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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
The Other Side of the UN
I'm a harsh critic of the UN, because they bungle a lot of things, are unaccountable - and that is a key reason for their flaws. But check out this blog anyhow, which attempts to cover all that the UN does, the good as well as the bad.
I will say that just because the UN accomplishes some good, that is not necessarily an argument in favor of keeping it as it is. These things can be accomplished in a much better way, without the inherent flaws of the UN, by an improved organization. Thus it is not a defense of the UN's attrocious record, including mass rapes in Congo to point to the other hand.
But still, I recommend checking out that blog, which gives a rounded view of the institution as a whole, and presents another side. Some have claimed it is "all about discrediting UN critics", but even if that is so, us critics should be able to withstand it, if our critique is accurate.
Because of Bosnia and Rwanda, at least as much as the UN's Blood-for-Oil program. His flippant attitude towards the whole thing would have had more people calling for his head if he were the U.S. SecDef instead of Head UNuch. The author has a good rejoinder to that indifference:
Liberal multilateralists on the left, like me, are often skittish about offering too pungent a critique of Mr. Annan, because it offers aid and comfort to the "enemy" on the conservative unilateralist right. But if anyone's values have been betrayed at the U.N. over the past decade it is those of us who believe most deeply in the organization's ideals. Just ask the men and women of Rwanda and Srebrenica.
The real question is whether the "Liberal multilateralists on the left" are sincere in their ideals, or just interested in keeping the UN's presumptive authoritah intact as a check to the U.S., and are willing to sacrifice the ends - the world's powerless - to this means.
Related to this post from yesterday, we have more on those who helped Saddam scuttle sanctions in The Scottsman. As Glenn Reynolds wrote in reaction to the Scottsman article, [i]t's hard to pass the "Global Test" when the people grading it are being bribed to administer a failing grade.
Austin Bay has more, arguing that we need to get to the bottom of this to revitalize the UN. Again, I think we need to get to the bottom of this so we can replace the UN with something better. You be the judge.
Elsewhere, Claudia Rosett on how the UN can pay its debt to the Iraqi people. Few people put it that way. Most people think that the world owes the UN, rather than the UN oweing the world - especially the UN's victims - anything.
Well, people keep talking about how much better things would be in Iraq if only - if only the UN were in charge, if only we listened to our good allies France, Russia, and China, &tc. Christopher Hitchens does some if only of his own. Given where he was on Iraq in '91, it's a bit of the same, but he's changed where others haven't, and recognized that there is a progressive rationale for war. When he writes this, though, it has special resonance because he ran in those circles and remembers the arguments that were made:
The antiwar Left used to demand the lifting of sanctions without conditions, which would only have gratified Saddam Hussein and his sons and allowed them to rearm.
Then there is of course this:
The supposed neutrals, such as Russia and France and the United Nations, were acting as knowing profiteers in a disgusting oil-for-bribes program that has now been widely exposed. The regime-change forces said, in effect: Lift the sanctions and remove the regime. But in the wasted decade of sanctions-plus-Saddam, a whole paranoid and wretched fundamentalist underclass was created and exploited by the increasingly Islamist propaganda of the Baath Party. This also helps explain the many overlooked convergences between the supposedly "secular" Baathists and the forces of jihad.
I haven't blogged directly on the the UN's Oil-for-Terror program. I allude to it frequently but haven't, that I remember, done a post directly on the subject. What more can be said about what Glenn Reynolds calls UNSCAM? And who's really surprised?
Of course, there is a good reason to give this story as high a profile as possible. The idea that the UN is a paragon of virtue that should be exalted and seen as a pillar of legitimacy and internationalism at its best needs to be punctured. Not, in my opinion, so everyone can go back to 19th century realpolitik, but so that we can learn and move forward with something that makes democracy and accountability its basis and also does not seek to usurp authority while insulating itself. We'll never get there as long as people pretend that the UN is the be-all-and-end-all. The Iraqis know full well why the UN cannot be trusted - the UN works with and on behalf of the oppressors of the world, against the decent countries of the world and the people who are oppressed. The UN is also not nearly as good as people claim it is when it comes to security, in either Kosovo or Afghanistan now, or in Rwanda when the French (again) worked hand in glove not with the people being slaughtered but with those doing the slaughtering.
The pretense that the UN is a noble institution that should be given the benefit of the doubt needs to be peeled back. Hopefully it will be in the Presidential campaign here, but somehow I doubt it because, for his own reasons and because it is easier, Bush will try to appear to be working with and cooperating with the UN as much as possible. Kerry on the other side will do nothing but exalt the UN and lay all the problems of the world on the fact that we don't defer to it - and thus to France, Russia, and China - more. But people need to be reminded that when someone says "work with the UN" they mean its Security Council members, and that means with the interests of those members. Those interests are not the same as ours and while there is not necessarily any reason for them to give up their interests for our sake, neither is their necessarily any reason for us to put their interests ahead of ours. Especially when theirs involve shady, corrupt deals with blood-soaked dictators and ours involve eliminating said dictators and trying to help foster democracy in their place.
The truth is, the real "blood-for-oil" program was run not by Haliburton on behalf of Cheney & pals, but by the UN on behalf of Saddam, France, and Russia. The UN's internal investigation is being stonewalled, so pressure will have to come from outside. It won't come from the EU, or Russia, or China. It'll have to come from us.
On the one hand, there is the WSJ editorial on the UN as Saddam's financers, asserting that the UN needs pressure from the U.S. to clean up the mess there and solve the corruption problem.
