A background note by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said a 2007 report wrongly stated that 55 percent of the country was below sea level since the figure included areas above sea level, prone to flooding along rivers. . . .While the UN panel claims that this misstatement doesn't change the "core conclusions" about human induced global warming, those of us with normal reasoning powers know that any study that is filled with as many holes as this one can hardly come to any truly scientific conclusions.The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the original source of the incorrect data, said on February 5 that just 26 percent of the country is below sea level and 29 percent susceptible to river flooding.
"Some countries like Greece do have deficits of 12.5% of GDP [gross domestic product], which is intolerable and has to be reduced. Other countries like the United States and the main European nations have plenty of room to increase their deficits."Supporting running up an even higher debt to pass on to our children (and great-great-great-grand children) is bad enough. But here's what he thinks of Obama's plan to put additional controls on financial institutions:
"I think that since the adjustment process to the recession is incomplete, there is a need for additional stimulus. The political resistance to it increases the chances of a double dip in the economy in 2011 and after that."
With the first day of the World Economic Forum dominated by the debate over re-regulation of the banks, Soros said he was supportive of Barack Obama's plan to limit the size and scope of Wall Street institutions, but said that it "did not go far enough".According to socialist Soros, only government can control a bank so as to keep it from failing. Evidently, government programs can't fail. Which is true, as long as you have taxpayers willing to keep throwing money at a problem that would have long ago died a painful death in the free market.
He said that even if the reforms were agreed, the problem of banks considered "too big to fail" would remain. "Institutions have to be controlled so that they don't fail. They have to be kept under much closer regulatory supervision."
Soros said the globalisation of finance should be matched by global supervision. Leverage limits and tougher capital regulations would help to reverse the trend of the past few decades. "Deregulation became contagious," Soros said.
I’m shocked! Shocked I tell you!
That paragon of morality in a corrupt world has been exposed in a report that is the result of a two-plus year probe into the operations of the United Nations Development Program for North Korea. The report shows how the agency routinely and systematically disregarded U.N. regulations and considered itself above the law:
The report depicts an organization that for years apparently considered itself immune from its own rules of procedure as well as the laws and regulations of countries that were trying to keep weapons of mass destruction out of Kim’s hands.
It also shows that UNDP apparently considered itself above the decisions of the United Nations Security Council, itself, when that organization tried — as it is still trying — to bar Kim from gaining the means to create more weapons of mass destruction.
The UNDP operation not only transferred millions of dollars to the corrupt Kim Jong-Il regime, it also gave Kim “dual use” technology that can be used for civilian purposes or for terrorist activites or perhaps even creating weapons of mass destruction. Specifically:
The report reaches two disturbing conclusions, which do little more than support the view of the UN as a corrupt, perhaps even evil, entity:
Fox News’ George Russell wraps up his article nicely:
Rather than bringing “closure on the allegations against UNDP,” as the organization’s boss, Dervis, hopes, the North Korean investigative report ought to raise bigger and more urgent questions about UNDP operations around the world.
If Kim Jong Il’s despotic government was able to twist UNDP’s rules and its adherence to international law with such ease, what is going on in UNDP offices in dictatorships such as Zimbabwe and Syria?
Most urgently of all, as the U.N. wobbles toward further sanctions on the nuclear-ambitious Islamic regime in Iran, what is going on in UNDP offices in Tehran?
What, indeed? Do we need further proof that the UN aids terrorist regimes and is a destabilizing force in the world politic?
And does anyone really think that either a President McCain or (shudder) a President Barack will hold the UN accountable, much less withdraw our ambassador and kick the whole oily mess across the ocean to Europe where it belongs?
Officers attached to UN forces in Western Sahara spray painted graffiti on top of 6,000 year old cave drawings, some going so far as to sign and date their work. The UN is thinking of extreme measures, including reassigning the officers and perhaps even reporting them to their home countries.
From IBD, Waving The Flag Of Fear:
One day after the United Nations issued a doomsday report on global warming, it admits it has grossly exaggerated the seriousness of the AIDS problem. The cycle of fear-mongering at the U.N. continues. . . .
Remember the 1980s, when we were told that AIDS was a nondiscriminatory disease destined to wipe out large segments of the population and bring untold ruin to humanity?
When Life magazine declared on its cover in 1985 that "Now No One Is Safe From AIDS"? When the new Black Plague, worse than the first, was upon us? Who could forget Oprah Winfrey's dire warning that a fifth of heterosexuals would be dead by 1990? . . .
Global warming fear-mongering is likely to fall by the wayside in the next decade or so when it becomes obvious that the charlatans have been wrong. That won't be the end, however; global warming will be replaced by a wild exaggeration that sounds even more threatening.
Read it all, remembering ZPG from the 70's because the Earth would be overrun with people if we didn't stop having babies, the "we'll be out of oil by the year 2000" from the 60's, and every other crackpot idea you've heard from the alarmists.
The last UN Resolution demanding the Iran stop enriching uranium expired in May, and Iran remains defiant. This is different that Saddam's behavior before the liberation of Iraq, as he at least pretended to cooperate while leading Hans "Inspector Clouseau" Blix on wild goose chases across the countryside.
This time the member of the axis of evil is out-and-out thumbing his nose at the rest of the world, making just enough concession to draw out the "diplomacy" while continuing to add centrifuges for enriching uranium.
Yet many people put their trust in the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and it's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei.
Newsweek interviewed IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei about his efforts, and ElBaradei made two very concrete claims.
Newsweek: When the plan was announced, critics said it could undermine the Security Council's efforts to pressure the Tehran government.
ElBaradei: There was a lot of commotion and misunderstanding about this plan. It's a litmus test for Iran. In two or three months we'll know if Iran is serious about coming clean. If they do, that obviously will create better conditions for negotiations. If they [don't], then of course we will be in a different ball game altogether.Newsweek: What if in three months Iran hasn't delivered? If this diplomacy isn't backed by a credible threat of force, the Iranians can stall and keep enriching and eventually they will have the material that could go into a bomb.
ElBaradei: If Iran were to prove that it was using this period for delaying tactics and it was not really acting in good faith, then, obviously, nobody—nobody—will come to its support when people call for more sanctions or for punitive measures. That is a point that has been made very clear to them by everybody, including myself. If we come [back] with a negative report after three months, I don't see that anybody will come and say, well, give them another chance.
There you have it. If Iran has not revealed all by the first day of the new year, it is time for action.
After watching "diplomacy" and international politics for a few years, however, there is no doubt that by the first of the year Mr. ElBaradei will be singing a very different tune. One that acknowledges a lack of success but praises imaginary progress and calls for more time and further inspections. We've seen this play out before and I have no doubt that ElBaradei and Blix are cut from the same cloth.
Wait. You'll see.
Word has it that President Bush will nominate Zalmay Khalilzad to be Bolton's replacement as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.
Khalilzad is a Sunni Muslim, currently serving as ambassador to Iraq:
A consummate dealmaker, Khalilzad played an active role trying to push the Iraqi government toward political reconciliation. Khalilzad's efforts [alienated] some in the Shia-dominated Iraqi government who complained that Khalilzad was biased in favor of Iraq's Sunnis.
Wizbang thinks that Khalilzad will be "a great advocate for America's interests at the UN."
Matt at Blogs for Bush says that the president "should leave the post vacant after the Democrats shamefully obstructed John Bolton."
I disagree, believing that if we are going to pay for the UN, we should at least be there to try and control things.
But both miss the elephant in the room. Does anyone believe that Khalilzad will be the tiger we need to protect Israel from the billion surrounding Muslims that threaten its very existence, at the international body that has repeatedly shown itself to be anti-Semitic?
This would never have gone through a Republican Congress. The Democrats will not want to be seen obstructing a Muslim's appointment to this role so I predict he will be confirmed.
Israel is screwed.
In spite of launching (and sustaining) a concerted effort to control the population explosion in 1952, India hasn't exactly been successful. India's population crossed the 1 billion mark in 1999 and is expected to surpass China by 2040.
One reason is that for some reason condoms don't work well in India, with men in that country experiencing an incredible 15 to 20 per cent failure rate. And men who experience repeated failures don't continue using them.
There is only one size of condom sold throughout most of India, which follows the World Health Organization's recommendation.
