Posted by: Albert Armchair ||
11/07/2005 15:54 ||
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#1
Great read.
Not to be picky but :
(or âles beuresâ in French slang, which means âthe buttersâ, a reference to their golden skin color)
I don't think so; I rather think that "beur" (actual spelling) is bastardized from "arabe" said backward ("verlan", a french slang consisting of saying words backward, I have no idea if this is present in the USA too), and became famous during the socialist 80's.
It is a PC euphemism (exactly like the english word "black" is the PC euphemism for the french "noir" for black people, now almost considered insulting), with no relation to their skin color.
Its social conscience is something that the French elite has long taken pride in. The term "Anglo-Saxon" is now almost synonymous in the parlance of that elite with "savage liberalism," a state of affairs which is alleged to prevail on the other side of the Channel, and to an even greater and more terrible extent on the other side of the Atlantic, in which an economic free-for-all leads to mass discontent, grotesque economic inequalities, lawlessness and endemic instability punctuated by violent civil disturbances. Fortunately, the French social model avoids this miserable chaos, at least in theory (which, as every Cartesian intellectual will tell you, is what really counts).
[...]
A Martian observing France dispassionately, without ideological preconceptions, would come to the conclusion that the French had accepted with equanimity a kind of social settlement in which all those with jobs would enjoy various legally sanctioned perks and protections, while those without jobs would remain unemployed forever, though they would be tossed enough state charity to keep body and cellphone together. And since there are many more employed people than unemployed people in France, this is a settlement that suits most people, who will vote for it forever. It is therefore politically unassailable, either by the left or the right, which explains the paralysis of the French state in the present impasse.
The only fly in the ointment (apart from the fact that the rest of the economies of the world won't leave the French economy in peace) is that the portion of the population whom the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, so tactlessly, but in the secret opinion of most Frenchmen so accurately, referred to as the "racaille" -- scum -- is not very happy with the settlement as it stands. It wants to be left alone to commit crimes uninterrupted by the police, as is its inalienable right.
Unfortunately, to economic division is added ethnic and cultural division: For the fact is that most of Mr. Sarkozy's racaille are of North African or African descent, predominantly Muslim. And the French state has adopted, whether by policy or inadvertence, the South African solution to the problem of social disaffection (in the days of Apartheid): It has concentrated the great majority of the disaffected paupers geographically in townships whose architecture would have pleased that great Francophone (actually Swiss) modernist architect, Le Corbusier, who -- be it remembered -- wanted to raze the whole of Paris and rebuild it along the lines of Clichy-sous-Bois (known now as Clichy-sur-Jungle).
If you wanted to create and run a battery farm for young delinquents, you could hardly do better. But as one "community leader" put it when asked whether he thought that better architecture might help, there's no point in turning 15-story chicken coops into three-story chicken coops.
[...]
The Paris stock exchange has every confidence that, in the end, Sarkozy or no Sarkozy, the French state will emerge victorious over the disorganized racaille, and everything can continue as before. The index has risen steadily -- or calmly, to quote the officer of the CRS -- throughout the disturbances.
(From JihadWatch. I wish I was the author. He seems to be in France or at least Europe)
The Barbarians are no longer at the Gates of Paris. They are already inside. Last night 30 cars were burnt out by Muslims going around on scooters lobbing Molotov cocktails inside cars near the Place de La Republique and the 17th arrondissement.
Tonight 30 police have been injured by gunfire and, if you were to follow the mainstream media in France, this is what you would hear. Anti Racism groups accusing Sarcosy of inciting hatred by calling the Islamic hordes 'scum' and accusing the police of over reacting. (Because they fight back). You would hear about community leaders 'reaching out', and sporting associations helping 'youth' find their feet. That's not news, it's propaganda: 'Tout va bien Mme la Marquise'
30 cars burnt out in Paris, is nothing compared to the 1200 or so burnt on Saturday night by islamofascists. One could say that the over-reacting police have done an excellent job so far of keeping these zombies away from the Left Bank.
The reality is however, that the phrase, thin blue line has never been so apt as now, in France, the centre of European Jihad. This is not a racial issue, or an issue of poverty or unemployment. For years Islamic Arab and African immigrants and their descendants have used anti racism as an excuse for us not to examine too closely what they have been up to in their neighbourhoods. The problem is not the blackness of their skin, but the blackness of their hearts. Islam is a binary religion whose morality is not based around the idea of 'treating your neighbour as you wish to be treated'. Right and wrong is decided on whether you are Muslim or not. An infidel is always wrong. Hence the overwhelming feeling of victimisation, whenever you question anything about their religion.