On the other hand, naturally, is the NYT editorial, looking at the same problems but asserting that it is Iraq and the U.S. which need the UN. Lets start with this unsupported and unsupportable assertion by the Times editorial board:
Reports of significant casualties on both sides in the pitched battle in the city of Ramadi were a grim and powerful reminder of how badly the United States needs a strong, credible and engaged United Nations.
Such assertions are often made, but without any supporting argument. One can look at the situation in Kosovo (again) or Afghanistan, where the UN is fully involved but the situations hardly problem-free. What does the UN have that would help secure Ramadi or Fallujah?
The Times editors do not say. They really can't, because assertions that the UN's presence would help are usually based on assumptions that respect for it provides legitimacy to efforts conducted under its flag. But in Iraq, the main body of the editorial might cause one to wonder whether there would be any such respect or legitimization:
One is a kickback scandal of multibillion-dollar proportions swirling around the U.N.-run oil-for-food program that kept ordinary Iraqis from starving during the long years of punishing economic sanctions.
In the eyes of ordinary Iraqis, that is the UN. It was an instrument for enriching and empowering their Ba'athist oppressors at their expense. This is why ordinary Iraqis express little if any interest in a significant UN role in their country. Indeed, the presence of the UN may just cause them to be more suspicious, as the same people who worked hand in glove in corrupt deals with Saddam came in to work for their interests, again at the expense of Iraq's.
On the corruption at the heart of the UN's bureaucratic apparatus, which the Times editorial attempts to lay at the feet solely of the Security Council, the editorials make a good contrast. Certainly, some of the members of the Security Council - France and Russia in particular - were knee deep in the corruption. But they did so not with the opposition of the UN's bureaucracy, but in partnership with it. The UN itself is complicit, and the WSJ's editorial backs up their remarks with factual examples in a timeline.
Well, the UN is at least looking into their Oil-for-Blood program's expropriation of funds, and three thousand staffers are being probed.
Can the UN investigate itself? How independent is the independent investigation Annan is calling for going to be? Tune in next week as. . .live video of staffers being probed is posted to the internet. *That's sick! Shouldn't Porphy take this seriously?*
Yes, actually it's a good sign that Annan isn't just brushing this off, and too be fair there have been Administrations in Washington - both Republican and Democrat - who have resisted calling for an independent investigation where it's called for longer than the Annan is doing here. So it may be appropriate to give the UN its due here. We'll see how things unfold.
Richard Meixner sends in a link to this Independent article, noting that it pays to go beyond the headlines here.
Hans Blix says the Iraq war is illegal because all the people Saddam was bribing in corrupt oil deals and paying to help him with his missile program (see below) didn't want it to happen. But there's more! Richard suggests that Blix's main purpose here isn't to refight the last war, but to insure that "Hans Blix is analyzing again, promoting early 90’s style (re: North Korea) ‘analysis paralysis’ to blur the decisions leading to war" to insure that remains the model for future problem "resolution" or, rather, lack of resolution - in all meanings of the word. It's worth comparing & contrasting the position exemplified by the Independent article with the Torygraph editorial I linked to and commented on earlier this week.
On a personal note, Richard also wrote:
I trust you are not discounting your time in Mancos-you have done lots of writing and thinking. You will get the paper certificates that you need to continue on your journey.
Which I appreciate, because I have been discounting that some. Thanks for the reminder.
A further suggestion following this post, Ray Phelps writes via e-mail to suggest:
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it but I think a great candidate for UN relocation would be Tel Aviv. Let the worldly diplomats see just what their policies have wrought on Israel.
It's something to think about. One could hope that it would result in the hoped-for "attitude adjustment".
Of course none of these posibilities will ever come to pass, they're more thought-experiments than anything else, and also serve to illustrate that the fellowship of the "International Community" for the world's poor and disorder-wracked regions only goes so far.
Regarding this post from yesterday on getting the UN out of the U.S., Dr. Weevil reminds me that he's way ahead in recommending sites for the new UNHQ, suggesting Khartoum as an even better alternative than Kinshasa. Since UN and UN-related offices are spread out all over, I'm sure we could find a way to make sure neither is "excluded" or "disenfranchised" from having a central role in lodging the institutions of the International Communitytm.
After all, why is the ICC in Europe and using European models of jurisprudence? doesn't perpetuate a Eurocentric outlook in a world that needs to be more multicultural?
Paul Johnson has a good suggestion. Indeed, I can't see why the UN wouldn't support it.
After all, the people involved in international institutions are always saying that more should be done for the developed world, but then they set up their own domiciles in posh cities: New York, the Hague, Geneva, &tc. I think they should move UNHQ to Kinshasa in the Congo, and redistribute the other institutions of the "world community" to poor areas. Let the diplomats, bureaucrats, and functionaries spend their dollars in places like Lagos, Nigeria. The infusion of cash would help the local economies, and the scions of the International Communitytm would be putting their money where their mouths are. Literally.
Isn't going to happen, you say? Such a pity.
Meanwhile, back in Iraq, an investigation begins into the activities of the good people, the ones who only cared about the welfare of the Iraqi people and wanted to stop the war and ultimately lift the sanctions so things could return to business as usual:
The list includes members of Arab ruling families, religious organizations, politicians and political parties from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Sudan, China, Austria, France and other countries.
Organizations named include the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Communist Party, India's Congress Party and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. . . .