Working on the theory that the WHO recommendation wasn't "optimized" for India's population, and on the concept that perhaps all men are not created equal, a study was launched in 2001 to determine if variations in penis size is the reason that so many condoms fail. (Condoms too small are more likely to rupture, those too large will spill.)
This was a high tech study, using digital photographs and sophisticated software (no pun intended). And now, five years later, the early results are in.
The WHO recommended condom size of 150 to 180 mm in length (6 to 7 inches) is too large for the general Indian population. Preliminary data shows that 60% of men in Mumbai (the financial capital) measure 5 to 6.1 inches and another 30% are 4 to 5 inches in length.
While the news organizations and blog posts have concentrated on the obvious (but somewhat humorous) cheap shots (e.g., Times of India: Indian men don't measure up), they are missing the real story.
India has almost six million people with HIV/AIDS, the world's highest caseload. WHO made an ill-conceived, poorly researched recommendation for solving the problem with condoms and the people of India are paying for it.
The really sad point of this story is that the UN has yet another spectacular failure to add to their pathetic record, and the media failing to point it out.
On the other hand, I rather enjoyed this phrase from last night's Saturday Night Live:
Which explains why they're always cranky when I call tech support.
Side Note: The Four Seasons Condoms company in Australia completed a similar study in 1999. They just included a little ruler and a survey in their product and promised two free condoms for participating. When they saw the results, they started offering condoms in three sizes. Low-tech is often the best way to go.
Update: India is closing in on China in another grim statistic: female feticide. With the economic boom in India, wealthy families have access to diagnostic technology and are killing girls either shortly before or, in too many cases, after birth.
A United Nations report states clearly and unequivocally: you have no right to defend yourself. Particularly with a gun. Period.
From the summary:
The principle of self-defense has an important place in international human rights law, but does not provide an independent, supervening right to small arms possession, nor does it ameliorate the duty of States to use due diligence in regulating civilian possession.
Just in case you were one of those doubting the "hidden" agenda of the UN to remove small arms possession from anyone except tyrants and thugs.
Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations applies to States acting in self-defense against armed attacks against their State sovereignty. It does not apply to situations of self-defense for individual persons.
Mao Tse-tung: 14 to 20 million dead. Joseph Stalin: 20 million dead. Pol Pot: 1 to 3 million dead. Kim Il Sung: 4 million dead. Adolf Hitler: 60 million dead.
The UN would never think to take weapons away from these monsters. But you and I — we are to be feared. Can't trust us with guns!
Indeed, the UN report calls for regulation and licensing:
16. Minimum effective measures that States should adopt to prevent small arms violence, then, must go beyond mere criminalization of acts of armed violence. Under the principle of due diligence, it is reasonable for international human rights bodies to require States to enforce a minimum licensing requirement designed to keep small arms and light weapons out of the hands of persons who are likely to misuse them. ...
The criteria for licensing may vary from State to State, but most licensing procedures consider the following: (a) minimum age of applicant; (b) past criminal record including any history of interfamilial violence; (c) proof of a legitimate purpose for obtaining a weapon; and (d) mental fitness.9
Other proposed criteria include knowledge of laws related to small arms, proof of training on the proper use of a firearm and proof of proper storage. Licences should be renewed regularly to prevent transfer to unauthorized persons.
Once the UN starts dictating licensing, it won't be long before no one will be eligible for said licensing (unless, of course, you're a celebrity like Sean Penn). And if you do eventually traverse the bureaucracy and grease the right palms, trigger locks and gun safes will be mandatory (do you think a crack-head robber will give you the time to unlock the safe, get the gun, unlock the other safe for the ammunition, and load before trying to take your head off and raping your daughter?).
The UN report specifically acknowledges the fact that the freedom-loving citizens of the United States stand in the way of advancing the anti-gun, make-everyone-a-victim agenda:
While regulation of civilian possession of firearms remains a contested issue in public debate - due in large part to the efforts of firearms manufacturers and the United States of America-based pro-gun organizations - there is in fact almost universal consensus on the need for reasonable minimum standards for national legislation to license civilian possession in order to promote public safety and protect human rights.
Yes, if you define "universal consensus" as the opinions expressed at New York cocktail parties and in the UN cafeteria.
And, of course, the "assault weapons" lie is perpetrated, all in the guise of keeping you from being a danger to tyrants:
17(a) The prohibition of civilian possession of weapons designed for military use (automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles, machine guns and light weapons);
But then to the real crux of the matter. Just as the US Supreme Court has ruled that the police do not have the responsibility of protecting individual citizens, the UN says we don't have the right to protect ourselves:
20. Self-defense is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defense is a basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defense is sometimes designated as a “right”. There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defense is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another.
21. No international human right of self-defense is expressly set forth in the primary sources of international law:
But surely, this isn't all just a campaign to take our guns. Or is it?
34. Even if there were a “human right to self-defense”, it would not negate the State’s due diligence responsibility to maximize protection of the right to life for the society through reasonable regulations on civilian possession of weapons.
Holy Brady Campaign, Batman! They sound just like liberal gun control hoplophobes of the last 40 years in America!
Yet what were the Founder's true intent?
What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
— Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1787
I am an armed citizen. Tyrants fear me and the United Nations can kiss my ass!
From my cold, dead fingers, you bastards! Molon labe!
Technorati tags: UN, United Nations, Second Amendment, American Sovereignty, Gun Control, Gun Rights, Self Defense, Victim Disarmament, Criminal Empowerment, UN Supports Tyrants, UN Wants Your Guns!, Malon Labe.
But U.N. officials are protesting, saying they have nothing but the best of intentions:
Mr. Kariyawasam said, "Some members of the U.S. public are totally misinformed. This conference is about illegal weapons."Yeah, let's fall for that one. To the U.N., all guns in the hands of anyone other than their blue-helmeted rapists are illegal. To get an idea of the gun-grabbing loons behind these movements check out this article about the Control Arms Campaign (wouldn't you know Amnesty International is involved?).
Back to the original article:
The United Nations agreed in 2001 to fight the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons after a divisive battle to define the scope of their efforts. Governments pledged to collect and destroy illegal weapons and tighten legislation to squeeze out illicit importing, exporting and sales.These people learned from watching the Second Amendment get eroded away over decades. Freedoms are chipped away slowly so people don't notice.The effort is restricted to small arms and light weapons -- basically, anything that can be fired by a person or transported on the back of a pickup truck.
First they came for my BB gun, and I had outgrown it, so I did not protest. Then they came for my ammunition stores, and I thought "I can buy more as I need it," so I said nothing. Then . . .
Well, you get the idea.
So far, 50 nations have destroyed excess weapons by burning them in "flames of peace" bonfires or crushing them under massive bulldozers.Yeah, and how is that working out? Anyone notice the world becoming a safer place? Hear anything from the citizens in Darfor? Rwanda? How about asking the children of Beslan?
Would a U.N. treaty have kept Mao from killing 49 million people? Stalin from purging 13 million? Hitler from murdering six million? Pol Pot and his two million?
Weapons are available to insurgents and tyrants, and they always will be. Hell, Saddam's kids didn't even need guns, they just fed people to a plastic shredder.
But that won't stop the U.N. from trying to take your gun and (more importantly) the guns from your children and grandchildren. So go get an idea of what to write and to whom (or just send the provided form letters — no one at the U.N. is going to read them, we're just going for volume), and send a letter or three of your own. I'm going to include an email to each of my elected servants to tell them to stop supporting the U.N. It's time to discard that carcass and form something better.
Then jump over to CNN and vote in the poll. It seems that only 43% of CNN readers know that the U.N.'s ultimate goal will effectively outlaw gun ownership in the U.S. Let's go set them straight.
Update: Say Uncle notes that one "news" story characterizes the letters as "hate mail":
Hate mail? Really? Or, you know, concerned folks voicing their opinions.Exactly.
Technorati Tags: United Nations, Gun Grabbing Internationalists, Second Amendment, Gun Rights, Gun Control, Individual Rights, Liberal Agenda, Eroding Liberty, Fading Freedom.
A global effort is needed to tackle rape and other sexual violence in war zones, the United Nations said on Wednesday, calling responses to a worsening problem with tens of thousands of victims "grossly inadequate."Ummm . . . how about not sending in your blue helmets to commit rape in many countries, trade food for sex with barely-pubescent girls and run Internet pedophile rings — all of which has been happening for decades.