This also explains the deafening silence which accompanies a billion Muslims not marching with 'Not in my name' placards when their co-religionaries, chop, dice, humiliate, rape, destroy, explode anything or anyone which gets in the way of the advance of Islam.
All Muslims believe Mohamed is the final prophet of Allah. They all believe that the Koran is divinely dictated. They all believe that the Koran is perfect for all time. They all believe Mohamed is the perfect man who must be emulated.
This perfect man had sex with a nine year old girl. FACT
This perfect man ordered the death of poets who criticised him. FACT
This perfect man ordered the death by decapitation of 800 innocent Jews at Banu Quaraiza. FACT
This perfect man hated art. FACT
This perfect man took as slaves, the wives of executed prisoners. FACT
This perfect man robbed caravans, destroyed towns and kept 20 % of the booty. FACT
This perfect man said women had half the value of men. FACT
This perfect man called for the death of infidels wherever they could be found. FACT
This perfect man lied, to hide his ambitions. FACT
This perfect man arranged to have a revelation that suited him when he wanted his son in law's wife. FACT
This perfect man said that he knew of no greater act for Allah than Jihad. (Not the internal struggle bullshit) FACT
This perfect man ordered the killing of apostates. FACT
For years now, the media has covered Islamism in Europe as a minority sport carried out by a tiny handful of fanatics. Not one jihadist has even been handed over to the police by these mythical moderate Muslims. There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, just a Muslim who doesn't take his religion to its logical conclusion, by behaving like its founder.
For those who don't believe that the intifada in France (and in Denmark) has anything to do with Islam, I would like to suggest that you read the Internet Blogs of those who take part. These links go down as soon as they go up, but from www.france-echos.com you will find links to these islamofascist zombies. These islamobarbarians are armed to the teeth with AK47s, grenades and knives. They have been ready for far longer than we have.
To those who still believe that Islam is a religion of peace and that Turkey, Africa, Pakistan, India, Central Asia, the Balkans and Indonesia were Islamised by peaceful methods, I would suggest you ask yourselves what happened to their religious minorities. (And why are they minorities in the first place, if Islam came from elesewhere?)
To those who believe that Moorish Spain was the height of civilization because the Alhambra looks like a gothic cloister and they have heard of Avicenna and Averoes and because Jewish scribes translated texts by Aristotle into Arabic, I suggest you vist the Islamic art section of the Louvre in Paris. And when you have finished gazing at the repetitive calligraphy and a few earthenware pots, take a look at the pre Islamic art in the Louvre. You will find Christian art from North Africa. You will find Babylonian, Greek, Byzantine, Roman, Jewish, Persian, Greco-Egyptian all of which make the glories of Islamic art look a child's school project.
To believe that this religion, which forces its subjects to take Arab names, destroy all that went before, adopt 7th century nomadic tribal legal and moral codes, treat women and infidels like slaves, deny all art and science not created by themselves and yet, despite all this, think themselves as superior beings, belongs to 21st century, is so completely and utterly stupid that one has to question the common sense of humankind.
France has two choices today. Today means today, not next year or next generation. Next week the Islamic hordes have agreed via the Internet to meet on the Champs de Mars on Friday the 11th of November or, on the Champs Elysees on Saturday the 12th. This has been announced on their Blogs. How true this is, one can only guess, but as they announced that last night was going to be the big one, and 1200 destroyed vehicles all over France was the biggest so far, I would reckon that it is not beyond reason to take them seriously.
France can choose, to reach an agreement and allow them to live in peace in their neighbourhoods. They will get brand new mosques, they will continue to receive state money for not working, and they can quietly continue the demographic conquest. It will be a parallel world where the laws of the republic no longer apply. This is the Balkan solution preferred by Giles Kepel, Tariq Ramadan and to a certain degree, Nicolas Sarkosy. The state will accommodate their ethnicity. In socialist speak, they will be permitted "celebrate their diversity", even if it includes polygamy, wife beating or gang raping of infidel girls. Robberies of infidels will not be examined too closely. (This is actually pretty much the situation today anyway)
Choice two, is to apply the law of the land. However much it hurts.
If choice two is applied, Europe has a chance to save itself.
If choice one is applied, I invite anyone to point out when appeasement of those who hate you, has ever brought long term peace.