"These people took bribes. Sadly, the Iraqi people paid the price,"
Oh. Here I thought they were the caring people in the World Communitytm, unlike those heartless, oil-hungry Americans.
Remember this when the scions and appologists of the "International Community" prattle on about their respect for dissent and concern for freedom of expression and distaste for chilling it.
America's call to the United Nations will solve nothing, even if the UN were to respond positively. Why on earth would the American Administration think that France, Germany, Russia and the rest of the UN crowd - not to mention the immense Third World component of that organisation - would have any interest in assisting America now, after they have tried to do everything to thwart its policies at every turn in the Middle East?
Why call for help from the very forces that have wanted to undermine American power all along and whose understanding of the region would have accomplished nothing but the maintenance of Saddam Hussein in power?
Equally, why would anyone in the US State Department believe that France and Germany, who would not join the potentially winning venture of the war, would now want to join a potentially dodgy venture, namely nation-building in Iraq under American leadership?
Totally abandoning Iraq to the UN would be the better of two bad scenarios, for if the UN did come in, the more presence America retained in Iraq the worse off it would be. America would be blamed for everything that went wrong and get credit for nothing that went right. The US would have all the responsibility and none of the authority - rather like Britain after the end of Empire.
I don't know that "totally abandoning Iraq to the UN" would be better than anything, but - as in Afghanistan - it's certainly true that involving the UN will mean that we get the blame for their screw-ups and they get the credit for our successes. If given half a chance, the UN will do for Iraq what it did for Cambodia. The people of Iraq deserve better, just as the people of Cambodia deserved better but didn't get it.
A thought experiment to keep one up at night: keeping in mind that the UN sees itself as "neutral" (as between the fire brigade and the fire) in Iraq, what would they do if Saddam Hussein turned himself in to the UN? Put him on trial, or demand that he, "representing" his faction, be given "a role" in governing Iraq?
It is an odd world when your spirits get lifted by Jacques Chirac. He and his alter-ego, Gerhard Schroeder are behaving according to type, to the point which even the BBC took notice that their pronouncements:
hardly sounded like the words of firm allies of America, which France and Germany claim to be.
I've long since (if six months to a year is "long", which in the blogosphere, it is) resigned myself to the fact that they aren't, in this case, allies.
One can see that these people remain uncommitted to the idea of democracy and civil society in Iraq. They want to move very swiftly to an Iraqi government - put together by the UN, too swiftly for it to develop from the grass roots. That will insure that it is made up of those Iraqis which they have maintained strong bonds to and which they are comfortable working with: the Ba'athist National Socialists. I have no patience for the idea, by the way, that Iraq is a bag to stick them with. It is important that we succeed in our goals in Iraq, and this means not transferring responsibility for it to those who have consistently opposed those goals and furthermore do not believe that they are realistic.
The champions of UN authority in Iraq want control so they can meddle, not help; they believe, along with the American State Department that the goal of a true democratic civil society in Iraq is unrealistic, and they will exercise their superior wisdom and expertise to re-direct things to more "reasonable" objectives. This power simply must be denied them. The Frankenreich is offering nothing to the Iraqis, nor any offer of "burden sharing", except in extending their authority and expertise, as even the BBC had to take note of:
Strikingly, while the French and German leaders present themselves as urgently concerned for the Iraqi people they said nothing at this news conference to address their urgent practical needs, for security and a fresh start.
I hope that the Chirac-Schroeder axis continues in this vein. I am now depending upon their intransigent and tactless diplomacy as the means of thwarting their pretensions.
The UN as currently constituted is dedicated to making the world safe for Dictatorship ("stability"), not Democracy. We need something better, like a Commonwealth of Democracies that infuses the two principles I mentioned in Part V of the "America's 21st Century Foreign Policy" series.
This USS Clueless post on the subject is worth reading, as is this. Also, if you are puzzled as to how Part IV of the America's 21st Century Foreign Policy series, the one focusing on generations and reform of institutions, applies to foreign policy, this is one connector.
France and Germany are rejecting the proposal as "inadequate" (defined as not giving them enough power in exchange for nothing - since neither France nor Germany planned on contributing anything except their leadership over what happens in Iraq, anyhow, and that leadership, guidance, and authority they want will not just be worthless but exercised mischievously).
Now all we have to do is not go wobbly - again - and make concessions to get their approval.
In related news, there is a survey of U.S. and European relations, and Nelson Ascher analyzes it. Very good post, go check it out.
I'm going to wait and see what Bush's next move is, following the Frankenreich's rejection. If the Bush Administration follows with reasonable sounding musings about "willingness to listen" but doesn't compromise on essentials (see also Resolution 1441) regardless of any veto threats, then I'll be relieved.
So I'm going to watch and see what happens over the next week or so.
Extending what I said in this post, it is not that I think Kurtz was wrong in pointing to the larger problems we have in this era, it is that he so completely absolved Bush of any responsibility. In my opinion, that makes the Kurtz piece an expression of the political divide he points to rather than a step towards repairing it. That's what makes Kurtz's piece a example of partisan hackery - their is no reflection about "our guy", the role our side plays in decisions leading up to and including this decision to go seek greater involvement by the UN, including ceding at least some authority to it. Likewise, though Armed Liberal is absolutely correct in excoriating Kurtz for this, and in pointing out that Bush is not blameless, Armed Liberal is incorrect, in my view, in laying the blame exclusively with Bush.
