Paralyzed? UN, Others Reacting Badly To International Events
We hate to give red meat to ‘red necks’ but the French command the UN peacekeepers between Israel and Hezbollah just now.
By John E. Carey
July 21, 2006.
The U.N. is setting a new standard of ineptitude and weakness in international conduct. Starting on July 4, the United Nations and the world diplomatic community started two uninterrupted weeks of shameful mismanagement.
First, North Korea launched seven missiles on America’s Independence Day, clearly violating agreements it had made to forgo missile launches while engaged in the “Five Party Talks.”
North Korea’s blatant provocation to the will of the international community caused a U.N. standoff that is still not fully resolved. Russia and China stonewalled the efforts of the U.S. and Japan to provide meaningful sanctions against North Korea. We are left with the dreaded “tough diplomatic language” from the U.N. Security Council. “The Dear Leader” must be terrified.
Currently, the U.N. is, well, paralyzed, as Israel battles terrorists including Hezbollah. It is pretty clear that Iran has been backing the terrorist.
“Iran is standing by the Syrian people,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi proudly told reporters.
Hey, until that statement, I didn’t even know Syria or Iran was for sure part of this battle.
Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that Israel was not tough enough to counter Iran and also warned against an attack against Syria.
“Thanks be to God, despite its criminal and savage nature, the Zionist regime and its supporters in the West do not have the power to look in the same way towards Iran,” the fiercely anti-Israeli president wailed.
“If Israel commits another act of idiocy and aggresses Syria, this will be the same as an aggression against the entire Islamic world and it will receive a stinging response,” Ahmadinejad said in a telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
The hard-line Iranian president, who said Israel should be “wiped off the map” or moved as far away as Alaska, has also compared Israel’s military strikes on Gaza and Lebanon to tactics used by Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler.
The U.N. has reacted with: nothing.
Israel and Hezbollah are engaged in a life or death struggle. Hezbollah, backed by Syria, Iran and large part of Lebanon, has proclaimed its intent to remove Israel from the earth.
Israel, backed by the United States, won’t go without a fight. In fact, it looks like Israel may now be in the business of shelling its way to a new buffer zone on the border with Lebanon.
How do you make friends with a nation, or dare I say a people (What did Ahmadinejad call it? “The Entire Islamic World”) when they want to destroy your country?
Israel’s move against Hezbollah has revealed one of the reasons behind everyone’s frustration in the region of South Lebanon. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon – known by its acronym Unifil — has a long history of ineptitude, laxity and corruption. As a “peacekeeping” force, Unifil is a joke.
Some might say that the U.N.’s totally ineffective “peacekeepers” have allowed this pot to come to a boil.
“They are barely able to take care of themselves,” said Timur Goksel, referring to the UN peacekeepers. “How can you expect them to do their work?”
The blue-helmeted UN soldiers include a moderately trained and semi-disciplined Irish brigade. These Irish UN troops were routinely referred to as the “whisky army.” The Israeli-backed Christian militiamen – known by the Unifil acronym LAUIs (Lebanese Armed and Uniformed by Israel) countered any effort by the Irish troops to stray far from their base at Camp Shamrock.
So each side had its own peacekeepers to balance the status quo.
And we hate to give red meat to “red necks” but the French command Unifil just now.
Over the past few years, with the U.N. paralyzed, Israel consolidated its border “security zone” and Iran began to openly support the resistance, much of it by the Lebanese Shia Amal movement. Rememeber: these guys are in a life or death struggle. All the other cast members in this play only have ridiculous cameo roles.
And the U.N. [really with U.S. dollars] paid the peacekeepers selected by both sides to do just about nothing.
According to White House sources and informed observers, the Bush administration’s strategy is to allow Israel to break Hezbollah and then move in a UN ‘stabilization force’ to bolster the Lebanese army. Once Israel has created a new ‘buffer zone,’ especially with dreaded Syrians, the UN and the Lebanese Army would replace Unifil (whose UN mandate expires on July 31, 2006).
Right now the U.N. is paralyzed again, or further, depending upon ones point of view. Unable to effectively manage and organize the evacuation of innocent civilians from Lebanon, the U.N. is enviously eying USS Nashville, the commercial liner “Orient Queen,” (leased by the U.S. to evacuate U.S. citizens and their families) the U.S. Marines, and a protective cover including U.S. Navy destroyers. Americans are leaving Beirut under a security umbrella of protected comfort and moving toward home in a fairly rapid manner. Non-Americans are mostly leaving by cargo ship to make the five hour U.S. vacationer’s cruise ship journey in the hold of a hot cargo vessel in a 16 hour hell-ride without toilets.
Amid all this: long-time U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton critic, Senator George V. Voinovich, Ohio Republican, has suddenly become aware of the good Ambassador’s qualifications to represent the U.S. at the U.N. Voinovich stated publicly that he would support Bolton if the president re-nominates him to the post as expected. And, in a news flash, Voinovich declared that Bolton is “not perfect.”
