The New York Times has summarized a new UN report by Lakhdar Brahimi, who was assigned to examine why United Nations personnel were attacked in his own country, Algeria, by al-Qaeda in Mahgreb using two car bombs containing a total of 800 kg (1,700 lb) of explosives. There was no mistaking the message in the devastating attacks, which practically obliterated the UN offices in that country. Separate UN facilities were targeted and leveled. There was no question of the UN being a victim of collateral damage. Nor were the targets particularly associated with America. They included the offices of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the Department of Safety and Security (DSS) and the Population Fund (UNFPA). There was no way around it: an al-Qaeda franchise had attacked the UN.
Brahimi, a diplomat who once argued with Bremer over whose writ should run in Iraq — the UN’s or America’s — was charged with an independent review to examine the inherent vulnerabilities of UN operations around the world as highlighted by the Algiers attack. According to the NYT, Brahimi concluded that “United Nations personnel around the world are increasingly likely to be targets for attack because the organization is perceived by some as a tool of powerful members, rather than an unbiased advocate for all nations”. In other words, America, or at least the West, was the indirect provocation for the Algerian bombings. Had the International Labour Organization not been associated with the UN, which was in turn tainted by the membership of America, which invaded Iraq — why then it might still be standing. A UN press conference called to describe his findings paraphrased Mr. Brahimi’s message.
Asked what the United Nations could do about the perception that it acted as a tool for the “big movers”, Mr. Brahimi acknowledged that the Panel, wherever it went, had been told that the Organization was not perceived as impartial, independent and neutral. What happened in the Middle East had a lot to do with that. There was also a perception that the big Powers used their muscle to influence the Organization, and that the United Nations, at times, did not speak on behalf of its 192 Members. When the Security Council decided to send people somewhere, it should consider how that decision would influence the security of those people. The Secretary-General should tell the Council what it needed to know, and not what it wanted to hear, he added.
The logical inference is that the UN should distance itself from the US so that the taint of even remote association with it should not endanger the members of the organization. In this, Mr. Brahimi is entirely correct. In order to avoid this danger the United Nations should address the following problems.
The first problem is that the UN is headquartered in New York, where its members are subjected to the corrupting influence of Jews, cab drivers, hookers and American TV. The second is the American membership on the Security Council, from whose perch the US unfortunately succeeds in casting its baleful influence on the World Body’s decisions. Thirdly, America taints the UN with its money; some of which Mr. Brahimi regrettably receives and would doubtless return, were he only given an opportunity to do so. Until these problems are solved there’s no telling what al-Qaeda will do to UN offices wherever they may be found.
The obvious solution to Brahimi’s concerns would be to reduce America’s unwanted presence in the UN. A phased withdrawal of membership in the UN can be planned by the incoming administration so that by 2012, the last UN headquarters personnel can be removed to Algeria, the final American session on the Security council will have taken place and the last dollar paid into the UN coffers. In the stead of the UN, the US might support a Global League of Democracies, consisting of all the nations whose policies Brahimi finds so problematic at present. But America will continue to listen to the UN; a small American liaison office in Algiers should continue to observe the weighty and momentous activity of the World Body. Or maybe its sessions can simply be followed by webcam and supported by Google ads.
But sarcasm aside, a move by the UN to the Third World will force the likes of Brahimi to focus on the real reason groups like al-Qaeda bomb not only UN offices but anything in sight: themselves. Another NYT article which focuses on the resurgence of the Algerian militants under an al-Qaeda franchise shows that the roots of its discontent are largely local. The “wide open spaces of the Sahara”, under the sway of smugglers, tribal law and criminal gangs, plus the problems of Algerian society itself are far deeper roots than the cosmetic problems which Brahimi doubtfully mentions. The bombing of the UN offices is driven more by the trends which produced Robert Mugabe than those which elected George W. Bush.
A hypothetical transfer of the UN to Algiers would symbolically return the problem to its home ground; away from Western locales with their distorting intellectual fads and their associated funding. One of the first actions a global league of democracies should consider is concluding a treaty with every Third World country aimed at making their leaders accountable for governance. For example, every government official above the rank of bureau director or colonel should execute a waiver giving up the prospect of residence, citizenship or bank accounts in developed countries. In that way, any aspirant to the post of El Presidente will be forced into a make or break commitment to his country.