Of Interest has posted a report authored by "a concerned group of current and former UN employees" and distributed by IO Watch. A sample:
Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules (and are illegal under most national laws) and revolve around patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications. Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management slots while others are placed in senior positions solely because of their nationality, or because of favors owed to them by their supervisors or colleagues.There's much more, ending with a request to contact your elected servant in the House and Senate and tell them to stop talking about reforming the UN, but to "create a NEW organization that can lead the world well into the 21st Century".Salaries for UN employees are free of taxes and come with six weeks vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are often used as vacation, plus 4 weeks of "home leave", rental and housing grants to supplement an already generous salary (we all make an average of $7,000-$10,000 a month tax free), a pension at 8% of salary times years of service that can be cashed out tax free at any time, and educational subsidies for children of UN employees. Many also participate in an "alternative work schedule" in which they get every other Friday off. But don't even try to apply. Your application will not be acknowledged nor will you ever get invited for a job interview. You must know someone to work at the UN (or worse, sleep with them).
Sounds like a fine idea to me.
Kerry Watch: The hubris of a billionaire's self defense fund.
Economy Watch: US Steelmakers are expecting robust demand for the rest of the year, making it the third year in a row that demand has remained strong.
Tax Watch: It looks like Republican lawmakers will succeed in extending some of the tax cuts for another year or two.
UN Watch: U.N. peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors.
MSM Watch: The New York Times has once again been caught plagerizing.
Illegal Alien Watch: An Arizona sheriff is using an old tactic to find and arrest those entering our country illegally: posses.
Health Watch: Cancer resistant mice have been discovered. "When white blood cells from the mice are injected into other mice, they eradicate advanced tumours and provide lifetime protection against the disease. ... Even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with very large tumours were eradicated."
Looney Watch: PETA has launched an ad campaign in which PETA President and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk is quated as saying, "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." [One supposes the same goes for cancer.]
Fun Facts for Lefties: Fidel Castro is apparently worth $900 million and ranked seventh on the Forbes magazine list of wealthy heads of state.
The condemnation followed by two days a failed attempt to get a condemnation issued on Monday, the day of the attack, when Algeria came out against any mention of Hizbullah in the statement.When asked what changed from Monday to Wednesday, one diplomatic official replied: "John Bolton," a reference to the US ambassador to the UN. Bolton lobbied vigorously for the passage of the statement.
The U.N. initiated a 60-day top-to-bottom review of the project to bring the cost of the project down. Instead, the review estimates the cost will be in the $1.9 billion range, even after implementing a number of cost-saving measures. In other words, before a single construction worker has been hired or a sheet of drywall purchased, the cost of the project has soared 58 percent!
Personally, I think Trump underestimated the U.N.'s propensity for failure. I predict $4.5 billion.
The video is peacefully introduced by birds, butterflies and happy Smurfs playing and singing their theme song when suddenly out of the sky, bombs rain down onto their forest village, scattering Papa Smurf and the rest as their houses are set ablaze.Links to video: One version and a longer commercial version.The bombs kill Smurfette leaving Baby Smurf orphaned and crying at the edge of a crater in the last scene of the video and finishing of with the text "don't let war destroy the children's world."
It calls on viewers to donate.
Update: Best headline: UNICEF Snuffs Smurfs:
Julie Lamoureux, account director for Publicis, the ad agency that created the campaign, says the original concept included even more graphic imagery of weapons of mass Smurfstruction.That's too bad. There's nothing like realistic Smurf mayhem to make you think about the horrors of war."We wanted something that was real war--Smurfs losing arms, or a Smurf losing a head--but they said no," she told the Telegraph.
Israel's foreign minister on Tuesday underlined the Jewish state's gains from its withdrawal from Gaza, disclosing that he met with his counterparts from more than 10 Arab and other Muslim nations this week.No one can deny that the changes going on in the Middle East are surprisingly significant. After all, who would have thought that Hamas would consider anything but the total destruction of Israel?Silvan Shalom also told the U.N. General Assembly that Israel would seek a seat on the powerful Security Council for the first time. ...
"The iron wall" that stood between Israel and most Islamic countries is coming down, Shalom said. "Relations are growing at a rate never seen before."
Hamas could one day amend a charter calling for the destruction of Israel and hold negotiations with the Jewish state, a political leader of the Islamic militant group in the West Bank said.Astounding news. Still, anyone who thinks that Israel will get a seat at the most powerful table in the anti-semitic UN has got to be on crack."The charter is not the Koran," Mohammed Ghazal told Reuters in an interview in Nablus on Tuesday.
"Historically, we believe all Palestine belongs to Palestinians, but we're talking now about reality, about political solutions ... The realities are different."
Meanwhile, with the murder of 52 innocents still fresh on the minds of UK citizens, a delegation of British Muslims has the chutzpah to ask Tony Blair to do away with Holocaust Memorial Day — because it is an affront to their sensibilities. Columnist Carol Gould responds:
However, now that the Muslim community of Great Britain has put its cards on the table and shown how little it cares about interfaith relations, it is little wonder even the most liberal of Anglo-Jewish leaders have recoiled in horror at the request for the abandonment of British Holocaust Day. Frankly, the idea that anyone would suggest the scrapping of this day of remembrance is repugnant and, simply stated, a hideous slur on the Jewish people. The Holocaust, born out of the repeated lies perpetrated by Hitler and Goebbels and reinforced by centuries of Blood Libels and slanders against Jews across the Christian world, is a defining moment in Jewish history. One and a half million babies and children were exterminated.
A bipartisan Senate task force says that the U.N. is burdened by an "ossified managerial structure" and calls for sweeping changes:
Among dozens of recommendations, the task force calls for the U.N. to develop a rapid reacting capability to quash threats of genocide; set up an independent auditing board; and institute weighted voting on financial issues for members who contribute larger portions of the U.N. budget.Is change possible, considering this?
Currently, member states who collectively pay less than 1 percent of U.N. dues comprise more than two-thirds of its membership, giving them power to block initiatives they don't like.In other news, one of those infamous unnamed sources says that an "influential Senate Republican body" is about to release a white paper that questions the impartiality of the International Committee of the Red Cross:
The paper will call for changes at the ICRC, including allowing non-Swiss nationals to become board members. It will also question whether the organisation is straying from its core mission by lobbying governments on issues such as biological weapons. ...Hell, I'm against giving any money to any "international" organization that only allows Swiss nationals on the board.The Senate aide said the policy paper would also call for an investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the oversight arm of Congress, into how the ICRC spent its funding, about 28 per cent of which it receives from the US.
And BTW, what do you call a Swiss national? A Swisser? A Swissican? If you just call them Swiss, what do you call a bunch of them? Swisses?
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday condemned for the first time sexual abuse among peacekeepers after being told U.N. members ignored such exploitation for decades, fearing exposure of their own soldiers' wrongdoing.Meanwhile, Kofi Annan gives a speech and his response to the decades-long sexual abuse of women and children the U.N. is supposed to protect is that the scandals are . . . embarrassing.The United Nations has accused peacekeepers and civilian staff in the Democratic Republic of Congo of rape, pedophilia, and enticing hungry children with food or money in exchange for sex. Sexual abuse on a smaller scale was discovered in other missions.
Hmmm. I wonder how long it will be before some lefty MSM journalists badgers Kofi about apologizing to the victims. I don't think I'll live that long.
In these dangerous times, we cannot afford to put at risk our nation's ability to successfully wage and win the war on terror with a controversial and ineffective ambassador to the United Nations.Really Senator? I think that in these dangerous times we cannot afford to keep supporting a corrupt and ineffective global organization that is sorely in need of reform, which is exactly what sending John Bolton will try to accomplish.
I really don't believe he's the best man we can send to the United Nations.Finally, something on which I can agree with Voinovich. Rough 'n tough Bolton is certainly not the best man we can send to the United Nations.
But then again, Rummy already has a job.
Once there, it is expected that he will be quickly confirmed. Assuming, that is, that no one decides to fillibuster the nomination, though that threat hasn't yet been issued.
Stygus has a very good and even-handed summary of the Democrat's case against Bolton.
It turns out that the building also houses the offices of Caterpillar, which has lately been the target of pro-Palestinian demonstrators and activists.
The latest news is that a U.N. staffer found loitering in the area has been questioned and is regarded as a "person of interest". But police are reviewing tapes from security cameras and searching for eye witnesses. It is still unclear as to exactly what happened as it appears that one of the homemade grenades was thrown from across the street.
