31-01-2003 20:11									#1
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U.N., R.I.P.


By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 31, 2003; Page A27


My son long ago introduced me to the joys of the Onion, the hilarious Web site that features such parodies of the news as "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia; Cities of Sjlbvdnzv, Grzny to be First Recipients." So when, on the night of the State of the Union address, my son handed me an Internet printout headlined "Iraq to Chair U.N. Disarmament Conference," I was sure he'd been dipping again into the Onion.

"It's better than that, Dad," he said. "It's off CNN."

I should have known. You can't parody the United Nations. It inhabits -- no, it has constructed -- a universe so Orwellian that, yes, Iraq is going to chair the May 12-June 27 session of the United Nations' single most important disarmament negotiating forum.

Iran will co-chair.

Defenders of the United Nations will write this off as a simple accident, pointing out that the chairmanship rotates alphabetically under the U.N. absurdity that grants all member states equal moral standing. Fine. How, then, do U.N. defenders explain the recent elevation of Libya to the chairmanship of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights?

You couldn't make this one up either. It was no alphabetical accident. Libya was elected, by deliberate vote, by overwhelming vote -- 33 to 3. The seven commission members from the European Union, ever reliable in their cynicism, abstained. They will now welcome a one-party police state -- which specializes in abduction, assassination, torture and detention without trial -- to the chair of the United Nations' highest body charged with defending human rights.

This is the United Nations. This is the institution whose support Democrats insist the United States must have to validate the legitimacy of its actions, such as the forcible disarming of Saddam Hussein. This is the institution to which they turn to test the worthiness of decisions taken by the president and Congress of the United States. It is a kind of moral idiocy: the greatest defender of freedom on the planet, enjoying the freest institutions, seeking its moral yardstick in the looking-glass values of a corrupt, perverse institutional relic.

When President Bush finished his stirring State of the Union case for war on Hussein, the last redoubt of his Democratic opponents was this: Well, yes, Hussein does appear to have weapons of mass destruction, but we cannot go it alone, we must have the United Nations behind us. (Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia has already introduced a resolution to that effect. Several House Democrats are planning to follow suit.)

These protestations are ritual, and mindless. How would the vote of Syria, member of both the Security Council and the State Department's list of terrorist states, confer legitimacy on America's actions? Or the vote of China? Or, for that matter, France, whose president called the president of Syria to coordinate Security Council strategy, and whose interest in stopping the war is a matter of finance (to protect its huge contracts with Saddam Hussein) and vanity (to be the one European ex-power that tames the American cowboy).

The great lament of the president's critics is that "Europe" is against us. This is a fiction. Britain is with us, as are Spain and Italy, as are Portugal and Denmark, as are Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the other Central Europeans. The opponents are France and Germany, with Belgium and Luxembourg poodling along behind. By my count, that is four. When the United States asked NATO to convene to give military support to (fellow member) Turkey in the event of war with Iraq, 14 members said yes; only the Rhineland Four objected.

The Rhineland Four have been undermined, however, by, of all people, the mild-mannered Hans Blix. Blix never really found anything big in his scavenger hunt through Iraq, but he reported to the Security Council that Iraq's regime had failed to cooperate and disarm.

Under Resolution 1441, that is a material breach. It is a casus belli. The French got around this inconvenience by changing the meaning of the very resolution they had negotiated just 90 days ago. Things are going swimmingly, they say, because with Blix in country, Iraq is contained. But the resolution says nothing about containment. It demands disarmament.

After the Blix report, France has nowhere to hide. It is the moment of truth for France, and, in a larger sense, for the United Nations. The United Nations is on the verge of demonstrating finally and fatally its moral bankruptcy and its strategic irrelevance: moral bankruptcy, because it will have made a mockery of the very resolution on whose sanctity it insists; strategic irrelevance, because the United States is going to disarm Iraq anyway.

Having proved itself impotent in the Balkan crisis and now again in the Iraq crisis, the United Nations will sink once again into irrelevance. This time it will not recover. And the world will be better off for it.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Jon Miller

	31-01-2003 20:16									#2
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The author has totally missed out on the history of the UN and the reason why countries like Iran and Syria have equal right within the organization. The opposite standpoint didn't work well.

	31-01-2003 20:22									#3
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Pathetic article.