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38 Comments
1. trainer:See Ya, UN. I hear Brussels is nice.
Jul 1, 2008 - 1:23 pm 2. Charles:here’s an amir taheri piece in the ny post on an aq plan b.
basically its about carrying out low level attrition attacks everywhere on everyone who is not moslem.
Jul 1, 2008 - 1:24 pm 3. Uncle Jefe:Amen!!
Jul 1, 2008 - 1:27 pm 4. whiskey:US out of UN!
UN out of US!
Most Americans would be happy to leave the UN and engage in isolationism, periodically whacking whatever enemy appears. Be careful what you wish for.
Jul 1, 2008 - 2:12 pm 5. David Levine:One of the great ironies of the current age is that the existence of the First World, with its rule of law, protection against inflation, strong financial system, property rights, economic success, etc, actually makes the plight of less developed countries worse. It reduces the need to focus on development, economic progress, rule of law, etc, because there is always a Swiss bank account in which to store one’s looted wealth and a London flat to which one can retreat to. The Western legal and financial system is like a drug to which third world kleptocrats are addicted, and which further removes them of responsibility to their own people.
When the West developed, the only way Western elites could get rich and secure was to make sure there countries were rich and secure. Of course, it wasn’t always smooth as the 20th century showed us, but we in the West have got there.
Robert Mugabe, the Burmese junta, Hugo Chavez, and their like (the” trends that produced” them) are actually made more likely by the presence of the Modern West. All the more reason for both a League of Democracies AND, as you argued a “For example, every government official above the rank of bureau director or colonel should execute a waiver giving up the prospect of residence, citizenship or bank accounts in developed countries.”
Actually, what we need is not for government officials in third world countries to execute a waiver but for First World countries to impose it automatically. We can allow governments and businesses and their people to open accounts in Western banks – including Switzerland – but they would have to subject to annual audits for fraud, theft, money laundering etc… And we’d have to look at Dubai (Iranian money), Singapore, HK as well, and have rules for those domiciles who choose to opt out of such an audit system (maybe bans of certain financial activity, to make it painful not to participate).
Jul 1, 2008 - 2:20 pm 6. NahnCee:I had so hoped that once we threw the UN out of New York, we could persuade them to relocate to France, since France is so concerned about seeing itself as being powerful enough to be an American counterweight. However, since the French are also nominally part of the West, as well as being on the Security Council, obviously the AlQueda members interviewed in Algeria would equally disapprove of a Parisian-based UN.
But I still think it would have been instructive to watch the French trying to deal with all the world’s dishonest diplomats who like to part where-ever they feel like it, and think that since rape is a national sport in their own country it should be equally sanctioned where-ever they are posted diplomatically.
Actually, though, as I think about it, the UN *deserves* to be located in Algeria, although they’d get more parental supervision and discipline if they were located either in Moscow or Beijing.
Jul 1, 2008 - 2:32 pm 7. Gordon:Agree–move the UN to Algeria except for the WHO which should be transferred to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I would also agree with Moscow, Beijing, Bogota, Kinshasa, Harare, or Abudja. Ryadh might be best of all.
Jul 1, 2008 - 2:49 pm 8. Lifeofthemind:My hope was that the UN would be relocated to Governor’s Island in NY harbor. That would allow valuable real estate to be reclaimed while affording superior security. It would allow the diplomat’s a constant clear view of the rebuilt World Trade Center. Ideally the middle tower would be considerably taller than the others.
Our constant and repeated insistence should focus on the following basics.
Jul 1, 2008 - 2:53 pm 9. Lifeofthemind:The UN is not a government, it is not sovereign, it has no power to authorize, legitimize or compel without the sanction of the Security Council with all permanent members conquering.
The better bits of the UN that do some work, food, telecommunications, other technical issues, were part of the old League of Nations before the creation of a feeding trough for third world elitist bureaucrats.
Jul 1, 2008 - 2:56 pm 10. Brock:Whiskey, don’t worry too much. If the UN leaves the USA, I doubt many Americans could care too much where they go, but we do generally have feelings of general good cheer to other democracies.
I think a League of Democracies would be nice. We’d have to give China an observer seat as a nod to political reality, but other than that a seat for each of the EU, the US, India, Japan and Brazil would make a better Security Council than the present one. Or maybe all Democracies get a seat (but only 100MM+ populations and $1B+ budget contributions get vetoes). I’m sure we could think of something reasonably fair.