We need more Senators with this kind of deep insight and commitment amid the chaos of war.
Voinovich assumed for himself even less than a ridiculous cameo role.
Don’t forget: When Voinovich took his courageous last stand — against Bolton — he wept.
Apparently, leaving the fate of the world — not to mention the Voinovich grandchildren — in the hands of a man as mean as Bush ally John Bolton, unraveled the Senator back then. Thursday he went on TV to say, something like, “OOPS. I was mistaken. Bolton isn’t a heathen and he follows the president’s lead.”
Great. Bravo, George.
Despite some criticism of the US evacuation in the media, American evacuees coming out of Lebanon have mostly praised the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Navy and the Marines (and even the accommodations on the liner “Orient Queen,” but nobody has anything good to say about the U.N.
Amidst all this, on July 14 a court handed down the first guilty verdict in the “Oil for Food” scandal at the U.N. In that caper, sneaky insiders at the U.N. and other influence seekers made millions from Saddam Hussein while they were supposed to be enforcing post Desert Storm sanctions.
And where is the U.S. media in all of this? CNN, for one, is mostly showing us heart-breaking stories of American tourists dislodged from their summer vacations. Personally, we have no compassion for people who ignore the warnings of the State Department, travel to a war zone just as it is heating up, neglect to register with the embassy, then cry when war, to almost no informed observer’s surprise, erupts.
Americans should take heed that we are in a world-wide war against terror that has any number of ramifications and dangers — especially when one travels to the Middle East on summer holiday.
Thanks to the Kofi Annan U.N., the world is managed like a bad little league team. Only the way the UN runs the team today costs way too much [but the US pays most of the bills so the little countries don’t really seem to care]. Thanks to Senators like Voinovich no twenty-four hour news channel can declare with certainty that you won’t giggle just a little the next time you take in the oldest democratic deliberative body in the world, the U.S. Senate.
The U.S. Department of State, Ambassador John Bolton, and the U.S. Armed Forces are demonstrating true professionalism. The rest of the bit players, especially Kofi Annan’s U.N., should be ashamed. But shame is an emotion that has lost its impact on most world “diplomats” and “peacekeepers.”
Multi-lateralism doesn’t seem to always be in the best national interest of the United States.
But don’t forget for one second that this is an all or nothing proposition for the Israelis. Not a joking matter.
One Comment
john Carey
Paralyzed? UN, Others Reacting Badly To International Events
We hate to give red meat to ‘red necks’ but the French command the UN peacekeepers between Israel and Hezbollah just now.
By John E. Carey
July 21, 2006.
The U.N. is setting a new standard of ineptitude and weakness in international conduct. Starting on July 4, the United Nations and the world diplomatic community started two uninterrupted weeks of shameful mismanagement.
First, North Korea launched seven missiles on America’s Independence Day, clearly violating agreements it had made to forgo missile launches while engaged in the “Five Party Talks.”
North Korea’s blatant provocation to the will of the international community caused a U.N. standoff that is still not fully resolved. Russia and China stonewalled the efforts of the U.S. and Japan to provide meaningful sanctions against North Korea. We are left with the dreaded “tough diplomatic language” from the U.N. Security Council. “The Dear Leader” must be terrified.
Currently, the U.N. is, well, paralyzed, as Israel battles terrorists including Hezbollah. It is pretty clear that Iran has been backing the terrorist.
“Iran is standing by the Syrian people,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi proudly told reporters.
Hey, until that statement, I didn’t even know Syria or Iran was for sure part of this battle.
Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that Israel was not tough enough to counter Iran and also warned against an attack against Syria.
“Thanks be to God, despite its criminal and savage nature, the Zionist regime and its supporters in the West do not have the power to look in the same way towards Iran,” the fiercely anti-Israeli president wailed.
“If Israel commits another act of idiocy and aggresses Syria, this will be the same as an aggression against the entire Islamic world and it will receive a stinging response,” Ahmadinejad said in a telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
The hard-line Iranian president, who said Israel should be “wiped off the map” or moved as far away as Alaska, has also compared Israel’s military strikes on Gaza and Lebanon to tactics used by Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler.
The U.N. has reacted with: nothing.
Israel and Hezbollah are engaged in a life or death struggle. Hezbollah, backed by Syria, Iran and large part of Lebanon, has proclaimed its intent to remove Israel from the earth.
Israel, backed by the United States, won’t go without a fight. In fact, it looks like Israel may now be in the business of shelling its way to a new buffer zone on the border with Lebanon.
How do you make friends with a nation, or dare I say a people (What did Ahmadinejad call it? “The Entire Islamic World”) when they want to destroy your country?
Israel’s move against Hezbollah has revealed one of the reasons behind everyone’s frustration in the region of South Lebanon. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon – known by its acronym Unifil — has a long history of ineptitude, laxity and corruption. As a “peacekeeping” force, Unifil is a joke.