In a letter made available Thursday by Bolton's office, Thatcher said she wrote to tell her longtime friend "how strongly I support your nomination.""To combine, as you do, clarity of thought, courtesy of expression and an unshakable commitment to justice is rare in any walk of life. But it is particularly so in international affairs," Thatcher wrote in her letter dated Wednesday.
"A capacity for straight talking rather than peddling half-truths is a strength and not a disadvantage in diplomacy. Particularly in the case of a great power like America, it is essential that people know where you stand and assume that you mean what you say."
The United Nations is investigating whether a senior official at one of its agencies, Justin Leites,violated U.N.rules and the organization’s spirit of international neutrality by taking a paid leave of absence last year to work as a Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign official in his home state of Maine.One cannot help but comment on the fact that Kerry lost even with help from the U.N. And he wants to run again?The investigation at the United Nations Development Program, a wellfunded program that oversees distribution of aid in developing countries and operates around the globe, calls into question the significance of the circle of Americans with ties to the Democratic Party that surrounds Secretary-General Annan at the top level of U.N. management.
This stirred up enough controversy that Congress is taking notice and wants to investigate the investigation. Volcker is unsuccessfully trying to stop that effort:
Mr. Volcker phoned key legislators, trying to convince them to stay away from Mr. Parton and Ms. Duncan, both of whom signed confidentiality agreements upon joining the IIC. But congressional subpoenas trump those agreements. "Mr. Parton respects the congressional committees and their work," his lawyer, Lanny Davis, told me, adding that Mr. Parton hoped a solution could be worked out between the United Nations and Congress.Volcker's political motivations are becoming more and more apparent.It might be too late for that - Mr. olcker's [sic] weekend phone calls did not sit well with legislators. "We should have an opportunity to talk" to the two investigators, Senator Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota, told CNN yesterday. "I am very disturbed that they [the United Nations] assert some kind of immunity."
Two senior investigators with the committee probing corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program have resigned in protest, saying they believe a report that cleared Kofi Annan of meddling in the $64 billion operation was too soft on the secretary-general, a panel member confirmed Wednesday.Roger Simon scooped this story yesterday by posting "unconfirmed... repeat unconfirmed... rumors of resignations". Today he posts this:
Meanwhile, this political game is being played out against a backdrop of escalating and seemingly endless corruption at the UN itself, which makes the question of Bolton's manners into a ludicrous sideshow. With Kofi Annan's adviser Canadian businessman Maurice Strong under fire, his Chef de Cabinet having resigned for destroying three-year's worth of documents, his first-ever deputy secretary general under a cloud for enabling 8-billion dollars worth of embezzlement (of money for starving children!), his own son having profiteered off the same scandal (not to mention the mother-of-all corrupt UN sleaze bags Benon Sevan and all the others we will soon know about), if Kofi himself isn't guilty, he's the only one in the Sectariat Building who isn't.He updates the post with confirmation of the resignations and more cogent commentary.
I have been reading the report. So far I can say this much -- anyone who thinks Kofi Annan is the man to reform the United Nations has the intelligence of a gnat or the morals of Saddam Hussein.Senator Norm Coleman posts this on his official website:
Kofi Annan is responsible for the failed management that resulted in the fraud and abuse of the Oil-for-Food Program. His lack of leadership, combined with conflicts of interest and a lack of responsibility and accountability point to one, and only one, outcome: His resignation.While the report (and liberal media) tries to portray Kofi as mostly blameless, Wizbang finds this on page 81:
The Committee finds: In light of the Sunday Telegraph article and the complaint of a conflict of interest because of Kojo Annan's employment, as well as the published information concerning the alleged illicit payments to the Bhutto family, the inquiry initiated by the Secretary-General was inadequate, and the Secretary-General should have referred the matter to an appropriate United Nations department (Office of Internal Oversight Services and/or Office of Legal Affairs) for a thorough and independent investigation. Had there been such an investigation of these allegations, it is unlikely that Cotecna would have been awarded renewals of its contract with the United Nations.Michelle Malkin finds who's backing Kofi:
Elsewhere, the Financial Times explains how Kojo got his mojo and earlier exposed hidden payments to Kojo from Cotecna, a shady inspection company. And, of course, you've all probably seen the Australian Times article on how Daddy Kofi plans to hang Kojo out to dry to save his own derriere.Say Anything has a personal observation:Speaking of which, the corruptocrats in France are voicing "full support" for Kofi Annan without having seen the Volcker report.
Guess who else is expressing "confidence" in Kofi? Apparently, our own State Department! The U.N. Dispatch, blog mouthpiece of the U.N. Foundation, provides a transcript.
Gack.
It is, as James Joyner puts it, one “hell of a coincidence” that the company picked by the United Nations to oversee the oil-for-food program just happens to employ the UN Secretary General’s son.Read the Volcker report yourself (in pdf format).I investigate fraud for a living. In my experience (albeit small potatoes compared to the type of fraud involved in the oil-for-food scandal) these type of coincidences don’t take place in a vacuum. There’s always a reason.
Regardless, even if Kofi didn’t unduly influence the picking of Cotecna his tenures as Secretary General at the UN has still been riddled with enough corruption and scandal to make it clear to even the most casual observer that he should step down.
KOFI ANNAN, the United Nations secretary-general, is said to be struggling with depression and considering his future. Colleagues have reported concerns about Annan ahead of an official report this week that will examine his son Kojo’s connection to the controversial Iraqi oil for food scheme.Rumor has it, he may even voluntarily resign.
Now, more than ever, the UN must play a critical role as it strives to fulfill the dreams and hopes and aspirations of its original promise to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith and fundamental human rights and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. President Bush has sent our most skilled and experienced diplomats to represent the United States at the UN. Today, I am honored to continue that tradition by announcing that President Bush intends to nominate John Bolton to be our next Ambassador to the United Nations.Little Red Blog has an excellent post on the story and approves of the choice.The President and I have asked John to do this work because he knows how to get things done. He is a tough-minded diplomat, he has a strong record of success and he has a proven track record of effective multilateralism.
Ankle Biting Pundits has a few quotes from Bolton that they like.
Junk Yard Blog also approves and predicts that Democrats will fight the nomination.
As for me, I just take a look at who disapproves by checking out how Bolton is referred to in the headlines. The BBC ("hardline UN envoy"), WaPo ("critic of UN"), UPI ("longtime hawk"), AP ("hard-liner") and Reuters ("UN Critic").
Surprisingly, the NY Times just refers to him as "weapons expert" although the Euro-ized version International Herald Tribune poetically calls him "a hawkish skeptic".
Overall, I'd say this guy sounds just about right to me. He hates the International Criminal Court and is sure to stand against any international taxes or gun-grabbing measures.
Also, the Command Post notes that North Korea called Bolten "human scum" and claims that he "promises to be the most ideologically straightforward and hawkish ambassador since Jeanne Kirkpatrick."
Michelle Malkin has a roundup of her own.
Update: Heh! The Opinion Journal says Bolton is "Tough Love for the U.N."
In a letter to the Security Council, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the "non-fraternisation" policy had been put in place along with a curfew for military contingents and other measures in the African nation.That'll show 'em! After all, it's for the children."We cannot tolerate even one instance of a United Nations peacekeeper victimising the most vulnerable among us," Annan said. He expressed "personal outrage" at the DRC revelations.
Others include employer-provided childcare, 10 per cent annual pay rises for three years and superannuation payments of 15 per cent by 2007.10% a year for three years?!
"A lot of women have terribly bad periods and they are genuinely ill and we simply say that has to be recognised."Yeah, and a lot of women have terribly bad emotional problems and are genuinely insane, but we give them jobs anyway.
This is nothing when compared to the massive corruption of the Oil for Palaces Food scandal. But it is indicative of an organization with a culture of ubiquitous malfeasance.
My warship had been transformed into a floating hotel for a bunch of trifling do-gooders overnight.Hat tip to non-blogging Advised by WolvesAs I went through the breakfast line, I overheard one of the U.N. strap-hangers, a longhaired guy with a beard, make a sarcastic comment to one of our food servers. He said something along the lines of “Nice china, really makes me feel special,” in reference to the fact that we were eating off of paper plates that day. It was all I could do to keep from jerking him off his feet and choking him, because I knew that the reason we were eating off paper plates was to save dishwashing water so that we would have more water to send ashore and save lives. That plus the fact that he had no business being there in the first place.