If you are tired of the crap which passes for analysis on the mainstream media here are some links for you. If you want to know the truth about Islam you have several choices.
The best of course would be to ask a child. He or she will point out the obvious:
Failing that you can of course read Jihadwatch for a few days and ask questions in the comments section.
http://jihadwatch.org/
The latest news in France can be found here:
http://www.france-echos.com/index.php
And possibly here, although this site is very mocking in tone:
http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/
And this Scandinavian Blog is also very well written:
http://fjordman.blogspot.com/
More Europe wide news can be found here:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/
The fate of christians in muslim lands can be seen here:
http://www.barnabasfund.org/home.htm
Just don't ask a muslim about his religion. He will bang on about 5 pillars but will hide the nasty truth from you because his religion demands of him. (Unless he is a fully fledged jihadist, in which case he will be quite honest in his desire to kill infidels)
Don't ask a socialist. (To their joy, Islamism accelerates their program of the destruction of capitalism). They also believe all religions are equally bad. Socialists are the useful idiots of Bin Laden, and will be next in line for the wall, once the islamofascists have finished with the jews and infidels or transformed them into well behaved dhimmis.
You can read more about Islam from the following authors. Their books can be found on www.amazon.co.uk
Robert Spencer, Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq, Ram Swarup, Serge Trifkovic, Andrew Bostom, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Oriana Fallaci
These books all condemn Islam as a religion which extinguishes light, creativity, joy, lives and indeed, entire civilizations. Some are written brave ex muslims who live under a death fatwa. The facts are backed up by quotes, historical examples and anecdotes. People only wish to kill writers who tell the truth
Writers on Islam who have no death sentence hanging on them are Karen Armstrong, Gilles Kepel and Bernard Lewis. Edward Said, whilst alive also never risked a Theo Van Gogh type killing.
I will let you make your own conclusions as to who is telling the truth about about Islam. Those who risk death, or those who enjoy their Saudi funded university chair?
#2
Kewl, a no http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/ shameless plug! I love that blog, it's funny, you've the arch vicious "W" (now U2, an american expat from Merde in France fame)... note this is a bilingual blog... and http://www.france-echos.com/ (french), too! Damn, now I call that good publicity!
In english (more or less bilingual, but now mostly english), you might want to try http://www.fuckfrance.com/, they're degenerates (I used to love this, you had one guy hysterically funny writing in a very inventive french), but they're french bashers (and a few indigenous froggies) who also follow the news.
La minute du sablier is interesting: the writer is a Kabyle (a berber) who vomits panarabism and islamism not only his comments are often very good (pity he seems not to have that many readers) but the site has many links toward Kabyl web sites.
Since the beginng of WOT I have hammered again and again that we have to support those are opressed by the islamo-arabism, be it berbers, nationalistic afghans, young women born in France from Muslim families or Arabs pissed with Islam and dictatorships.
#4
If you live in Europe, it is time to buy a shooter.
Posted by: Albert Armchair ||
11/07/2005 15:39 Comments ||
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#5
Since the beginng of WOT I have hammered again and again that we have to support those are opressed by the islamo-arabism, be it berbers, nationalistic afghans, young women born in France from Muslim families or Arabs pissed with Islam and dictatorships.
ANYONE who knew the late Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan has to wonder what he'd make of the CIA leak case.
The agency was one of his pet targets. Moynihan, a true Washington wise man, would get livid when he fumed about the CIA's "unbroken record of missing what's happening."
In a 1979 Newsweek essay, he accurately predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse in the '80s. The CIA, dead wrong, had no clue of the coming collapse. At his monthly "tutorials" for New York reporters, Moynihan would recount with outrage that in 1987, just two years before the Berlin wall fell, the CIA was still claiming East Germany had a higher GDP than West Germany â when any cab driver in Berlin could have told you that was ridiculous.
CIA agents on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan have done amazing, brave things. But when it comes to intelligence, the agency keeps getting the big things wrong.
It missed 9/11. The Iraq war began a day early when then-CIA chief George Tenet claimed to have "pretty darn good intelligence" on where Saddam Hussein was hiding out; it turned out to be pretty darn wrong intelligence. And Tenet wrongly insisted to a skeptical President Bush that CIA had a "slam-dunk case" on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. (That's Bob Woodward's account in "Plan of Attack," which Tenet has never disputed.)
But the CIA also, as Moynihan noted wryly to columnist Mary McGrory, has a history of covering its butt by coming up with "revisionist rumbles" to claim it had really gotten things right somewhere, buried in a secret footnote. Would Moynihan see the leak case as a familiar tale of the agency again getting things wrong â and looking for someone else to blame?
