Just a Kofi klatch
Saddam Hussein wasn't the first to defy the United Nations with impunity. He won't be the last. In fact, the real question is whether, no matter how grave the threat or monstrous the genocide, the UN will ever again actually intervene in a grave international crisis in the manner envisaged by its founders.
Twelve years, seventeen empty resolutions, an expulsion of the inspectors... and when, at last, the United States, Britain, and a handful of other nations acted themselves to give effectual life to the UN's own repeated and long-standing position, it was the Coalition which was villified. Not only that, but both the evil and cynical on one hand and the innocent and naive on the other accused the nations of the Coalition for a "rush to war" in merely enforcing the otherwise empty threats made by seventeen seperate UN Security Council resolutions over a period of twelve years!
Now, as for long years past, the Christians of Sudan are facing persecution and outright genocide. One of the great crimes of history continues unabated while the dictators and effete pseudo-sophisticates reserve their scorn for those who actually act in the face of evil. And the UN does nothing but talk. Cambodia....Rwanda....Kosovo....Iraq....Sudan.... the sad and sorry list just goes on and on.
Parenthetically, one wonders why it was bad for Bill Clinton to unilaterally wage war in Kosovo without UN approval (and with Halliburton having been given exactly the same deal by the Clintonistas that it was given in Iraq under the current adminstration!) is regarded by the hypocrites both at home and abroad as acceptable and proper, while the same things are treated as deadly sins when engaged in by the Bush Administration. Nor was the failure to find Saddam's WMD's the issue; both the peace treaty which ended the Gulf War and those seventeen resolutions required Saddam not merely to get rid of the WMD's he admitted having at some point and never accounted for, but to destroy them under UN supervision. That supervision was the only brief Hans Blix ever had from the UN. He was never authorized to go running around looking for WMD's while Saddam publicly played him for a fool. And Saddam never did even account for those WMD's, much less destroy them under UN supervision.
Surely it is clear to all but the most hopelessly romantic and naive that despite the useful work done by many of its auxiliaries, the UN is, as a political institution, totally, completely and absolutely useless. It serves only as a forum for the obstructionists and haters of this world- in many cases, the very sort of people it was originally intended to help contain.
Twelve years, seventeen empty resolutions, an expulsion of the inspectors... and when, at last, the United States, Britain, and a handful of other nations acted themselves to give effectual life to the UN's own repeated and long-standing position, it was the Coalition which was villified. Not only that, but both the evil and cynical on one hand and the innocent and naive on the other accused the nations of the Coalition for a "rush to war" in merely enforcing the otherwise empty threats made by seventeen seperate UN Security Council resolutions over a period of twelve years!
Now, as for long years past, the Christians of Sudan are facing persecution and outright genocide. One of the great crimes of history continues unabated while the dictators and effete pseudo-sophisticates reserve their scorn for those who actually act in the face of evil. And the UN does nothing but talk. Cambodia....Rwanda....Kosovo....Iraq....Sudan.... the sad and sorry list just goes on and on.
Parenthetically, one wonders why it was bad for Bill Clinton to unilaterally wage war in Kosovo without UN approval (and with Halliburton having been given exactly the same deal by the Clintonistas that it was given in Iraq under the current adminstration!) is regarded by the hypocrites both at home and abroad as acceptable and proper, while the same things are treated as deadly sins when engaged in by the Bush Administration. Nor was the failure to find Saddam's WMD's the issue; both the peace treaty which ended the Gulf War and those seventeen resolutions required Saddam not merely to get rid of the WMD's he admitted having at some point and never accounted for, but to destroy them under UN supervision. That supervision was the only brief Hans Blix ever had from the UN. He was never authorized to go running around looking for WMD's while Saddam publicly played him for a fool. And Saddam never did even account for those WMD's, much less destroy them under UN supervision.
Surely it is clear to all but the most hopelessly romantic and naive that despite the useful work done by many of its auxiliaries, the UN is, as a political institution, totally, completely and absolutely useless. It serves only as a forum for the obstructionists and haters of this world- in many cases, the very sort of people it was originally intended to help contain.
Comments