Investigators found "freshly used condoms" littering guard posts and command centres around Bunia, where peacekeepers from Pakistan, Morocco, Nepal and Bangladesh are based. "We are shocked, we are outraged, we are sickened," said William Lacy Swing, who heads the UN mission in Congo.The United Nations, of course, it the only organization in the world that has "moral authority"."Peacekeepers who have been sworn to assist those in need, particularly victims of sexual violence, instead have caused grievous harm. It is inexcusable. We are determined to stamp it out."...
The investigators reported that many had been raped by gunmen during Congo's civil war. The arrival in the country of 12,000 UN peacekeepers "augmented the problem".
From Somalia to Bosnia, Rwanda to Darfur, we have seen the UN in action, and how! We now have documentary evidence that shows the UN converted Iraq's 'oil for food' programme into a massive exercise in fraud and deceit. According to one estimate, as much as $10 billion may have been skimmed off from this programme, the world's largest UN-supervised and managed humanitarian aid project. News reports on the 'oil for food' scam have mentioned the name of a certain Kojo Annan as one of the beneficiaries. He happens to be Kofi Annan's son.Moral authority my ass.Iraq is not the only place where the UN has covered itself with less than glory in disbursing and managing aid. We have seen millions of dollars squandered or siphoned off in Angola, Somalia and Cambodia. In Kenya, UNICEF botched a project worth millions of dollars.
At the height of the infamous famine in Ethiopia during the 1980s, the UN spent $ 75 million in building and upgrading apartment complexes for its administrators and staff as food rotted in the docks due to lack of transport. In East Timor, $50 million of aid money, administered by the UN, has been reportedly used for building hotels and malls instead of schools and health centres.
As much as 70 per cent -- and that is a conservative estimate -- of the UN's operational costs goes towards staff salaries, inflated bills, first class air travel, fancy cars, fancier accommodation, often in five-star hotels, huge allowances and other pecuniary benefits. Half the UN's workforce, whether at headquarters spinning red tape or in the field administering aid, former Secretary General Boutros-Ghali famously told The Washington Post, 'does nothing.' But everybody has his or her snout in the trough.
A pioneering study on how the UN operates while administering aid provides a revealing insight: In a particular year, the 'Executive Board of the (UN) Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation received $1,759,584 for travel and lodging. During the same time it spent $49,000 on education for handicapped children in Africa, and $1,000 to train teachers in Honduras.'
We're proud of our armed forces who fight overseas against the terrorist threat so that America won't again face attack on our home soil. We're proud that coalition forces put an end to the violent regime of Saddam Hussein which paid over $34 million to Palestinian terrorists. We're proud that our forces have ended the Iraqi base of operation of terrorists that have killed scores of Americans. And we're grateful that our troops have made it that Saddam Hussein can never provide chemical or biological weapons to terrorists who will use it against American civilians. Now is not the time for America to retreat or show weakness. Please, support our troops as they help move America forward from the threats of terrorism.This was a timely and effective answer to the picture being painted by liberals and the MSM (as if the one is not merely a subset of the other).
Now that the election is over and the continuance of the Bush Doctrine assured for four more years, Move America Forward has reevaluated its purpose and set its sights on the United Nations -- they are preparing a campaign to broadcast the message that it is time for America to get out of the U.N.
Instead of serving as a rallying point for free nations and free people to unite to combat terrorism, the United Nations has become a safe harbor, apologist and defender of terrorist organizations and their agents.Their latest television commercial addresses this topic and can be downloaded and viewed from their website.Recently it has become clear that none other than the UN General Secretary himself, Kofi Annan, has been implicated in covering up the troubling "Oil for Food" scandal, and stonewalling investigators. The so-called "independent audit" of the alleged misdeeds of the UN's "Oil for Food" program is looking more and more like a whitewash.
This is a timely subject for two reasons. The first is that our politicians are getting ready to hand over $1.3 billion to the U.N. to build a new headquarters in the form of a loan with little to no interest. The second is, as Move America Forward's latest newsletter points out, the U.N.'s terrible track record of putting funds in the hands of terrorists. And now that they are in charge of nearly $4 billion in tsunami relief funds, there is no telling how much of that money will be diverted to one nefarious end or another.
I admit I am conflicted when pondering the subject of the United Nations. On the one hand I have a deep-rooted detestation for most of what the U.N. has become: bureaucratic, ineffective, anti-American, and an organization that gives terrorist nations seats of honor at the world table. On the other hand I believe in what the originally was intended to be: peer pressure on an international scale to advance the ideals of democracy and freedom, the coming together of many nations to help the oppressed and oppose tyrants, a place to coordinate efforts to bring food and medicine to those in need.
Unfortunately the United Nations is very much like pure Communism: an idea that sounds very good when explained but which fails miserable when implemented due to the avaricious, perfidious, venal, treacherous, praetorian and thoroughly despicable nature of man.
It is for this reason that I direct you to the contribution page of Move America Forward and suggest that you offer a few dollars to help the campaign.
Even if the campaign does not remove the United States from the U.N., it will serve to put the fear of poverty and unemployment into those useless parasites that fill the ranks of the U.N. staff. Perhaps that will be enough to initiate a few reforms that will make it so the bloated organization will return to doing more good than harm for at least a few years.
A United Nations official yesterday backpedaled from his claim that the United States is being "stingy" in its response to the Asian earthquake disaster after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell disputed the remark.This from an organization who is housed on our soil, whose officials and diplomats routinely flout American law, whose very existence depends on American largesse, and who is the largest anti-American organization in the world.
The SOB had better take it back. Some of us are getting sick and tired of supporting those leeches.
The shock has inspired action on an overhaul of the U.N.'s 16 peacekeeping missions around the world. In Congo, home to the largest operation - with about 11,000 soldiers and 1,200 civilians - the allegations point to nearly all of the major peacekeeping contingents. But they also involve senior civilian officials, including a top security officer, a chief on the U.N. special envoy's staff and an internal oversight investigator.You know the situation is bad when internal auditors are in on the deal.
The charges range from rape to exploitation - sex for a bottle of water or a military ration - to "relationships" or solicitations that are marked by a severe imbalance in power. One case, involving a French U.N. staffer who took digital pictures of underage girls, has caused concern that it could become "the U.N.'s Abu Ghraib" if the photos get out.But the press loves the U.N., so there's little danger of those photos getting out. Besides, they're of underage girls. Who could publish them?
Charges of sexual abuse have haunted U.N. peacekeepers for years, most notably during operations in Cambodia, the Balkans and Liberia in the 1990s. The cases in Congo, however, may mark a tipping point.Whoa, only two years: a new bureaucratic speed record for the U.N.!Two years after the first charges were made, top U.N. officials have finally denounced the problem openly and vowed to punish those involved.
Last month, Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the issue publicly for the first time.Translation: "Look! A huge scandal that I have nothing to do with! Forget Oil for Palaces corruption. Shiny! Shiny! Look over there while I quietly sweep my son's dirt under the rug.""I am afraid there is clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place. This is a shameful thing for the United Nations to have to say, and I am absolutely outraged by it," Annan said while attending a summit in neighboring Tanzania. He said that he had "zero tolerance" for sexual exploitation and abuse. "We cannot rest until we have rooted out all such practices … and we must make sure that those involved are held fully accountable."
That second bit seems a bit hypocritical given our stance on the World Court, but on the surface the funding part seems reasonable. After all:
The measure would withhold 10 percent of U.S. contributions to the United Nations in fiscal year 2005, rising to 20 percent in 2006, unless the world body satisfied President Bush that it was cooperating with the congressional investigation.But wait, a U.S. investigator already has all of the documents:That could affect about $40 million in 2005, double that in 2006, Flake said....
The United States is the largest single donor to the United Nations' regular budget, excluding peacekeeping costs, paying 22 percent of a two-year budget pegged at $3.16 billion for 2004-2005.
Japan pays 20 percent and members of the European Union collectively pay more than 35 percent.
The United Nations has given all its records to Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, who is conducting a probe and does not want papers handed piecemeal to Congress that may endanger his investigation.Given the petty partisan politics and intelligence leaks that happen every day in congress, I have to agree with Volcker. Our headline-hungry politicians should cool their jets a little on this one.Volcker has said he intends to hand over oil-for-food documents to Congress early next year.