The story began in February 2002, when CIA staffer Valerie Plame Wilson got her bosses to send her husband, ex-Ambassador Joe Wilson, to the African nation of Niger to check if Saddam was trying to buy yellowcake uranium. In her later statements to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Wilson left little doubt she expected him to come back with a "no" when she told him explore "this crazy report." For over a year, Wilson and some CIA officials denied that he got the Niger gig at his wife's behest â but both the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report and the CIA leak indictment say that's that case.
The taxpayer money spent to send Wilson to Niger didn't produce much. His report "did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium," CIA chief Tenet would later say. If anything, CIA analysts thought Wilson's report backed up the yellowcake story that his wife had billed as "crazy." Wilson didn't make any claim to have debunked the belief in Iraq weapons for over a year after his February 2002 trip. But in May 2003, he joined Democrat John Kerry's campaign â and instantly began blasting Bush, first through anonymous leaks, then in a New York Times op-ed and on any TV station that would have him, even posing with his wife for Vanity Fair in his jaguar.
So why did the CIA let him do it? It sent Wilson on a sensitive mission â but didn't require him to sign the usual confidentiality agreement. Even though his wife was a CIA staffer, it let him go loudly public â violating the most basic precautions, if she truly wanted to protect her identify. The agency didn't assert a right to vet the New York Times op-ed he wrote about his trip â even though such review is standard, and even though his Times account sharply conflicted with what he'd told the CIA. It was if the agency flashed him a giant green light to blast Bush.
Indeed, the indictment that could send ex-White House aide Scooter Libby to jail for 30 years also holds clear evidence that the CIA should have stopped Wilson from going public. The indictment notes that on June 9, 2003, Libby got CIA documents about Wilson's trip to Niger that were marked "classified" â even though "they did not mention Wilson by name" and Libby didn't yet know about the role of Wilson's wife. That indicates that the trip itself was classified â so CIA should have ordered Wilson to stop blabbing.
But then, all this came at a time when the CIA division where Wilson's wife worked had an intense need to cover its rear: Remember â they were the ones who (along with every other intel agency in the world) had insisted that Saddam had WMDs â but no WMDs were being found. Having Wilson go public was very useful to the CIA, especially the division where his wife worked â because it served to shift blame for failed "slam dunk" intelligence claims away from the agency. To say that Bush "twisted" intelligence was to presume â falsely â that the CIA had gotten it right.
When the White House ineptly tried to counter Wilson's tall tales by revealing that he wasn't an expert and his wife set up the trip, the CIA demanded a criminal probe â and then itself broke the law by leaking that news.
It now appears the CIA's entire referral was dishonest: The agency knew Plame wasn't a covert agent under the terms of the law, since she hadn't had an overseas posting in the past five years â and obviously neither she nor the CIA was taking proper precautions to protect her identity. Call it disinformation. That almost certainly is why no charges have been filed against the mysterious X who first leaked Mrs. Wilson's identity to columnist Robert Novak, who published it. Since Mrs. Wilson wasn't a covert agent, she couldn't be outed. And that's why Libby is accused of lying to investigators but not of outing Wilson's wife.
As Victoria Toensing, a former Senate Intelligence Committee chief counsel, put it in the Wall Street Journal: "The CIA conduct in this matter is either a brilliant covert action against the White House or inept intelligence tradecraft." For her part Toensing â who was Intelligence Committee counsel when Moynihan was vice-chairman â has no doubt about the answer: "It was a planned CIA covert action against the White House. It was too clever by half."
Spies, after all, get much better training than White House aides at double-dealing, leaks, disinformation and cover-ups. Sen. John McCain has called the CIA a "rogue agency." One can only imagine that Moynihan would agree.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/07/2005 14:33 ||
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It sounds like a Tom Clancy plot. An anonymous group of international technocrats holds secretive meetings in Geneva. Their cover story: devising a blueprint to help the developing world more fully participate in the digital revolution. Their real mission: strategizing to take over management of the Internet from the U.S. and enable the United Nations to dominate and politicize the World Wide Web. Does it sound too bizarre to be true? Regrettably, much of what emanates these days from the U.N. does.
The Internet faces a grave threat. We must defend it. We need to preserve this unprecedented communications and informational medium, which fosters freedom and enterprise. We can not allow the U.N. to control the Internet.