The hardest part would be judging who is and who is not a democracy, as Jimmy Carter has proven. Sometimes, for some people, it seems hard to tell.
Jul 1, 2008 - 2:59 pm 11. Gordon:Oops–meant to say Caracas instead of Bogota.
Jul 1, 2008 - 3:32 pm 12. Charles:to his credit imho mccain has proposed that an international organization of democracies be created. I think the founding members would be countries of north america and europe.
the downside however would be that soon enough countries like venezuela iran and egypt would apply for membership. don’t these countries have elections?
after all,how do you define a democracy.
In the usa something like 80 percent of the people think the USA is on the wrong path. There are a dozen or more policies from the homosexual agenda to border policies which 70% or more of american people oppose but the super elites in the USA support. You could probably get the same kind of numbers out of North Korea of elite vs popular opinion. and yet the USA is considered to be a democracy and north korea is considered to be dictatorship.
Jul 1, 2008 - 4:04 pm 13. 49erDweet:I’ll help them pack. But I think Darfur would be a better location for the UNHQ. That way it might be more exciting to see who survived and who didn’t. Talk about opportunities for upward mobility!
Jul 1, 2008 - 4:36 pm 14. Richard Fernandez:One of the biggest problems in the Third World is corruption. Why some people imagine that Third World bureaucrats who are rebadged as “international civil servants” suddenly become a different species escapes me. However, corruption in the Third World could not exist, at least in its present form, unless the First World existed. Where do the African ministers and their wives shop? Why in France of course. And where do their children study? In Britain, the UK and such places. And who handles their money? A first world bank; or maybe a bank in Russia but based upon securities traded in real capital markets.
If Robert Mugabe were faced with simultaneous realizations: a) that nobody recognized his signature, including his Swiss banker; and b) he would have to live out the rest of his life in Zimbabwe do you think it would affect his behavior? I’ll bet it would. In the old days it was customary for a captain to share the fate of his ship. The underlying rationale for this conjoining of the fates was to eliminate the agency problem. Since their fates were one, the captain would do everything in his power to save the ship. There was no bailout option. On most scheduled multiengine passenger flights, the flight crew doesn’t have the option of choosing a fate distinct from their passengers. We can apply the same principle to the Third World. We should want every poor country to prosper. But to achieve this, we should adjust the incentives of their leaders so that it is in their own interest to build up their countries rather than to loot them, move to New York and then damn America.
Jul 1, 2008 - 4:47 pm 15. Doug:Designed by Human Hands
Jul 1, 2008 - 5:00 pm 16. Charles:ht – Sam
The underlying rationale for this conjoining of the fates was to eliminate the agency problem. Since their fates were one, the captain would do everything in his power to save the ship. There was no bailout option. On most scheduled multiengine passenger flights, the flight crew doesn’t have the option of choosing a fate distinct from their passengers. We can apply the same principle to the Third World. We should want every poor country to prosper. But to achieve this, we should adjust the incentives of their leaders so that it is in their own interest to build up their countries rather than to loot them, move to New York and then damn America.
Jul 1, 2008 - 5:09 pm 17. Richard Fernandez:///////////////////
this is pretty much what’s happening in california right now. the state is being looted by bad budgeting. even as the tax base leaves the state–the state employment rolls are exploding. the mexicans know quite well that when the state goes bankrupt the USA will bail them out. of course they will curse the USA for insulting them for their incompetance along the way. after all they were not incompetent. rather they were looting california. … and doing a good job of it. would it be their fault that california goes bankrupt. no. no more than it is the fault of mexicans for coming to the USA. rather the fault is with americans for being weak and feckless.
We’ve been allowed to forget the Canal Street Bombing in Baghdad, whose key finding was that the UN almost criminally neglected to protect its employees from attacks in a known war zone.
Even the Guardian reprinted the result of this invstigation. But of course nobody in the UN was punished. The simply reverted to type and acted indignant, as if the whole thing were someone else’s fault. The Left lost no time claiming that the Canal Street Bombing was “a product of the US occupation of Iraq”.
Then comes the Algiers bombing of a UN headquarters four years afterward — after the UN had indicted itself for neglecting to secure its personnel. Again the attack comes in a known war zone. And again Lakhdar Brahimi trots out the old excuse that it’s all America’s fault. But the truth is rather more prosaic. The UN officials are simply negligent.