There was no word of any criticism for Germany's military even though instructors "allegedly tied up their charges, covered their heads with hoods and in some cases, administered electric shocks" -- even though the number of reported cases has grown. Must be because these were "volunteers" rather than criminals imprisoned against their will.
In other U.N. news:
Strangely, these rapes occurred in spite of the intense training to the contrary:
"A PowerPoint presentation explains - or reminds - that the U.N. considers that any person who is less than 18 years old is a CHILD," the report said, adding that sex with a minor is child abuse. "No matter whether the child seems to agree to the sexual relation or if the age of the child is not clear enough at the moment of the sexual encounter."
Maybe the U.N. would lay off if the British guards were taking bribes and raping children.
John Danforth, the U.S. ambassador, has assailed the UN General Assembly, saying its decision to avoid voting on a resolution denouncing human rights violations in Sudan called into question the purpose of the Assembly.One wonders. This one has wondered for quite some time."One wonders about the utility of the General Assembly on days like this," he said Tuesday. "One wonders if there can't be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building? What is it all about?"
Update: A Reuters report gives much more detail on the diplomacy taking place in the U.N.
According to its website, UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) is a relief and human development agency, providing education, healthcare, social services and emergency aid to over four million refugees living in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab republic.
As the US and EU lead a campaign to shut down the flow of money to terrorist networks, UNRWA, a vast UN body, seems to have defied the system of tight controls set up to prevent the establishment of a channel linking finances with terrorists – and no one appears to have noticed.
In its finances section the Web site notes that "unlike the United Nations as a whole UNRWA has no system of assessed contributions."
We are talking about many millions of dollars. But wait, there’s more. Not only is the U.N. apparently channeling money directly to terrorists, they even give them jobs:
Peter Hansen, secretary-general of UNRWA, recently admitted in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that his organization employs Hamas members: "I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don't see that as a crime."
UN employees are expected to issue an unprecedented vote of no confidence in Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), union sources say, after he pardoned the body's top oversight official over a series of allegations.Like so many before him, Annan has become arrogant in his position. Time to take him down.The UN staff union, in what officials said was the first vote of its kind in the more than 50-year history of the United Nations (news - web sites), was set to approve a resolution withdrawing support for the embattled Annan and senior UN management.
Annan, who was Director of UN Peacekeeping in Rwanda when perhaps as many as one million people were slaughtered in 100 days; Annan, whose administration oversaw the failure in East Timor and left in ignominy; Annan, whose UN troops have stood impotently by and watched women get raped and children get slaughtered in the Congo for five years. Kosovo, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Mogadishu, Sudan, the now-infamous Oil for Palaces scandal -- it is difficult to find any successes in the litany of UN failures.
The United States, on the other hand, freed a nation that was little more than a collection of warring tribes and successfully held free elections -- a feat that the international community and the American left scoffed at a mere three years ago.
The United States toppled a sadistic tyrant, freed a nation, established a constitutional government as is on schedule to hold free elections next January -- a feat that the international community and the American left scoffed at a mere two years ago.
Yet with all his failures, Annan has the audacity to tell the United States that cleaning out a hotbed of terrorists that threaten to destabilize the entire Middle East is a bad idea. Annan has the impudence to claim that the U.S. mission to bring al-Zarquawi, the most murderous human being alive and operating, to justice is a bad idea.
Taking a look at the tactical situation, Annan says that terrorists should be left alive to operate out of a space this big:
because taking them out will upset the apple cart and destabilize an area this big:
See the red dot in the map above? That's Fallujah. That is the area from which al-Zarquawi and his murderous thugs conspire to kill American soldiers and threaten the burgeoning democracy in the heart of the Middle East. That is the area that Annan says we should stay out of because standing up to terrorists may have bad consequences (when have we heard that line before?).
Can't quite locate it? Here, maybe this will help:
With nationwide elections three months away, the senior United Nations official here says his office and the interim Iraqi government have assembled a list of nearly 14 million Iraqi voters, set up 550 voter registration sites around the country and hired 6,000 people to staff them.
Mark Levin decided to do some fact-checking and compared the U.S. coalition with the U.S.-led U.N. coalition of the Korea War:
| Korean War (peak troop numbers, by country, excluding Republic of Korea forces) | Iraqi Liberation (troop numbers, by country, as of July 2004, excluding Iraqi forces) | |||||
| United States | 348,000 | 89.79% | United States | 126,500 | 84.34% | |
| Great Britain | 14,198 | 3.66% | Great Britain | 8,300 | 5.53% | |
| Canada | 6,146 | 1.59% | Italy | 3,120 | 2.08% | |
| Turkey | 5,455 | 1.41% | Poland | 2,400 | 1.60% | |
| Australia | 2,282 | 0.59% | Ukraine | 1,650 | 1.10% | |
| Philippines | 1,496 | 0.39% | Netherlands | 1,400 | 0.93% | |
| New Zealand | 1,389 | 0.36% | Australia | 850 | 0.57% | |
| Thailand | 1,294 | 0.33% | Romania | 800 | 0.53% | |
| Ethiopia | 1,271 | 0.33% | Japan | 600 | 0.40% | |
| Greece | 1,263 | 0.33% | South Korea | 600 | 0.40% | |
| France | 1,119 | 0.29% | Denmark | 520 | 0.35% | |
| Colombia | 1,068 | 0.28% | Bulgaria | 485 | 0.32% | |
| Belgium/Luxembourg | 944 | 0.24% | Thailand | 450 | 0.30% | |
| South Africa | 826 | 0.21% | El Salvador | 380 | 0.25% | |
| Netherlands | 819 | 0.21% | Hungary | 300 | 0.20% | |
| Singapore | 200 | 0.13% | ||||
| Norway | 155 | 0.10% | ||||
| Azerbaijan | 150 | 0.10% | ||||
| Georgia | 150 | 0.10% | ||||
| Mongolia | 140 | 0.09% | ||||
| Latvia | 120 | 0.08% | ||||
| Portugal | 110 | 0.07% | ||||
| Czech Republic | 110 | 0.07% | ||||
| Lithuania | 105 | 0.07% | ||||
| Slovakia | 105 | 0.07% | ||||
| Albania | 70 | 0.05% | ||||
| New Zealand | 60 | 0.04% | ||||
| Tonga | 45 | 0.03% | ||||
| Estonia | 40 | 0.03% | ||||
| Kazakhstan | 30 | 0.02% | ||||
| Macedonia | 30 | 0.02% | ||||
| Moldova | 10 | 0.01% | ||||
| 16 nations | 387,570 | 100% | 32 Nations | 149,985 | 100% | |
In terms of overall troop level, the Iraq war is a much smaller war than the Korean War. Yet the number of nations in the Iraq war coalition currently doubles the Korean War coalition. Moreover, the United States was by far the largest contributor of military personnel in the Korean War, even though that was a U.N.-led coalition. And Poland, the Ukraine, and the Netherlands each contribute more military personnel to the Iraq War coalition than France contributed to the Korean War.The Korean War was fought with minimal support from France, no support from the then-Federal Republic of Germany, and against the Russian-backed Communist regime in North Korea.
The fact is that President Bush has built a real and impressive coalition in Iraq.
Delegates said the Antonovs and helicopter gunships usually strafed and bombed villages to prepare for the Janjaweed assault. They said Janjaweed fighters arrived on horseback and camels to kill, loot, rape and burn.This is making the news as if it were something new. Of course, to put things into proper context this is actually the second Sudanese genocide. The first was carried on against black non-Muslims (i.e., mainly Christians) in south Sudan -- a 20-year effort that killed 2 million, displaced 4 and half million and enslaved tens of thousands:The Janjaweed have been heavily armed and well-supplied, U.S. officials and congressional members said. They were provided with satellite phones to maintain constant communications with Sudanese military commanders.