The threat is posed by the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society taking place later this month in Tunisia. At the WSIS preparatory meeting weeks ago, it became apparent that the agenda had been transformed. Instead of discussing how to place $100 laptops in the hands of the world's children, the delegates schemed to transfer Internet control into the hands of intrigue-plagued bureaucracies.
The low point of that planning session was the European Union's shameful endorsement of a plan favored by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Cuba that would terminate the historic U.S. role in Internet government oversight, relegate both private enterprise and non-governmental organizations to the sidelines, and place a U.N.-dominated group in charge of the Internet's operation and future. The EU's declaration was a "political coup," according to London's Guardian newspaper, which predicted that once the world's governments awarded themselves control of the Internet, the U.S. would be able to do little but acquiesce.
I disagree. Such acquiescence would amount to appeasement. We cannot allow Tunis to become a digital Munich.
There is no rational justification for politicizing Internet governance within a U.N. framework. The chairman of the WSIS Internet Governance Subcommittee himself recently affirmed that existing Internet governance arrangements "have worked effectively to make the Internet the highly robust, dynamic and geographically diverse medium it is today, with the private sector taking the lead in day-to-day operations, and with innovation and value creation at the edges."
Nor is there a rational basis for the anti-U.S. resentment driving the proposal. The history of the U.S. government's Internet involvement has been one of relinquishing control. Rooted in a Defense Department project of the 1960s, the Internet was transferred to civilian hands and then opened to commerce by the National Science Foundation in 1995. Three years later, the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers assumed governance responsibility under Department of Commerce oversight. Icann, with its international work force and active Governmental Advisory Committee, is scheduled to be fully privatized next year. Privatization, not politicization, is the right Internet governance regime.
We do not stand alone in our pursuit of that goal. The majority of European telecommunications companies have already dissented from the EU's Geneva announcement, with one executive pronouncing it "a U-turn by the European Union that was as unexpected as it was disturbing."
In addition to resentment of U.S. technological leadership, proponents of politicization are driven by fear -- of access to full and accurate information, and of the opportunity for legitimate political discourse and organization, provided by the Internet. Nations like China, which are behind the U.N. plan to take control, censor their citizens' Web sites, and monitor emails and chat rooms to stifle legitimate political dissent. U.N. control would shield this kind of activity from scrutiny and criticism.
The U.S. must do more to advance the values of an open Internet in our broader trade and diplomatic conversations. We cannot expect U.S. high-tech companies seeking business opportunities in growing markets to defy official policy; yet we cannot stand idly by as some governments seek to make the Internet an instrument of censorship and political suppression. To those nations that seek to wall off their populations from information and dialogue we must say, as Ronald Reagan said in Berlin, "Tear down this wall."
Allowing Internet governance to be politicized under U.N. auspices would raise a variety of dangers. First, it is wantonly irresponsible to tolerate any expansion of the U.N.'s portfolio before that abysmally managed and sometimes-corrupt institution undertakes sweeping, overdue reform. It would be equal folly to let Icann be displaced by the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union, a regulatory redoubt for those state telephone monopolies most threatened by the voice over Internet protocol revolution.
Also, as we expand the global digital economy, the stability and reliability of the Internet becomes a matter of security. Technical minutiae have profound implications for competition and trade, democratization, free expression and access to information, privacy and intellectual-property protection.
Responding to the present danger, I have initiated a Sense of the Senate Resolution that supports the four governance principles articulated by the administration on June 30:
⢠Preservation of the security and stability of the Internet domain name and addressing system (DNS).
⢠Recognition of the legitimate interest of governments in managing their own country code top-level domains.
⢠Support for Icann as the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS.
⢠Participation in continuing dialogue on Internet governance, with continued support for market-based approaches toward, and private-sector leadership of, its further evolution.
I also intend to seek hearings in advance of the Tunis Summit to explore the implications of multinational politicization of Internet governance. While Tunis marks the end of the WSIS process, it is just the beginning of a long, multinational debate on the values that the Internet will incorporate and foster. Our responsibility is to safeguard the full potential of the new information society that the Internet has brought into being.
Mr. Coleman is a Republican senator from Minnesota.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/07/2005 11:17 ||
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#1
Sorry. Plz move to p4.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/07/2005 11:20 Comments ||
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#2
We can not allow the U.N. to control the Internet.
But letting the FEC control it is OK.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/07/2005 11:39 Comments ||
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Right-wing critics want to use reform as a club to beat the independence out of the world body.
Somebody has to.