Jul 1, 2008 - 5:52 pm 18. El Jefe Maximo:Moving the UN: what a splendid idea. I suppose the international bureaucrats need someplace to spend and bank their loot, so I’m sure the Euros would be glad to have the thing. Possibly the League of Nations properties in Geneva would suffice ?
It is quite enough that we finance the United Dictators, it is outrageous that we should have to actually listen to it.
Jul 1, 2008 - 7:20 pm 19. John Samford:League of Allied Democracies, or, as it will fondly known as LOAD.
Jul 1, 2008 - 7:42 pm 20. Doug:I have serious issues with the entire concept of a “World Government”. No matter how benign or what the name is. It strikes me as an oxymoron.
The ultimate nanny state? No thanks.
Among the left WW2 was sen as the result of the collapse of the LON. That was wrong, of course. It wasn’t the collapse of the League of Nations that lead to WW2, but the failure to act by the LON that created the conditions for WW2. As the Lion of the Desert, Emperor of Ethiopia, King of the Lost Tribes Haile Selassie said; “Today it is us. Tomorrow it will be you.”
The UN reached that point when it failed to act against Saddam’s Iraq when they started shooting at UN mandated overflights. President Bush gave them a second chance to be relevant. They blew it.
“I have serious issues with the entire concept of a “World Government”.
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:13 pm 21. Richard Fernandez:No matter how benign or what the name is.
It strikes me as an oxymoron.”
—
Agreed
If I could redesign the UN from scratch it would function like a very large secretariat. There’d be a board of directors elected by member countries in proportion to their contributions. The board of directors would be the Security Council. It would have a professional manager whose main job would be to let contracts to build comms and logistical infrastructure.
The UN would consist of a secure, high-bandwidth real time video conferencing system linking all the capitals of the world together. The professional UN staff would prepare plans, like the military prepares for contingencies. They should have a contingency op for every conceivable disaster, uprising or refugee flow on the planet, plus a database of NGOs, contractors, etc. Any time Burma sinks or a genocide threatens in Africa, the UN should dust off their latest plan and it should all be laid out as an options plan for approval by the Board. Smaller discretionary operations can be left to the professional manager.
Such a UN shouldn’t have any more than 2,000 employees max. All the rest can be performed by contractors, NGOs, or sovereign countries. The Secretary General should have no independent diplomatic authority. His job is to keep the comms and logistical system ready so that member countries will always have high quality plans and staff work to go on. Secretaries General should never be recruited from foreign ministries but from the ranks of the CEOs of large companies or executive organizations. Former presidents, governors of big states, city mayors, etc should be the only public servants who might qualify.
And that’s it. Why do we need more?
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:15 pm 22. Lifeofthemind:If we kept the UN in America a reasonable second choice would be to move it to East St. Louis. It is centrally located, in the real America, and the land is cheap. They do already ow the Palais de Nations in Geneva.
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:15 pm 23. CPT. Charles:At the risk of being simplistic, the trigger for the attack by the GSPC is very, very simple.
Modernity.
Every single UN sub-group listed either supplants a sharia-structured societal element or stands as a direct competitor to same. Blame America? Sure, go ahead…it’s the convenient thing to do. The uncomfortable reality is that ANY non-islamic entity will receive the same rough welcome.
Mr. Brahimi’s kabuki dance is pro-forma. I’d sooner expect winged monkeys fly out his butt than hear he’d condemned Salafist Islam. Given the actions of the UN’s ‘Human Rights’ Council as of late…color me unsurprised.
The UN is an obscene joke. Between the thugs, thieves, jihadi pom-pom girls, and delusional euro-elites, I’d expect more moral authority from a gang of razor-wielding twelve year old crack dealers.
The sooner they’re gone from our shores, the better.
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:21 pm 24. Lifeofthemind:Wretchard,
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:32 pm 25. USpace:(If you prefer that title still?)