Government forces, armed with sophisticated weapons and Islamist morale, waged an unrelenting jihad against the "atheist and infidel" southern rebels.The violence in Sudan has gone on too long:
But this is not the genocidal campaign of a government at the height of its ideological hubris, as the 1992 jihad against the Nuba was, or coldly determined to secure natural resources, as when it sought to clear the oilfields of southern Sudan of their troublesome inhabitants. This is the routine cruelty of a security cabal, its humanity withered by years in power: it is genocide by force of habit.History is important, as we will see in a moment. For now, we (like the press) will concentrate on the current situation. You see, now that most of southern Sudan has been cleansed of Christian blacks, the government (ruled by the National Islamic Front and seated in the Arab-dominated northern Sudan) is waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in an area of Sudan called Darfour to rid the country of black Muslims:
The most vicious ethnic cleansing you've never heard of is unfolding here in the southeastern fringes of the Sahara Desert. It's a campaign of murder, rape and pillage by Sudan's Arab rulers that has forced 700,000 black African Sudanese to flee their villages.Murder, rape, branding, pillage, enslavement -- all skills honed by 20 years of practice against a poorly-arm upstart rebellious south. On the other hand, government forces are well equipped. For example, earlier this year they purchased a dozen MiG-29 Fulcrum jet fighters from Russia to supplement the 34 Chinese Shenyang F-7 super-sonic fighters they have purchased since 2000. We can always trust the Russians and the Chinese to capitalize on human suffering in pursuit of making a buck. How terribly progressive and capitalistic of them.
This is a nation in which an entire generation has grown up in fear. Imagine living in a time and place that something like this was the daily reality:
"A 43-year-old woman told members of Fakhouri's team that she was one of many women who had been raped when she went out of Masteri for food and firewood.There are as many stories like this as there are people gathered together in that dreary place. Stories of children being carried off to be sold. Stories of children who fought their kidnappers, or so one would imagine for why else would their lifeless bodies by found discarded on the side of the road? Stories of a man who ventured out to gather a few sticks to build a hut but was caught and killed, leaving behind a family doomed to starvation."She said women are being raped every day, but they continue to go out because the men will be killed if they venture out."
The U.N. is concerned. Last Friday a Unitied Nations spokeman said that up to 30,000 refugees could flood a single spot on the Chad-Sudan border "if no credible measures are taken to make them feel secure inside." This would overwhelm the ability of aid organizations to care for the displaced persons and create a humanitarian crisis of mammoth proportions.
However, it seems that the looming crisis feared by UN officials may not happen after all as aid pours in and malnutrition is dropping to former levels. Never mind that 1.25 million people have been driven from their homes and (it is now believed) another 300,000 are dead -- the UN breathes a sigh of relief because the malnutrition isn't as bad.
Only a week ago it was reported that villages in Darfour were being strafed by aircraft. Yet the U.N. crows about this sign of progress:
The Sudanese government signed an agreement with the U.N. migration agency Saturday to ensure that more than one million people displaced by violence in the western region of Darfur can voluntarily return home -- but cannot be forced to do so.Remember the history? Remember the fear these people live under?
It will be shocking if many refugees decide to return, as most believe know that Sudan President Umar Bashir wants the country to be "a purely Arab nation."
And people complain about racism in America. If Dr. King were alive and in the Sudan his speech would be, "I have a dream where a woman can go to the well to get water without being raped because she is black; where a child can go outside without being kidnapped and sold into slavery to support a vile war; where a Muslim man is not murdered because he is not an Arab Muslim."
Is it any wonder that the Sudanese government has rejected the idea of African peacekeepers on thier soil? Why would they want any prying eyes as the cleansing continues?
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan says UN staff and property in Iraq will be guarded by the US-led multinational force.The Arab force is still a gleam in someone's eye and (surprise) France isn't filling the void.No country has volunteered to take part in a special protection force specifically for the UN.
A million people.
The UN mission is (for some unknown reason) called MONUC. These particular captured Hutus are creating a problem because -- get this -- they refuse to give up their weapons.
"MONUC cannot use force to disarm them," Nabaa said. "MONUC's programme for disarming and repatriating armed foreign groups operates on a voluntary basis."And this is the group to whom Kerry wants to turn over Iraq.
Nato forces and United Nations police in Kosovo were responsible for a "catastrophic" failure to protect minority communities during the upsurge of violence earlier this year, a report claimed yesterday.Human Rights Watch said there was a "near complete collapse" of security, allowing gangs of Albanians to drive Serbs, Roma and Ashkali (Albanian-speaking Roma) from their homes in the Yugoslav province.
The report, based on interviews with officials and victims, describes how, time after time, heavily armed soldiers of the Nato-led K-For stayed in their barracks as Serb homes were burnt and looted. Relief, when it did arrive, was often too little, too late, leading to a new status quo in which displaced communities found it impossible to return home.
In the village of Svinjare, a mob of armed Albanians marched past the main French K-For base before burning all of the 137 Serbian homes. The Nato troops stayed in their barracks watching buildings just a few hundred metres from their base go up in flames.
In nearby Vucitrn, French K-For soldiers failed to intervene while Albanian gangs set fire to 69 Ashkali homes, just 10 minutes' drive from the military base.
At Prizren, in the south-east, German K-For troops failed to protect the Serb population and the historic Orthodox churches and monasteries despite repeated and frantic calls for assistance from German UN police in the town.
The entire village of Belo Polje was burnt to the ground by the mob. This time it was Italian K-For troops who locked the gates of an adjacent base.
Even in the capital, Pristina, Serbian civilians had to barricade themselves into the upper floor of an apartment block, while Albanian gunmen shot out the windows from the streets and looted the flats below. It took K-For and the UN police more than six hours to come to their aid.
On 17 March, the report said, 33 separate riots broke out over a period of 48 hours involving more than 50,000 Albanians. Nineteen people were killed, 4,100 people were displaced from their homes, and at least 550 homes and 27 Orthodox churches were destroyed.
Among the catalysts for the violence were reports that a group of Serbs with dogs had driven three Albanian boys to their deaths in a river; the blocking of the main road from Pristina to Skopje by Serbs after the shooting of a Serb teenager; and a march by veterans of the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army protesting at the arrest of former KLA leaders on war crimes charges.
Human Rights Watch concluded: "This was the biggest test for Nato and the United Nations in Kosovo since 1999, when minorities were forced from their homes as the international community looked on.
"They failed the test. In too many cases, Nato peacekeepers locked the gates to their bases and watched as Serb homes burnt."
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Security Council nations said that Sudan had to act quickly and rein in Arab militias behind the bloodshed in its strife-torn Darfur region.The U.N. is a leopard that just can't change his spots. Heck, it's a leopard that doesn't even try to change.But they stopped short of fixing a deadline for Khartoum to honour pledges to disarm the so-called Janjaweed militias, accused of a brutal campaign that has killed more than 10,000 and forced one million to flee their homes.
"The Sudanese government doesn't have forever," Annan told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.
Something very, very, very bad is happening. People are being murdered by the thousands. Tortured. Raped. Someone should do something.
That someone is the U.N., and do something they are. They are furiously working on passing a resolution!
A first version of the US resolution, which would have slapped sanctions on the Janjaweed but did not call for similar steps against the government, did not garner much support from council members.That'll show 'em!But British ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said he thought the 15-nation council could now "quite speedily" agree on an amended resolution that would send a "very firm" message to Khartoum.
What's that you say? Intervene? Actually do something? Well, let's see:
"The primary purpose of the Security Council now is to ensure effective action on the ground," [British ambassador] Jones Parry said, ruling out the possibility that the council could vote to send in troops.No, no. People are dying every day. The government of Sudan is ignoring U.N. mandates. But no need to send in troops. Not yet:"An armed intervention force ... isn't something which is on the agenda," he said.
Ambassador Munir Akram of Pakistan, a council member which has been cool to the idea of pressing Khartoum's government, said he thought Sudan should be given enough time to show whether or not it would honour its word.Yes, let's give them time. Never mind that a little girl will die -- or worse -- in Sudan tonight. We can all rest assured that all will be well. The U.N. is on the case!
Six weeks after the U.N. Security Council authorized a separate force to protect U.N. staff in Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that the world body has not received a single firm commitment of troops.Business as usual for the U.N. If there's no money to skim, why participate?Annan said if the 191 U.N. member states want the United Nations to play a major role in helping Iraq prepare for elections, draft a constitution, and rebuild the country they must ensure adequate security for U.N. personnel.
``Without that security, we cannot really deploy in any sizeable number,'' he said.