By Stanley Meisler, Stanley Meisler, who covered the U.N. for the Los Angeles Times during the 1990s, is the author of "United Nations: The First Fifty Years." He is currently writing a biography of Kofi Annan.
Tom Clancy, call your office!
AMERICAN POLITICIANS have urged U.N. reform for decades. Lately, the cries have become so loud and incessant that it is hard to imagine what will satisfy the critics. Abolish the veto for all nations save the United States and elect John Bolton as secretary-general?
Strange as it seems, even those steps might not be enough â not for critics whose demands for reform mask a deeper goal. They will not be satisfied unless the U.N. submits to the will of the United States.
We'd prefer that it be worth our while.
I do not doubt that the U.N. needs reform â just look at the scandal in the U.N.'s oil-for-food program for Iraq.
Here comes the 'but', right on schedule ...
But let's put this into perspective. Many institutions and processes need reform. The electoral college needs reform. So does the U.S. system of casting and counting votes.
Casting and counting votes? Yep, we sure do, let's see, Seattle, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, East Saint Louis ... oh, those aren't the voting reforms you're seeking.
So do many American corporations and, according to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the U.S. Senate. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tells us that the U.S. military needs reform. And everyone seems to agree that American public schools need reform.
The clamor for U.N. reform is different. It is very loud and very suspicious. It has become political cant, sometimes as meaningless as waving the flag. President Bush cited reform as the crucial reason for choosing Bolton as ambassador to the U.N., explaining that "it makes sense to have somebody there who's willing to say to the United Nations: 'Why don't you reform?' "
Oh, so you think the UN doesn't need reform. That's the obvious conclusion to that paragraph, since you've buried the lede in non-sequitors.
This kind of talk is hardly restricted to Republicans. The Clinton administration vetoed Boutros Boutros-Ghali's bid for a second term as secretary-general in 1996 primarily because U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright concluded, in a memo to the president, that "he is not committed to, or capable of achieving, our urgent reform goals."
In other words, there's been a long-term need for reform.
The House passed a bill in June to withhold half of U.S. dues unless the U.N. fulfilled 46 demands for reform, including slashing its budget and creating a new office of ethics. Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), author of the grandly named "Henry J. Hyde United Nations Reform Act of 2005," said "radical surgery" was needed because "sometimes that's the only way to save the patient."
Henry was being a moderate on this one, but please, continue ...
Some pleas for reform are far more well-meaning, ...
... "so excuse me while I scoff at them" ...
... such as the report in mid-June by a bipartisan task force headed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Democratic leader George Mitchell. Just as pertinent were similar proposals from a commission led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker that investigated the oil-for-food program.
Yet their good intentions are swept up into a general clamor that conjures images of the U.N. as corrupt, slovenly, wasteful and anti-American.
That pretty much sums up the talking points, doesn't it? Corrupt: yep, the Oil-for-Palaces scandal alone covers that. Slovenly? The inherent slackness in UN programs around the world makes slovenly a useful descriptor. Wasteful? Look at the money spent on administrative overhead, salaries and benes for the apparatchiks and 'wasteful' is rather kind. Anti-American? It's hard to conclude otherwise. So what part of our complaint about the UN is wrong?
These images are etched even more deeply by the recent, irresponsible demands for the resignation of Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
To shut out the clamor, we need to clear our minds of cant and talk plainly.
First, let's underscore one fact often ignored. The U.N. has been reforming itself for many years. At American insistence, the U.N. installed Joseph Connor, the former chairman of Price Waterhouse, as its undersecretary-general for management during the 1990s. The U.N. accepted almost every reform he suggested. He managed to cut the budget, reduce staff, streamline management and augment auditing.
He managed to re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. A lot of people wouldn't mind -- much -- the waste and slovenly behavior of the UN if it were effective in the big things it had to do. If it had put a stop to the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, managed to get a decent peace between the Paleos and Israel, and managed to put a dent in world hunger, etc., not too many people would complain about the size of some Euro-apparatchik's office.
Another fact hardly ever mentioned by critics is that the wonderful diversity of the U.N. does not necessarily lend itself to efficiency. The U.N. has 191 member states and six official languages. Civil servants come from an incredible variety of cultures.
Most of those cultures turn a blind eye to corruption and graft, which is a big part of the problem. Having a bunch of Dickensonian Marley's and Scrouge's would go a ways towards cleaning the place up.
