For all of you who favor the US turning over the Iraqi reconstruction to the UN, please justify your faith in that spineless organization in light of this:
The United Nations (news - web sites) said Wednesday it was temporarily pulling its remaining international staff out of Baghdad, joining other organizations in withdrawing after Monday's deadly suicide car bombing at the Baghdad headquarters of the Red Cross.
A bombing at another organization's building has led them to bug out! If that's the sum total of their commitment to the Iraqi people then why on earth should we let them run things?
Posted by Rich at October 30, 2003 11:17 AM | TrackBackWe shouldn't let them run their own mouths! Out of how many???? 190+ nations in the UN, only 40 or 50 are nations that hold free elections, actually practice human rights etc., yet we let players like lebanon et al have a vote that carries the same weight as the UK and the US? If people don't see how wrong this is, they should summarily be "dismissed" from the table as well.
Cripes. Peon Empowerment at it's worst!!!
Maybe it has something to do with their top envoy to Iraq along with 23 other employees being killed in a bombing two months ago and realizing that the U.S. has not done much since then to enhance security. I hear Halliburton and other contractors are even bringin in their own mercenaries for their own security.
Posted by: skb on October 31, 2003 9:38 AM23 dead for the UN vs. 200+ dead for the US military, and we're still in there, building schools, repairing power systems, training police, etc. It's called getting the job done. If the UN had either 1) accepted the offered US protection for their headquarters, 2) acted according to US security recommendations when they rejected the offer, or 3) committed an adequate force to protect their headquarters, it is unlikely the bomber could have driven right into the building.
Subsequent to the bombing, they still resisted using US security forces.
More importantly, as shown by the targets chosen by the terrorists, ie the ICRC, it is obvious that the people behind the bombing want all westerners out of Iraq, whether they are part of the US led coalition or not. That being the case, then there's no reason to believe that a UN takeover of reconstruction would result in a lessening of the violence aimed at achieving that objective. In fact, without the US military there to keep the lid on it, it is probably that the violence would increase. With the UN pulling out of Baghdad now, why should we believe they would stay under those circumstances?
It's becoming increasingly clear that allowing the UN to oversee the reconstruction would in effect hand the keys to Iraq back to the Ba'athists.
Posted by: rich on October 31, 2003 11:34 AMOK I would like to point something out. I don't claim to be a expert when it comes to the UN but I have beeen doing alot of study lately on the way they work. The majority of the aid that is put out to contries is from organizations called NGOs (nongovernment organizations). The UN itself does not and cannot contract NGOs. It is almost like a tradtion. There is no rules saying the cannot but it is just policy. NGOs are contracted by single governments to perform certain tasks. It really has nothing to do with the UN and many people who haven't studied the ways of the UN confuse this. Again I'm not saying I am an expert but I just spent 4 days down in D.C. at a model UN conference and had to learn all these things. People need to realize that the UN can't actually do anything. It is the single governments that actually get things done. All the UN does is to bring them together to hopefully allow them to make joint decisions.
Posted by: Isaac on November 3, 2003 1:25 AM