This is not triangulation on my part. I have been consistent on this, if you check out those past pieces I linked to. Yes, I have been understanding of more Bush's position than A.L. has been, and also cut him more slack. But if one believes what Armed Liberal wrote here to be correct, especially this:
I'm unhappy because the one thing I know we need to succeed in this war is an iron butt...the patience and solidity to just stick it out long after it stops being comfortable.
then one has to be more than a little concerned.
I have cut the Bush Administration considerable slack because they seemed to be getting that right. Amid all the criticism, they looked like they were hanging tough and sticking it out. They may not have been doing everything perfectly, but they appeared able to ignore the carping and deceptive criticism and carry through. Going to the UN now seems like folding.
If you believe that ceding authority to the UN in Iraq means ceding authority over the mission to those who oppose and will try and undermine and undo what we're trying to accomplish, then you cannot be happy. If you believe that the UN is not competent in these fields, that introducing the UN means introducing a greater level of corruption and people who enjoy power without accountability, then you cannot be happy. If you believe that caving in puts the entire effort in peril of defeat, then you cannot be happy. If you believe that, yes, it does not insure defeat, but it will not make it more likely, then you cannot be happy. I believe all those things. I am not happy.
I am unhappy with anyone who thought this way on Monday but on Wednesday had Sudden Newfound Respect for the the wisdom of UN involvement simply because the Administration changed - or seemed to change - its position on it. Principles, ideas, and issues should trump partisanship. Otherwise you're just contributing to the "A house divided against itself cannot stand" problem Kurtz laments but absolves "us" for; you're just maneuvering in a partisan fashion for domestic political reasons and that makes you no better than the Democrats that Kurtz points all his fingers at.
Meanwhile, I'm left praying for a French veto. Yes, praying - I mean that literally, not as a figure of speech. And any time you're stuck praying for help from the French, you're in trouble. I'm also praying that I'm over-reacting and that the news reports are making out the Administration's proposed Resolution as more significant than it will turn out to be; that they aren't compromising and ceding authority to those who never supported what we are trying to accomplish in Iraq, have not changed their minds, and will thus work against its success if we give them the chance. It wouldn't be the first time that news reports made it seem like Bush had given in when he hadn't, and for the most part I did not fall for those. But this feels different - it looks like he has done just that.
If I'm proven wrong and these posts are over-wrought and premature, then I'll be happy, not sad. But one thing I won't do is give people a pass who come to the same conclusion about this as I have, but rationalize it when they never would if it was done by "the other side" in the culture war. That is the category I put the Kurtz piece - he isn't saying "well, the media is reporting that Bush has finally caved to the UN and gone back hat in hand seeking their help, but thats not what he's doing, they're misportraying, again, what Bush is seeking and he isn't giving away what they're saying he's giving away." Kurtz reaches the same conclusion about that as I do, that this is a major thing. But he absolves Bush.
Additional: Turns out both A.L. and I were wrong when it came to the President's role in the budget. It is not a Constitutional mandate, I was right about that, but there is a legal mandate, not "tradition" alone. He corrected his post to reflect that.
So, poor civics education bit us both in the ass, I guess.
Further: Also at Winds, don't miss Dan Darling's post on Saddam and al-Qaeda.
Ok, perhaps the title of this post is a tad melodramatic? You're right. Well, I'm keeping it anyhow.
In response to my lamentation of yesterday, Beets wrote, via e-mail, telling me to "hang tough". I will. Weebles Wobble but they don't fall down, you know (no, I'm not fat in the can). Beets also sends a link to this post of his, well worth reading. Go check it out. The rest of this post will still be here to finish reading when you get back.
Ok, back? In response to Bush's decision to seek the blessings of the International Community in the form of the UN, Stanley Kurtz wrote a piece of partisan hackery. That seem too strong a condemnation to you? Ok, well Kurtz is on "my (our?) side" from a partisan standpoint. But some things are just unswallowable on the merits. I can prove it's a piece of partisan hackery. Here's how:
A thought experiment. Lets say that everything up to now has been exactly as it has - all the events unchanged. But we'll change one thing. On Sept. 1st, Bush vanished, by magic, and a Democratic President *poofed* into office in his place (remember, this is a thought experiment, not reality). Because its magic at work, everyone accepts that the new Democratic President is the President and there is no ill-will over the magical replacement. With me so far?
That Democrat President does what Bush has done. Does anyone out there think that Stanley Kurtz would be writing the same piece? Anyone at all? Even though it would, in some respects, be more justifiable? I mean, it would be really true that, since this new President only took office four days ago, he hadn't any opportunity to push for increased funding to beef up our troop levels. But Kurtz would be all over him. Instead, Kurtz is treating our current troop levels as if they were an Iron Law of Nature, outside of political influence by the White House. Bush can find room in the budget to spend hundreds of billions on an unnecessarily and largely unwanted Prescription Drug program that no one is clamoring for except the political class - and billions for tax cuts that sure, may be a good idea in general but he couldn't find a way and the time to push for an increase in the size of our military force structure? Puh-leeze.
That's just risible.
That said, Armed Liberal has a post on the UN decision, lamenting it in a detailed way that I couldn't manage to do myself yesterday. It is a post I wish I could have written myself if I had been up to it. Except for the fact that "crowing" is the wrong term. "Crowing" is what someone does when they're preeningly jeering over a victory. A.L. does mean "lamenting" or "decrying" here. And he's mostly right. I'll give people on the Right a few days to a week because some might be waiting to see what actually happens - after all, there have been "faux panics" that Bush was going to cede too much to the UN before. I didn't fall for most of those but I think this one is real, thus my upsetness. If it turns out to be real but "Right-Wingers" who have been arguing against ceding authority to the UN suddenly begin to see wisdom in doing so with nothing having changed except Bush is doing what we've been arguing shouldn't be done, well then like Kurtz they're hacks too.