To avoid misunderstanding, they must show great sensitivity toward each other. Israelis and Egyptians, for example, work together to guard the secretary-general. French and Japanese struggle together to find the proper English wording of a press release. That may slow things up a bit, but it is one of the glories of the U.N.
Again, no one would complain about inefficency if the big things were covered. Fix the problem in Darfur and you can have all the press releases you want.
I am often astounded by how well the U.N. secretariat does work.
That's a compliment?
I have met scores of civil servants during 15 years of covering the U.N. as a Los Angeles Times correspondent and a freelance writer. I have sometimes encountered oafish bureaucrats â just as I have elsewhere in the world, including Washington. But I also have dealt with brilliant U.N. civil servants such as Undersecretary-General Shashi Tharoor, an Indian novelist; special advisor Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister; and Frederic Eckhard, an American who recently retired as the secretary-general's spokesman. All performed stellar work for countless hours. The U.N. bureaucracy has never struck me as woeful.
Which again causes us to ask why the UN doesn't work.
Nevertheless, I am sure that the Gingrich-Mitchell task force â set up by the U.S. Institute for Peace and mandated by Congress â is right about the need for changes. The task force recommended creating a new position of chief operating officer, revamping the personnel system, establishing new ethical standards, protecting whistle-blowers, setting up an independent oversight board for auditing and abolishing the embarrassing Human Rights Commission. These proposals deserve and will surely receive serious consideration. Annan's own proposals for reform are not much different.
But let's recognize most reformers for what they are. Reform is a convenient club.
It's a club with a nail in it.
Albright did not veto Boutros-Ghali because he was weak on reform. She could not abide Boutros-Ghali because of his independence, arrogance and stubbornness.
And, lest we forget, because he made things worse.
Bush nominated Bolton not to reform the U.N. but to show contempt for it. Hyde does not want to reform the U.N. as much as punish it.
We can only blow the 'reform' horn but so long. At some point we might decide that the UN isn't worth it.
The real failure of the U.N., in the eyes of its critics, has nothing to do with reform. Right-wing ideologues despise the U.N. as a threat to American sovereignty. Annan enraged the White House by daring to oppose the invasion of Iraq. Reform is not really on the minds of many reform mongers. No amount of U.N. reform will satisfy them.
Annan enraged the White House -- and a fair number of Americans -- by refusing to see Saddam for what he was. Saddam was exhibit #1A in the halls of tyranny, thuggery and murder at the start of the new century. Either you're serious about dealing with that or you're not. If the latter, get the hell out of the way. But if you're not serious, and you manage to get in the way, don't be surprised if you end up shoved to the pavement.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/07/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Strange as it seems, even those steps might not be enough â not for critics whose demands for reform mask a deeper goal. They will not be satisfied unless the U.N. submits to the will of the United States.
Stan, those folks demanding reform are your friends.
There is a rather large group called Americans who understands the UN is a corrupt ongoing criminal enterprise, and those organizations deserve only one fate: Dismantlement.
But, we will allow Kofi and company to move the UN elsewhere. I hear Paris is nice this time of year.
I would like to know what kind of deal did Kofi, or your LA Times handlers make to get this article written. Threaten to cancel the book contract, offered a bribe, maybe a shot at a goat or a starving kid, maybe a bribe?
#2
There is a rather large group called Americans who understands the UN is a corrupt ongoing criminal enterprise, and those organizations deserve only one fate: Dismantlement.
#3
"...unless the UN submits to the will of the United States" - mean, besides the fact Amer contribution per annum is at minima 25%, and which most scholars and analysts agree is much more higher; or was it that PRIVATE Americans DONATE more to UN-sponsored international aid and humanitarian programs than the next many nations on the list. at least accor to FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Yes, the Cold War USSR had COMECON, etc. but that org was USSR/Russia-centric i.e. dem dat a'beenafits went predomin to the USSR/Russia, NOT FROM THE USSR/RUSSIA TO ANYONE ELSE - you know, International Socialism's being an Equal amongst Equals!
#4
And no amount of fawning will satisfy you, Stanley. You're such a tool, lol, and a toady. Wotta load of foolishness and fear mongering. This should guarantee his spot on the cocktail circuit's 'B' list. You can take off your knee-pads now, Stanley.
Good call, bad, the recent article supposedly written by Kofi himself on the Internet power grab is another example of MSM pandering by publishing such obviously bloated and biased puffery.
#5
NB: The guy's writing Kofi's hagiographybiography, which means he's more likely to take a dump in church as to point out that Kofi's Krowd is chin-deep in corruption. Also, his declaration that the electoral college needs reform marks him as a grade-A moonbat of the "Gore Won" crowd.
