doesn't give you license of provoke with any kind of personal comment. Remember in any unpleasantness on this forum it takes two people. One is the provoker and the other is the provokee. I'm trying my best to NOT be the provoker. Blatham was fond of calling these attacks "ad hominems". Fair warning is issued though----if provoked I will not turn the other cheek.

From the Perle article:
Of course, we haven't done everything right," said Perle, according to the French text of the interview. "Mistakes have been made and there will be others.

"Our principal mistake, in my opinion, was that we didn't manage to work closely with the Iraqis before the war, so that there was an Iraqi opposition capable of taking charge immediately," he said.

"Today, the answer is to hand over power to the Iraqis as soon as possible," he added.

Lets rethink that Iraqi oposition statement, shall we? Perhaps if they would have worked with credible[/u] members of teh oppostion, instead of Chalabi, they would have made better plans (like not invading). Chalabi has been the source for some of the most outrageous failures of intelligence:
The location and exact amount of WMD.
The Iraqi Nuclear Program.
HUssein as "imminent threat".
The "warm welcome" US personnell would receive.
The expectation that Iraqi security mechanisms would remain in place, and the US could just come in as 'new management," instead of having to rebuild from the ground up.
The expectation that the Iraqi people would welcome him in as a new leader, even though he had been out of Iraq for over twenty years.
Need I say more?

Another quote from the article:

"You have to understand that since September 11, the United States cannot allow the most terrible weapons in the world to be in the hands of the worst regimes in the world," Perle told Le Figaro, referring to the 2001 hijacked airliner attacks on U.S. landmarks that killed some 3,000 people.
This is yet another attempt by the administration to try and make the public equate Hussein and bin-LAden/al-Quaeda. They never come right out and say it, but they imply very heavily.

Craven

No --- I didn't miss your point----it is not our burden to give the UN relevancy----the Charter should have done that----it did not. In every instance involving the UN in the past two years I would have responded exactly as the US has with the exception of coming back for the second time for the security council to "sanctify"the war.
Bush only did that to prop up Blair----it was a mistake.

perc,

So do you oppose the modification of the UN charter to give it teeth?