The advantage of your scheme is that it extracts the whole Chapter IV and Chapter V mechanism for UN sponsored Peacekeeping/Enforcement War-making powers. The current problem is that we have allowed academic ignoramuses and European diplomats who should know better to construct a monstrous inversion. Instead of saying that the UN may exercise collective force at the behest of the united will of the allied principal powers of the Security Council we now have a situation where the UN officials and others claim that, despite the inherent article 51 right to self defense in situations where the UN is unable to act because of disagreements among the Powers, those Powers are themselves precluded from acting without the authority of the UN. Of course this is only meant to restrain America or justify dithering inaction by Europeans. It doesn’t restrain other nations acting as they see fit, for example the French in Africa. The source of this nightmare goes back to the Uniting for Peace resolution that America forced through the then Western dominated General Assembly when the North Koreans invaded the South in 1950. We shouldn’t have done it and have paid dearly for it.
World government is bull, but since we can not get rid of the UN, and since any barbarian country can be a member, there should be a higher body of just democracies. Something the other countries can aspire to. Then again, it would probably be decried as racist and elitist, and thus unfair to the thug countries. It wouldn’t be PC you see, so it will probably never happen.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
don’t pressure dictators
allow them their murders
stay silent be polite
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
ignore human rights abuse
give terrorists free pass
vilify the best countries
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
don’t stand against genocide
you might insult your friends
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:55 pm 26. Alexis:upset your luncheon guests
.
I think one of the principal reasons why corruption is such a problem in the Third World is that the local currency has historically been based upon foreign aid and foreign debt instead of getting pegged to the productive capacity of the local economy. It is easier for officials to rationalize their institutionalized embezzlement when they perceive the former colonial master to be the victim. When foreign suckers give away foreign aid in their games of guilt and power, embezzlement can become a national sport. In Zaire, embezzlement did become a national sport. It is far more difficult to condone theft when it is a fellow tribesman who is wronged and not some distant foreigner.
Al-Qaeda and its allies seek to force the world economy to go onto a gold standard. After all, an economy based upon a gold standard is more efficient for brigands to loot. When an economy is based on the gold standard, he who owns the gold makes the rules. Besides, the root culture of al-Qaeda hates the dollar yet worships gold as if the hand of Hubal were still its true deity. Meanwhile, fiat currency combined with the availability of international credit to corrupt officials is an open invitation to embezzlement.
In contrast, a currency based upon foodstuffs would feel tangible to people in the Third World, nothing like the monopoly money that masquerades as currency in Zimbabwe and similar kleptocracies. A currency based upon a food basket means that money can literally grow on trees, so a food-based currency encourages agriculture just as a gold standard encourages gold mining. A food basket also forces a government to buy foodstuffs to combat inflation while opening its granaries to combat deflation (and starvation). Why shouldn’t a nation like Guatemala base the value of its currency upon the prices of bananas, mangos, and rubber? Why shouldn’t a nation like Syria peg the value of its currency to the prices of wheat, chickpeas, figs, and dates?
When a nation bases its currency upon a tangible domestic resource, any looting by officialdom becomes more transparent and correspondingly easier to punish.
Jul 1, 2008 - 9:10 pm 27. Charles:the guys over at the elephant bar have a good post on the US dollar. along the way they point to the way a large number of countries around the world are piling up dollars in their treasuries they can’t do much with but maybe cause trouble.
Jul 1, 2008 - 9:27 pm 28. fred:http://2164th.blogspot.com/2008/06/can-dollar-be-saved.html
More proof that the AQ and other Islamic jihad operations fundamentally do not understand the American people. We do not want the U.N. in New York. We do not even want to be in the U.N. The sooner we part from the U.N. and invite it to leave our country, the better. Also, do those morons in Algeria not know that the U.N. has been a fairly consistent anti-Israel, anti-U.S. organ? The stupidity of these people is breathtaking.
Jul 1, 2008 - 9:57 pm 29. NahnCee:THe thing about a League of Democracies is that it would have to include Russia, which is nominally democratic (as is Zimbabwe, incidently). And since someone else thinks it should also include China just because, then we’re right back with Britain, USA, Russia, China and France being in it. I’m failing to see where this would be a step in any new direction, in an oil-for-money scam sort of way.
I also disagree with the commenter above who said that we cannot pull out of the UN. We’ve already pulled out of their upcoming conference on racism. I predict that in the future, we’ll be pulling out of more and more UN-funded confernences and projects until all that’s left is a final tug on the plug. But by that time, they’ll be based in Algeria, will have lots of other things to worry about, and probably won’t even notice.
Jul 1, 2008 - 10:08 pm 30. Kirk Parker:Wretchard’s redesign is clearly better than the UN we have now, but I’d suggest an even better replacement: nothing.