If it turns out that Bush isn't going to the UN to give away too much, well then to that extent I will have over-reacted. But I'm not about to praise the idea of resuscitating the "central" role of the "authority and legitimacy" of a institution I've spent the last lifetime of this blog pointing out the flaws to, just because "my guy Bush" makes a decision that, if it turns out to be what it is looking like, we would all deplore if Bush were that Democratic President instead of a "R".
By the way, I hope that as things unfold it will be the case that I am over-reacting. But I'm not going to let hope be self-delusion, nor am I going to suddenly accomodate myself to the sanctification of the corrupt UN as the arbitrar of moral legitimacy just because a Republican promotes it - if that is what ends up happening. Anyhow, please go read Armed Liberal's post, then come back. The rest of this post will still be waiting when you're done, even though this will be the second time you've spurned it for another. This is a patient and forgiving post, willing to accept Prodigal Sons and Daughters back.
Back? Ok, good. Because here's Armed Liberal's retort to Stanley Kurtz. You can go read that, too. But this time keep one eye on this post while the other wanders (shameless of you!) By and large and for the most part, on the main issue, I agree with Armed Liberal here, too - as indicated, above, in my own slam of the Kurtz piece.
However. A.L. is wrong in two things. One seemingly small but more important than it will seem at first, and the other somewhat petty. I'll start with the petty one. Kurtz wrote:
The choice was either to break the budget, eliminate domestic spending and lose the claim to a compassionate conservatism, or repeal the tax cut.
To which Armed Liberal's response was:
Damn right. Can't let national security get in the way of a tax cut!! Can't make any demands on the American people, or lead us in any way whatsoever. Let the other generations sacrifice, we're on Atkins.
Well, from "my side", I have written of my willingness - desire even - to let the tax cut go if the money would go to the military. In this post in June and this post in July, to note just two examples. But my petty reaction to Armed Liberal is that he doesn't make the same point as clearly and decisively when it comes to spending programs. It shows there is a bit of a blind spot when it comes to putting "their" oxen on the table. (For posts I've made related to this, see here and most recently here. But that brings me to my more substantive quibble:
I'm sorry, I thought the President was the one who made decisions about the size of the military; it is after all, his Constitutional duty to propose a budget. I wasn't aware that it was a consensus activity; no one's asked me, for example.
Poor American Civics education comes back to bite Armed Liberal in the ass. The President has a Constitutional duty to report to Congress on the State of the Union, but no Constitutional duty when it comes to submitting a budget. That is tradition, especially since FDR, but not a Constitutional mandate and Congress is, of course, under no obligation to look at it. The budget a President submits only becomes "official" for Congressional consideration if and when some Congressbeing(s) will sponsor it (and then it is properly and officially "their" legislative proposal).
This is important because I part with Armed Liberal not in that I let Bush off the hook but because we have always differed in one sense. He tends to hold Bush personally and apparently solely responsible. But I do think there is a kernel of something in Kurtz's otherwise dodgy piece, when Kurtz writes that "But it is a sign that our internal divisions have finally exacted a cost", because our President is not a dictator and we all play a role. Congresspersons could certainly have proposed and passed an increase in the Defense Budget to fund additional forces. This includes Republicans who run both houses and even in the immediate wake of Sept. 11th could have imposed a "working majority" on this issue in the Senate if they pushed it. This included Democrats who are quick to call for sending more troops to wherever (Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia) but who do not propose committing resources to increasing force levels to make this possible.
It is not absolving Bush of a failure of leadership to point out that others in America share responsibility. This includes "We the People". Perhaps not the readers of this Blog, who probably disproportionately favor an increased military. But it does include America as a whole. We could have been pushing this as a priority, and influencing our Congressbeings. That's what a civil society and civic participation Democracy is all about. I think had that happened, Bush would have been there, with it.
Again, I hope I'm perfectly clear - Bush is not absolved of his own role in this shortfall in troops. If he could push a tax cut through the Democratic Senate in the first few months of his term after a rocky and contested election, then he should have been able to push an increase in the size of our armed forces through a Republican Congress during a time of war. Or at least try.
But. . .but. . .I can't help feeling that there's something unhealthy to democracy about an attitude that "he leads, we follow. If he doesn't, we have no responsibility ourselves." We live in a polity, a Federal Republic, that is not supposed to depend on one man. Any one person is flawed and one of the philosophical underpinnings of democratic theory is that democracy is an improvement on Sole Rule in no small part because it is hoped that the decisions of the many will produce better results than relying on the decisions - and leadership - of one man, be it a monarch or otherwise. But this goes away if we decide that the President, even an elected one, "he says, we do. He doesn't say, his fault. The President Proposes, the President Disposes."
Well, thats it. In every other respect I concur with what Armed Liberal wrote in the two posts I link to, and where I quibble here it isn't because I disagree, per se, it is just that I think he treated one facet of the problem as if it were the whole - it's not that Bush is without responsibility, it is that he is not alone.
Ok, A.L. *was* wrong on the "crowing" thing. But in the big picture, a minor point. That and the assertion that "the hawks did a piss poor job selling this war to the general public". That's incorrect revisionism - the war was supported by the general public, the relentless and contemptibly dishonest propaganda campaign on the part of the Dems and their willing accomplices in the media since then is what is eating away at things. But that's an argument we've already gone into elsewhere and when we take it up again, it'll be another post for another time.