	31-01-2003 20:25									#4
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I like the Rhineland 4 tag

	31-01-2003 20:30									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Pathetic article.

I thought that it was fairly well written and you do have to admit that Iraq chairing a forum on disarmament is highly amusing.

He also makes a good point about the motives behind shift in burden of proof from Iraq to the US.

	31-01-2003 20:31									#6
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quote: the greatest defender of freedom on the planet, enjoying the freest institutions, seeking its moral yardstick in the looking-glass values of a corrupt, perverse institutional relic.

This is a typical reason why people get ticked off by americans. Look at it, it's so damn bombastic. It's not 'free', it must be 'the freest'. Americans are not the chosen people in the modern world. With a 'we're a bit better than everyone else'-attityde you won't get as far as you could.

	31-01-2003 21:32									#7
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Excellent article pointing out exactly why the United States shouldn't be involved in the hand-wringing of a bunch of guilty ex-imperialists, and the current machinations of modern dictatorships. Until the United Nations adopts standards like respecting human rights, and allowing free speech, as a prerequisite for membership, it will continue to be a bastion of corruption and cowardice that we allow to fester in our own country.

Bottom line - the US should ditch the UN, and the UN move to Switzerland.

	31-01-2003 21:39									#8
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Somehow I remember of Hitler and the League of Nations...

	31-01-2003 21:41									#9
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You mean, you remember another corrupt institution that failed to maintain peace and order because it was too busy coddling murderous dictators? Funny, I was thinking the same thing.

	31-01-2003 21:45									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Felch X Bottom line - the US should ditch the UN, and the UN move to Switzerland.

The rest of the world doesn't need the US, the US needs the rest of the world.

	31-01-2003 21:47									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Felch X Until the United Nations adopts standards like respecting human rights, and allowing free speech, as a prerequisite for membership, it will continue to be a bastion of corruption and cowardice that we allow to fester in our own country.

I'll buy that--the day after the U.S. adopts standards like respecting human rights, and allowing free speech, as a prerequisite for weapons sales and military aid.

There are worse things than sitting around whining about dictators, and one of them is sending them guns and cheering them on.

	31-01-2003 21:53									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger The rest of the world doesn't need the US, the US needs the rest of the world.

You're wrong about one of those. Either the rest of the world needs the US, or the US doesn't need the rest of the world. It depends on what you're talking about. Economically we all need each other. Militarily, the US would be fine without anybody else.

	31-01-2003 21:56									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Andrew1999 I'll buy that--the day after the U.S. adopts standards like respecting human rights, and allowing free speech, as a prerequisite for weapons sales and military aid. There are worse things than sitting around whining about dictators, and one of them is sending them guns and cheering them on.

I agree. But the US isn't the only arms merchant in the world. France, Russia, and more distressingly, North Korea, and other countries are also involved in the arms trade. If we didn't sell weapons, other countries would just fill in for us.

Besides, we make an effort to keep our best weapons only in the hands of decent democratic countries, like the UK, and our other allies. Sometimes though, political pressure dictates otherwise.

My point isn't that the US is perfect. My point is that the UN is so horribly corrupt we shouldn't be expected to listen to them.

	31-01-2003 22:21									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Felch X Until the United Nations adopts standards like respecting human rights, and allowing free speech, as a prerequisite for membership....

so funding the removal of a democratically elected, left wing governent in a soveriegn state and installing an unelected facist one in its place would be a bar to membership?

or is it only 'free speech' when it's what you want to hear?

	31-01-2003 22:32									#15
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This bellicist rhetoric and this "hey, we're the best! you're nothing but a bunch of idiots" attitude; this is what reminded me of Hitler.

	31-01-2003 22:43									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Felch X You're wrong about one of those. Either the rest of the world needs the US, or the US doesn't need the rest of the world. It depends on what you're talking about. Economically we all need each other. Militarily, the US would be fine without anybody else.

Economically, the US is 1/3 of the world's output. Significant, but the rest of the world can make do without the US.

OTOH, US cannot live without the rest of the world. One word: oil.

	31-01-2003 22:45									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Felch X My point isn't that the US is perfect. My point is that the UN is so horribly corrupt we shouldn't be expected to listen to them.

Corrupt? As compared to the curent US administration? Dubya, Cheney, oil.

	31-01-2003 22:48									#18
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link me please.