Seriously, let’s have half a century of dealing with long- and medium-term problems via ad hoc coalitions of the willing, and see how the results compare. As for emergencies, why not just let the US Navy and Marines deal with them? That’s what ends up happening anyway, to a large extent, so we might as well be honest about it. Sure, it’s not really fair that the US fronts the cost for all this, but (a) emergency deployments can be useful training/preparedness exercises, and (b) the cost would hurt a lot less if we were no longer paying for the Useless Debating Society, too.
Jul 2, 2008 - 12:41 am 31. bobal:Move ‘em to some island way out in the south Pacific, a small island, unihabited.
Jul 2, 2008 - 1:09 am 32. Zenster:Brahimi concluded that “United Nations personnel around the world are increasingly likely to be targets for attack because the organization is perceived by some as a tool of powerful members, rather than an unbiased advocate for all nations”. In other words, America, or at least the West, was the indirect provocation for the Algerian bombings.
Boy howdy! As if nobody saw that one coming.
Thirdly, America taints the UN with its money; some of which Mr. Brahimi regrettably receives and would doubtless return, were he only given an opportunity to do so.
Masterful, Wretchard, absolutely masterful. Worth the price of admission alone.
The bombing of the UN offices is driven more by the trends which produced Robert Mugabe than those which elected George W. Bush.
If only irony could kill instead of just tweak.
For example, every government official above the rank of bureau director or colonel should execute a waiver giving up the prospect of residence, citizenship or bank accounts in developed countries. In that way, any aspirant to the post of El Presidente will be forced into a make or break commitment to his country.
For that I would even hold my breath.
Just kidding!!!
Jul 2, 2008 - 2:04 am 33. Pascal:And as he labored on, upon the thoughts of Lakhdar Brahimi this clip intruded insistently.
Jul 2, 2008 - 9:18 am 34. NahnCee:I think I agree that no UN, nor any new incarnation, would be a good thing to try for a while. I hate it a lot that we’re pouring perfectly good dollars into the pockets of a bunch of a bunch of unqualified banana republic bureaucrats whose sole goal for existance is to put down America. Relocating it, even to a godforsaken hole like Algeria, would still mean that we’re contributing to the health and prosperity of beings like Kofi Annan and his family, including the purchase of Mercedes’ for his idiot son. I just don’t want to play that game any more, at all. Let Baby Annan steal his own Mercedes with a Nigerian internet scam, like all his relatives have had to do.
Jul 2, 2008 - 10:33 am 35. David M:The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 07/02/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Jul 2, 2008 - 11:10 am 36. Steynian 186 « Free Mark Steyn!:[...] THE NEW YORK TIMES has summarized a new UN report by Lakhdar Brahimi, who was assigned to examine why United Nations [...]
Jul 2, 2008 - 2:29 pm 37. Wadeusaf:Actually for all the good and for all the bad, on balance the UN still has a lot to offer. But the balance sheets have to be brought up for accounting, and the lack of transparency or worse the incredibly transparent and sophomoric kleptobiosis with which some missions are carried out is for many of its important missions nothing short of appalling.
Which is why even under the auspices of the UN, it was NATO-an alliance democracies- that managed the stuff in the former Yugoslavia, and even though it operated under the auspices of the UN the Coalition- a grab bag assortment of tyrannies and republics- could not muster the moral fortitude to take out Saddam completely, despite the crimes committed not only in Iraq but in Kuwait and against Iran and it was the US acting unilaterally with the Coalition of the Willing- all democracies, many recently free of a similar oppression that the Iraqis exited under- that took Saddam version of Stalin out, and assisted the Iraqi’s in replacing it with a republic.
No doubt about it, all three examples have hallmarks of corruption and waste, but only one can be considered even close to being successful at the present time, with an end game in sight.
I think realistically we expect too much from the UN, and expect too little of individual members.
Jul 2, 2008 - 7:06 pm 38. Saul Wall:Re the first comment, Brussels has enough problems. Send them to China. Or better yet, Iran (Saudi Arabia would be my first choice but Saudi’s wouldn’t want all the infidels).
Occasionally the UN does get something right in spite of itself but that doesn’t mean that these successes could not be achieved via other means. And what they get wrong is far from accidental but a result of the institution pursuing the most vile of motivations.
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