Here are some thoughts on the 2004 Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee and the fallacies of his assertions. Meanwhile, Cornell University has hired one of our most thoughtful former Congressbeings, a woman famous throughout the Bloggosphere for her interesting statements on the war (and other topics). This once again proves the state American education is in, and highlights the sort of ideas that university Administrators believe are of academic worth.
Elsewhere, further signs that they have built a more caring, compassionate society in Europe than we have here in the U.S. Yet another reason to let them lead while we follow and do what we're told.
Update: Tom Friedman on why we fight - and why others are fighting so hard against us:
In short, America's opponents know just what's at stake in the postwar struggle for Iraq, which is why they flock there: beat America's ideas in Iraq and you beat them out of the whole region; lose to America there, lose everywhere.
I would add to that his friends in Europe, who are striving so hard to wrest the steering wheel from our hands for a reason, and that reason has little or nothing to do with either our welfare or the welfare of the people of the Middle East and everything to do with the fact that success for us there is defeat for them, too, on the larger issue that is of such concern to them - America's role in the world. This too is why they are selling the idea that we Americans are bungling everything in Iraq and need to step aside and let them, with their superior expertise, take the lead.
After all, when they say "the UN", the UN is made up of members - it does not have an existence apart from them and they know that anything that goes through the UN goes through them, and they will have more control over it. This is fairly similar to why, in the late '90s the Kossovo crisis was not resolved through a UN mechanism where those (primarily Russia at the time) could monkey wrench it.
Frankly, as much of an impact as the terrorists flocking to Iraq can have on our efforts there - and I don't minimize it and do believe we should do all in our power to thwart them - I believe that the (continental) European efforts, including the efforts of those in America who are advocating the same policy path (of ceding authority to the UN and therefore to the opponents of our efforts) represent a greater threat to our goals and our ability to carry them out in Iraq. This is in no small part because they have little interest in defeating the terrorist forces. Most of them believe they cannot be defeated, the best that can be done is to "manage" the problem, and most of them have shown by now that they are more concerned with the U.S. than with terrorism anyhow.
The invocation of "neutrality" and "impartiality" by those in Europe championing a commanding role for the UN should have been a warning sign for those Americans who want us to succeed in Iraq but sincerely believe in the UN route: the indication that their "co-belligerents" in asserting the need of a greater role for the UN are impartial as between the Coalition and the Ba'athists and their terrorist allies, neutral between the fire brigade and the fire, should have been an eye-opener that the UN would not be an instrument to advance the goals they say they share with other Americans, of the success of our effort there. The fact that for all too many, it was not an eye opener, shows that they are willfully blind to the fact that others see the UN not as an instrument to make the things Friedman talks about as our goals succeed, but as an instrument of preventing their success and returning to a status quo ante. The alternative interpretation of the attitude of those who say that a UN path is the way to go is that they are not willfully blind to how the UN will be used to obstruct our goals, but insincere in asserting they want us to succeed in their goals and, covertly or overtly, sharing the aims of those in (continental) Europe who see it as a tool for blocking our, to them "dangerous" and "over ambitious" policy goals.
These are the "allies" Friedman claims we are "gratuitously" alienating - however, they were "gratuitously" alienated from the get go, in '02-03 as in '98, because they oppose the policy we are implementing, not simply out of pique or a feeling that we haven't been nice enough to them. The latter may be the rather passive-aggressive means they use to try and get us to let them have the deciding vote in what to do and how to do it, but it's not the real reason. For a guy who, among many like him, that is used to looking behind surface assertions when it comes to American officials to find the reality of the situation, Friedman and his ilk are curiously uninterested in looking beyond the superficial when it comes to the claims of the (continental) Europeans he speaks so highly of. It's too bad that in the end, despite asking interesting questions, he never really turned his analytical skills to the motivations behind the opposition of our "gratuitously alienated allies" to see what they really had in mind and the degree to which their aims are - or aren't - compatible with what we - and Friedman - want to achieve.
Sure, many of the voices in Europe who opposed the war and believe our policy is unrealistic claim they want it to succeed - but so do the Saudis, among others in the Middle East. Are we to simply accept such claims as sincere, without looking at whether their actions and other statments with respect to the policy and their belief (or lack theirof) in its practicality supports asserted hopes that we succeed? Or are they insisting on the ability to direct decision-making precisely because they do not have any confidence or desire in the ambitious project we are attempting, and want the means to re-direct it in ways that are in accord with their own views and goals?
Thus it is not really a surprise that this path is favored not just by people overseas who opposed the war in the first place, but also advocated by those at home who opposed it. Opponents at home often want to see the "Neocons" behind the policy humbled, while opponents overseas see it as a way of humbling America as a whole, so that we will be put in our place and not try anything so "destabilizing" again in the future. Thus a preference for involving Ba'athists that they are familiar with over and against promoting divisive American ideas.
(Friedman piece via Armed Liberal, who thinks Friedman "gets it right")
The UN and countries that are neutral between the fire brigade and the fire, impartial between the perpetrators of the attack and those trying to root out said perpetrators, would have made things worse, were they given the role that France (our "ally" in the sense of "neutral") demands they be given. The fact that they have learned nothing from the bombing of the UN facility, as evidenced in the asserted implication that things would be better if those who had decided that Saddam's intelligence operatives made suitable guards had been given even greater decision-making authority over the whole of Iraq, simply proves that they are not competent to be given the authority sans responsibility that they yearn for.
