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Middle East
Kofi wants to send troops
2002-04-12
  • U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday called for sending an armed international force to Palestinian areas to stop the spiraling violence. Annan, who was in Geneva, told the U.N. Human Rights Commission the United Nations could not stand back from what was happening in the Middle East. "The situation is so dangerous and the humanitarian and human rights situation so appalling that I think the proposition that a force should be sent in there ... can no longer be deferred," Annan told a news conference. "It is urgent. It is imperative."

    "I am talking about a force that will help create a secure environment, to allow for assistance, to allow us to be able to end the killing and give us time for negotiations and diplomacy," he said at a second news conference later in the day. Claiming it wants to root out terrorists, Israel has defied demands by the United Nations, the United States and much of the rest of the world that it withdraw its forces from the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said his forces would not pull back until Palestinian militias are crushed.
    Worst idea in years, with the single exception of sending in US troops to do the same thing. They can send "peacekeepers" in one of two manners: they can be unarmed schlepps riding around in blue APCs and occasionally getting slapped around by local hard boys; or they can come in armed and dangerous, which will amount to an invasion of Israel. They can either coerce an agreement out of the Israelis, which means they've got to be honest brokers or get shot up; or they can invade, which the US would veto in the Security Council. Invade past the veto and the UN's broken up - we'll be forced to withdraw.

    Kofi may actually have the honest broker thing in mind, keeping the two sides apart while Yasser tells some more lies and makes some more promises he has no intention of keeping. While they're doing that, the boomers are going to be trying to swarm Israel and it's only a matter of time before the Philistine hard boys start popping peacekeepers for fun, especially if they're infidels. And if they aren't infidels, the peacekeepers'll be standing around whistling and playing craps and ignoring the swarms, to pick up their arms when the Israelis look like they may retaliate. And that won't be honest brokerage. The alternative is a comprimise with mixed infidels and believers, which will combine all the worst elements of both approaches and could end up with the peacekeepers shooting it out with each other. Pfui.
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

    00:01