Some might say that the U.N.’s totally ineffective “peacekeepers” have allowed this pot to come to a boil.
“They are barely able to take care of themselves,” said Timur Goksel, referring to the UN peacekeepers. “How can you expect them to do their work?”
The blue-helmeted UN soldiers include a moderately trained and semi-disciplined Irish brigade. These Irish UN troops were routinely referred to as the “whisky army.” The Israeli-backed Christian militiamen – known by the Unifil acronym LAUIs (Lebanese Armed and Uniformed by Israel) countered any effort by the Irish troops to stray far from their base at Camp Shamrock.
So each side had its own peacekeepers to balance the status quo.
And we hate to give red meat to “red necks” but the French command Unifil just now.
Over the past few years, with the U.N. paralyzed, Israel consolidated its border “security zone” and Iran began to openly support the resistance, much of it by the Lebanese Shia Amal movement. Rememeber: these guys are in a life or death struggle. All the other cast members in this play only have ridiculous cameo roles.
And the U.N. [really with U.S. dollars] paid the peacekeepers selected by both sides to do just about nothing.
According to White House sources and informed observers, the Bush administration’s strategy is to allow Israel to break Hezbollah and then move in a UN ‘stabilization force’ to bolster the Lebanese army. Once Israel has created a new ‘buffer zone,’ especially with dreaded Syrians, the UN and the Lebanese Army would replace Unifil (whose UN mandate expires on July 31, 2006).
Right now the U.N. is paralyzed again, or further, depending upon ones point of view. Unable to effectively manage and organize the evacuation of innocent civilians from Lebanon, the U.N. is enviously eying USS Nashville, the commercial liner “Orient Queen,” (leased by the U.S. to evacuate U.S. citizens and their families) the U.S. Marines, and a protective cover including U.S. Navy destroyers. Americans are leaving Beirut under a security umbrella of protected comfort and moving toward home in a fairly rapid manner. Non-Americans are mostly leaving by cargo ship to make the five hour U.S. vacationer’s cruise ship journey in the hold of a hot cargo vessel in a 16 hour hell-ride without toilets.
Amid all this: long-time U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton critic, Senator George V. Voinovich, Ohio Republican, has suddenly become aware of the good Ambassador’s qualifications to represent the U.S. at the U.N. Voinovich stated publicly that he would support Bolton if the president re-nominates him to the post as expected. And, in a news flash, Voinovich declared that Bolton is “not perfect.”
We need more Senators with this kind of deep insight and commitment amid the chaos of war.
Voinovich assumed for himself even less than a ridiculous cameo role.
Don’t forget: When Voinovich took his courageous last stand — against Bolton — he wept.
Apparently, leaving the fate of the world — not to mention the Voinovich grandchildren — in the hands of a man as mean as Bush ally John Bolton, unraveled the Senator back then. Thursday he went on TV to say, something like, “OOPS. I was mistaken. Bolton isn’t a heathen and he follows the president’s lead.”
Great. Bravo, George.
Despite some criticism of the US evacuation in the media, American evacuees coming out of Lebanon have mostly praised the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Navy and the Marines (and even the accommodations on the liner “Orient Queen,” but nobody has anything good to say about the U.N.
Amidst all this, on July 14 a court handed down the first guilty verdict in the “Oil for Food” scandal at the U.N. In that caper, sneaky insiders at the U.N. and other influence seekers made millions from Saddam Hussein while they were supposed to be enforcing post Desert Storm sanctions.
And where is the U.S. media in all of this? CNN, for one, is mostly showing us heart-breaking stories of American tourists dislodged from their summer vacations. Personally, we have no compassion for people who ignore the warnings of the State Department, travel to a war zone just as it is heating up, neglect to register with the embassy, then cry when war, to almost no informed observer’s surprise, erupts.
Americans should take heed that we are in a world-wide war against terror that has any number of ramifications and dangers — especially when one travels to the Middle East on summer holiday.
Thanks to the Kofi Annan U.N., the world is managed like a bad little league team. Only the way the UN runs the team today costs way too much [but the US pays most of the bills so the little countries don’t really seem to care]. Thanks to Senators like Voinovich no twenty-four hour news channel can declare with certainty that you won’t giggle just a little the next time you take in the oldest democratic deliberative body in the world, the U.S. Senate.
The U.S. Department of State, Ambassador John Bolton, and the U.S. Armed Forces are demonstrating true professionalism. The rest of the bit players, especially Kofi Annan’s U.N., should be ashamed. But shame is an emotion that has lost its impact on most world “diplomats” and “peacekeepers.”
Multi-lateralism doesn’t seem to always be in the best national interest of the United States.
But don’t forget for one second that this is an all or nothing proposition for the Israelis. Not a joking matter.
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