The fact that they are demanding acceleration of everything also tends to show that, if given the authority they want, they would rely upon Ba'athists to staff everything rather than take the time to cultivate alternatives. Not exactly an unexpected policy from those who opposed the entire idea of removing the Ba'athists they had close personal ties to, but not something that we should accept. When the French envoy says this:
"Iraq unfortunately has become a theatre of operation for terrorists."
it shows that he's being deliberately deceptive - he of course knows that Iraq was a theater of operation for terrorists under Saddam, they trained at facilities Saddam provided and were paid and encouraged by Saddam.
Note: This post took a lot longer to write than it may seem. That's because I went from site to site, Yahoo news, Washington Post, Financial Times, Sky News, Fox News, LA Times, various France-oriented Blogs, goggle searched, and everything looking for a full and accurate account of what various French officials said; BBC World News Service ran clips this morning where they were full of the usual gas about the need for UN power in control in Iraq, their refusal to work with the U.S. (yet people continue to insist France is an "ally"), "multilateral" vs "unilateral" arguments, and the like. But not even the BBC's web story (linked to, above) included a full and accurate account of the official French statements on the subject. So I've made do with what I managed to collect, for now.
Additional: Joe Katzman makes a good point. I hope no one was confused by this post and thought that my attitude was that the UN deserved to be attacked, or that it serves them right.
But the attack is not a proof that the UN is doing things right and the U.S. is doing things wrong and we need to bow to their superior expertise and let them take over. I was honest about my reaction including the fact that I did not truly put concern over those who died and were injured first, and also honest that I was not proud of that reaction.
That everything is proceeding exactly as I have foreseen does not really make that reaction any better; concern over the people in the building should have been first in everyone's mind. That so many have been blasé about it, while on the other hand many of those people get incensed when people are indifferent to those who die in other terror attacks - such as ones affecting us - is nothing to be proud of.
We need to pray for the souls of the dead, and that the Lord comfort their family and friends, and also that the injured recover quickly and completely - just as we would for our own. The fact that they worked under the color of the UN banner does not lessen that. These were people on the ground, trying to do good as they saw it. They may be wrong, and I will and have argued that and will not retreat from my principled position on such issues. But that does not warrant being dismissive of their deaths or the suffering of their loved ones - they have loved ones, too you know, and I should know.
I do grieve for them as much as for the Israelis that were killed and injured. But I honestly acknowledge that, lamentably, it wasn't the first thing that entered my thoughts. There should be shame in that, not glee.
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun shiny day
I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I've been prayin' for
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun shiny day
Look all around, there's nothin' but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin' but blue skies
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun shiny day
Al Superczynski sends a link to a Opinion Journal piece on how the UN profits from corrupting the supposed "Oil for Food" program (which became the "oil for palace", "oil for cash stashes", "oil for weapons", "oil for high-paid UN bureaucrats and their slush fund" and the "blood of Iraqis for oil for TotalFinaElf").
I'm not defending the UN here, but the UN does nothing that is not connected to its members. There's a reason why Annan awarded cozy deals to Saddam's biggest international supporters (the French and Russians), and a reason why they have behaved the way they have, both within the context of the UN and outside of it. Which gets at one of the numerous reasons why moves to transcend the nation and resort to institutions of "international community" are flawed. Usually the people pushing such schemes do it because they want you to "transcend" your interests so that they can impose theirs. While some get all misty-eyed at the thought of the UN, nations of the world working together in peaceful cooperation for the good of all humanity, venality is rife and the very countries at the front of mouthing such platitudes are using the institution to enrich themselves and screw others over. A body of kleptocrats sitting around the table putting deals for themselves together in this fashion reminds me of nothing else but the Mafia's Commissione (dittoes with the EU Commissione; indeed, it's only a matter of time before Chirac, de Villepin, Patten, Solana, and the rest of them start talking about "this thing of ours"; they're already talking about the consiquences of newly made-members and candidates "going against the family").
So, sure, the UN got their piece of the actoion out of the skim from the blood for oil - er, food for oil program, just as did the other members of the racket right down to Saddam and his family members.
France and Russia are to press in the UN today for keeping the sanctions they opposed during Saddam's bloody reign (when they figured they could profit more by having sanctions removed) on Iraq indefinitely. It's obvious now (if it wasn't before) that the "humanitarian" argument they employed before, when they were arguing for the removal of sanctions, was just a cover for their own greed and determination to profit while Iraqis were being killed by Chirac's friend, Saddam.
Now they're willing to impose any hardship it takes on the people of Iraq simply to keep their commercial contracts and economic interests intact. Likewise with the UN itself, which has used the "Oil-for-Palace" program as a slush fund for itself in ways that differ little from the corruption of the Ba'athist regime.
We're talking the real Blood-for-Oil actors here. But you won't find the usual suspects protesting it.
Further details here on how the countries that were eager to drop UN sanctions on Iraq as long as Saddam was still in power are now the most opposed to removing them now that Iraq is free - and the reason.
Hint: it's all about oil, of course.
Also, here's a story by Adam Sparks on the moral corruption that is the UN, and what will happen if it's given a "central role" in Iraq:
Haiti is a small nation, yet the U.N. was there some 10 years, and all it did during that time was preside over Aristide's tyrannical reign, including the recent theft by Aristide of the elections in the Haitian Senate. The mission of restoring democracy in Haiti that had begun with putting American troops and lives in harm's way ended in January 2001 with a rout of the U.N. and its eventual surrender to a tinhorn dictator.