The list of the foreign companies approved by Saddam, obtained exclusively by FOX News, spells out that Russian and Saudi Arabian companies were the big winners in the scheme, which was beset by bribes and kickbacks:There are no US or western European nations on the list, but it is early in the investigation. Plus, this looks rather suspicious:
- 109 Saudi Arabian companies are listed on a document titled Exempted Arab and Foreign Companies for importing all items. One Saudi company is described as a Mercedes-Benz dealership.
- 33 Russian companies are listed. One of those is further broken down into 250 company names, possibly subsidiaries.
Coleman said the committee is moving forward with the investigation in two ways: issuing subpoenas to the French bank who handled transactions and sending a series of chairmen's letters signed by Coleman and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asking the companies and Iraqis for information.And then there's this:
When asked if his efforts were being blocked by U.N. or U.S. officials, Coleman said he's "not prepared to say that" and that the "State Department has been helpful."It's not too difficult to read between the lines that while US officials are "helpful", UN officials are stonewalling. No wonder -- we'll probably never get the full list of top U.N. officials that were receiving kickbacks from the $67 billion program.
The "rampaging mob" was armed only with wooden clubs, while the U.N. has over 10,000 troops stationed in the tiny nation.
"They entered, and there were very many of them," Toure said. He said U.N. forces fired in self-defense, adding: "We regret this deeply because our mission was to establish peace in the country but we were left with no choice."Whether or not the action was necessary is not the issue here. Imagine the outcry if American forces were to shoot at a mob in Iraq. The press would be all over it and world leaders would loudly and repeatedly denounce our actions. John Kerry would be shouting that Bush should be held personally responsible for the murder of innocent civilians.State radio put the death toll at the U.N. base at five.
Yet what do we hear about the U.N.'s actions? [crickets chirping]
Just an observation . . .
American Jewish leaders have asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint a special adviser on Jewish affairs to be his liaison with American Jewish organizations. ... According to a UN source, the Jewish leaders said that they made the unusual request because Annan is surrounded by aides and advisors - many of them from Muslim countries - who are hostile to Jews, and they have therefore found themselves unable to access him. ...Poor, poor Kofi Annan is in a "difficult situation". Quite unlike a child sitting in a coffee shop with her mother when a Palestinian walks in and explodes sending a devastating hail of nails in all directions. I feel so bad for poor Kofi.UN sources said Annan promised to consider the Jewish leaders' request. At the meeting, the Jewish leaders also complained that several of Annan's recent public statements have been one-sided and hostile to Israel. Annan responded that he is in a difficult situation.
The UN has a long history of truly spectacular failures. Somalia. The Congo. Sierra Leone. Rwanda. East Timor. The Balkins. The list goes on. The UN has neither the organizational skills nor the military skills to succeed:
The majority of U.N. forces lack training and equipment, have little or no knowledge of conducting civic action and civil affairs or performing security operations, particularly within urban environments. These ineptitudes render some multinational forces unable to coordinate movements and carry out missions with their more sophisticated counterparts. The result is mission failure and increased combat casualties.
But even more, the stories of small failures have become so commonplace that they barely cause a ripple in the news community. Like the failure of a "zero tolerance" policy to keep girls as young as 13 from selling their bodies to UN soldiers in Bunia:
The trade, which according to one victim results in a banana or a cake to feed to her infant son, is taking place despite a pledge by the UN to adopt a "zero tolerance" attitude to cases of sexual misconduct by those representing the organisation. ...Doubts. I wonder why?The UN has announced its own inquiry into the allegations, warning that it will apply "all available sanctions" against those responsible. But doubts remain about the effectiveness of the investigation and the ability of the UN to bring those responsible to justice.
Even as John Kerry calls for more UN involvement, many doubt that the UN could successfully take over the Iraq effort:
Finally, a good look at the record of Lakhdar Brahimi, UNSecretary-General Kofi Annan's choice as the man to bring democracy to Iraq, shows how wrong the UN can be. Brahimi was hailed by the large anti-U.S. faction as a skilled, seasoned diplomat, in contrast with the U.S. and other administrators now in charge. The first demonstration of Brahimi's seasoning was his statement that Israeli policy is "poison in the region." He later also managed to be offensive to the Palestinians. Some seasoning. Why we ever agreed to let Brahimi in is inexplicable. William Safire of the New York Times explained the situation best: Brahimi's strategy is "aligning the UN with those Iraqis who--having been cured of crippling despotism--now feel free to throw their crutches at the doctor."What is clear is that the endgame towards which we are fighting is ambitious:
We believe that freedom can advance and change lives in the Greater Middle East, as it advanced and changed lives in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa. We believe that when all Middle Eastern peoples are finally allowed to live and think and work and worship as free men and women, they will reclaim the greatness of their own heritage. And when that day comes, the bitterness and burning hatreds that feed terrorism will fade and die away. America and the world will be safer when hope has returned to the Middle East.George W. Bush is attempting to inexorably alter the development of civilization in the world. America can do it. We've done it before. We have an unmatched history of successes. The UN can't. No matter what John Kerry says. He is, after all, unfit to be president.
Whereas the president is supremely capable of being president. He knows and his top advisors know it (as aptly described in this must read article by Andrew Sullivan):
Bush's problem at home is not one of general disbelief in the war itself. It is a function of the fear that incompetence is ruining the war. History shows that Americans are not squeamish about war, if it's succeeding. But they are ruthless in getting out of conflicts where they seem to be failing. Bush's speeches in the next month will be designed to counter exactly that impression of drift. His advisers are confident. They note that even as his poll numbers have dropped, John Kerry has failed to take a lead in the race. It's also true that the press corps is in danger of over-playing its hand in attacking an administration for partisan and political reasons, when that administration is fighting a difficult and costly war.There is, in other words, no panic among senior officials. There is a deep sense that neither the war nor the election is lost; and that victory against the nexus of terror and tyranny in the Arab-Muslim world is still still within reach. In the president's words: don't mis-underestimate him. The gloomsters have overplayed their hand before; and they may well be doing so again.
About one million people, mainly minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority, were murdered in 100 days, the mayor said. ...And yet there are those who would entrust the future of the Iraqi transition from tyranny to democracy. The UN itself now seeks to replace the United States in Iraq with a perfidious plan:Mutsindashyaka said that like in the Holocaust, the international community "did not care" about the genocide going on in his country.
"We remember how the UN left without saving people," he said.
In a series of recent statements and leaks, the two veto-holding powers have made it clear that they will not settle for anything less than a humiliating abdication by the United States of its responsibilities in Iraq.That people would vote for someone that would abandon the Iraqi people and hand them over to the inept and faltering hand of the UN is beyond understanding. The UN, which protected Saddam for a decade. The UN, which skimmed money from a program designed to provide food and medical supplies to the starving Iraqi people but only served to enrich diplomats and build palaces for Saddam. The UN, whose ambulances have been caught red-handed transporting body parts of Israeli soldiers to Gaza so they could be handed over to the tender mercies of Hizbullah, who would then engage in grisly blackmail, promising to return them in exchange for the release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.To begin with, they want Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. point-man in Baghdad, to name the new Iraqi government.
The Algerian diplomat has already made it clear that he is looking for "fresh faces," which means excluding all those who have worked with the U.S.-led Coalition since liberation.
In other words: Not only will the liberators have no say in who governs Iraq in the transition, but those Iraqis who have worked hard to make liberation a success will also be punished for their efforts.
Brahimi and his French and Russian backers also insist that the United States should have no control over the newly created Iraqi armed forces, police and civil defense corps.
This would create two military presences in Iraq: one led by the Americans, the other by Mr. Brahimi. It is not clear what each of those two would do.
Senator Kerry would not only bring turn over our initiatives to the international bunglers, he would do the same to the people. Our efforts would be wasted but worse, the future of the Iraqi people would be thrown away.
Today is Wictory Wednesday, the day that bloggers across this nation ask readers to help the president fight these kinds of groups as he campaigns against John Kerry, compulsive liar and professional waffles server, by volunteering your time or donating money to the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign:
 |
 |
Join these fine bloggers in spreading the word every Wictory Wednesday:
Bloggers, join Wictory Wednesdays simply by putting up a post like this one every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign. Just email PoliPundit at wictory -at- blogsforbush (insert dot here) com to be added to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll, which will be part of the Wictory Wednesday post on all participating blogs. It's good for your eco-ranking, it's good for your traffic, and it's good for your country.
And it helps to keep a hypocritical, liberal compulsive liar and waffler out of the White House!