Because the U.N. has never had a mandate to create a free and democratic society and has no experience in democratic nation building -- U.N. member nations feel its role is merely that of a "peace enforcer" -- its presence in Haiti was no bar to the reestablishment of a corrupt Haitian government.
If the U.N. can't restore a basic democratic government to Haiti, after the United States had made the peace militarily, how can it begin to restore a democracy to a far more complex Iraq?
The Left has always been a major cheerleading squad for the globalists that support the U.N. These are the very same people that hate multinational corporations but love a multinational government -- like the U.N. -- that exercises control over individual nations. But a one-world government ought to be frightening to anyone who has ever read George Orwell's "1984." Why would anyone want to surrender national sovereignty to a body that gives nations run by tyrants, despots and power-mad dictators an equal vote with powerful democracies such as the United States in its general assembly?
Well, one would want that if one prefered the dictatorships to the U.S., as all to many on the Left - their demurals to the contrary - prove they do through their actions.
The organization has never removed a single tyrant or replaced one with a constitutional democracy, because doing so is simply not a part of its charter. The U.N. and the American Left both want one-world government brought to you by an organization that is by and large composed of representatives from tyrannical, nondemocratic nations.
Why should Americans want to emasculate their own sovereignty in order to be run by the likes of Syria, Libya and Sudan, each of which has a vote in the U.N.? Is the Left so tranquilized it doesn't know that despotic member nations of the U.N. outnumber the constitutional democracies? Or perhaps it is precisely because it does know and is intent on destroying our national sovereignty and replacing it with a socialist-style one-world government that redistributes power to everyone.
Fifty-four years ago, the U.N. stood by silently as the People's Republic of China invaded Tibet in 1949. Nearly a half million Tibetans died in the invasion aftermath, and China still occupies Tibet today. No U.N. resolutions, no boycotts, no divestment campaigns, no peace marchers. Nothing. Just an eerie Tibetan-Buddhist silence.
But the U.N. can be relied upon to fixate on Israel (which was attacked) and the U.S. (dittoes), while it ignores that (and also Syria's occupation of Lebanon never comes in for condemnation in the UN - or in the oh-so-morally-superior EU).
In 1994, Rwanda underwent the worst episodes of genocide since the Nazis. At the time, the U.N. had a sizable presence in that country, but when a debate over the issue bogged down in the U.N. Security Council, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan recalled the organization's peace-keeping forces and, in less than 100 days, more than a million Tutsis were brutally massacred. Subsequently, the Security Council approved a French-led military intervention, which ironically provided a safe haven for the Hutu killers.
Perhaps that's how the French became world-historical heroes in the eyes of so many on the Left.
So, although the U.N. and France objected to a war to liberate the people of Iraq, the organization didn't oppose unilateral action by the French in Africa. And where were the worldwide demonstrations by peace activists when millions -- not thousands, as in Iraq -- were being brutally killed in Rwanda under the U.N.'s and France's watch?
In July 1995, in Srebrenica, Bosnia, a U.N. peace-keeping battalion in a U.N.-declared "free zone" handed over 8,000 Muslim civilians to the Serbs, who promptly slaughtered them all. There was no U.N. inquiry to review that terrible human atrocity. Instead, soon after this massacre, Kofi Annan was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
That's because, for so many on the Left, actions and consequences don't matter - only sentiment, feeling, and intentions.
Neither the U.N. nor the European Union could solve the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, an event that resulted in the deaths of a quarter of a million people. It was finally resolved only after the U.S. ignored the Security Council and intervened directly without U.N. approval. In this instance, there were no mass demonstrations by grief-stricken protestors. Perhaps it was related to the fact that it was Bill Clinton, a Democrat, who sent in the troops. Don't forget, peace protests are often partisan, political rallies as much as they are Leftist confabs.
Of course.
The most damning U.N. hypocrisy has been the outrageous double standard employed against Israel. When Israel pulled out of Lebanon, which it had invaded following repeated terrorist attacks based in the southern part of that country, Syria filled the void, moving its forces into Lebanon and instigating a nine-year civil war between Muslims and Lebanese Christians. The U.N. criticized Israel for its defensive incursion into southern Lebanon, but no resolutions, boycotts or embargoes were issued against Syria for inflaming the civil war and later occupying Lebanon and setting up a puppet government there.
That not a single U.N. resolution was passed to condemn Syria was also consistent with the unwillingness of the U.N.'s peace-keeping force to offer security in southern Lebanon and to resist terrorist incursions into Israeli territory after the latter's withdrawal from Lebanon. Moreover, the U.N. has failed to resettle the dislocated Palestinians since Israel's creation 55 years ago.
Meanwhile, one doesn't find permanent refugee camps in Poland for the Poles who were resettled after Stalin re-drew Polish borders around that same time, or Germans still living in refugee camps after having likewise been moved out of East Prussia and Silecia. Nor permanent refugee camps in India and Pakistan after the division of the sub-Continent following the end of British rule there. Probably because the UN wasn't in charge in any of those places, people instead went on with their lives rather than being administered by a permanent (but corrupt and ineffectual) UN bureaucracy.
Perhaps the tough moral decisions couldn't be made because Libya, which may have a worse human rights record than even Iraq, now heads the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission. And, after all, U.N. diplomats would clearly rather enjoy anoth