FWIW, I'd be glad to give the UN complete independence from the US. We'll just stop sending them any cash, and they won't depend on us any more.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/07/2005 7:55 Comments ||
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#6
corrupt, slovenly, wasteful and anti-American
He forgot "incompetent".
#11
He failed to mention the ongoing food-for-nookie programs in the Congo, Bosnia, and other places.
Not to mention its repeated denouncement of Israel defending itself while giving aid-and-comfort (in the form of weapon transports ambulances) to the terrorists who blow people up.
I lost all hope for the U.N. after watching the performance of its Vampire Vulture Elite at the Tsuami disaster earlier this year. After watching them take credit for everything eveyone else did I decided that the UN cannot be reformed - it has to be replaced.
Unlike Rafsanjani and Khatami who tried to redefine Islam in a way as to please the modern world, a world that is shaped and dominated by Western ideas, Ahmadinejad is trying to revive the purest definition of the faith and asserts that Islam is an alternative to the current global system and not a candidate for becoming a small part of it.
Ahmadinejadâs radical discourse has also confused the fake Islamists who send their children to study at Western universities but who insist that the children of the poor should attend Koranic schools only. Those who have tried to build a life on the basis of a little bit of Islam and a little bit of Western modernism are made uncomfortable by Ahmadinejad who is forcing everyone to take sides. What Ahmadinejad is saying is simple: one cannot be half pregnant, either you are or you are not.
Seen in that context Ahmadinejadâs pledge to wipe Israel off the map like âa stain of shameâ, is an attempt at forcing everyone to take sides on what has been the longest running conflict in modern Middle East. Ahmadinejad is asking everyone to decide the nature of the Israel- Palestine conflict. Is it a conflict only about statehood, borders, security, sharing of water, settlements and diplomatic relations? If the answer is yes, the conflict cannot, indeed should not be treated, as a religious one pitting Muslim against Jew. It would be a political conflict, one of countless such conflicts throughout history. And, if it is a political conflict, then all the religious energy injected into it over the past half a century must be regarded as misplaced.
If, on the other hand, we are facing something other than a political conflict, there could be no question of ever accepting the existence of Israel as a state within any frontiers. The peace treaties that Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have signed with Israel become documents not of political expediency but of apostasy.
In less than 100 days Ahmadinejad has shaken many mullahs on their pulpits and more monkeys up their trees. The reason is that he is asking everyone to be honest with themselves. He believes that the world is heading for a clash of civilisations in which Islam is the only credible alternative to Western domination. And he is convinced that Islam can and will win.
It is now up to everyone to decide whether or not that analysis could be taken seriously or dismissed as the juvenile illusions of a novice who will, in time, learn that the real world is different. But the dilemma that Ahamdinejad has created for most Islamists inside and outside Iran cannot be ignored. He says Islam is not just a flavour to add to policies that are not, indeed cannot be, Islamic. Either we go the whole way and abolish politics as a space distinct from religion or we stop using religion as a device to give our policies the legitimacy they do not deserve.
Posing such questions is no mean feat; and in less than 100 days.
#1
What Ahmadinejad is saying is simple: one cannot be half pregnant, either you are or you are not.
We all know what's usually involved in getting pregnant. So, essentially, what Ahmadinejad's saying is, "either you are f*&ked or you are not f&*ked." Big news, Ahmadinejad, you're f&*ked!
#2
. . . the juvenile illusions of a novice who will, in time, learn that the real world is different.
I beg to differ. The man has been observer to, and a part of, the world his entire private and public life. There is nothing that will shake his beliefs in right and wrong, good and bad. He will not "learn" anything new. In fact, faced with obstructions, he will likely become more shrill. And deadly.
The thorny issue of torture paid a visit last week to Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis), television's newest president of the United States. A terrorist plot to attack elementary schools was uncovered and a ringleader arrested, but his refusal to cooperate with interrogators placed the nation's children at terrible risk -- a perfect crisis for the nation's first maternal commander in chief. Torn but principled, the rookie president instructs her staff, "I don't want to hear anything more about torture," words a hardnosed national security staffer interprets as a plea for deniability, and a green light to get tough.
Military interrogators begin torturing the captive. Meanwhile, the president launches a risky black ops raid to a location in Lebanon, which produces intelligence that thwarts the planned attacks. Only afterwards does she learn that the same information was extracted from the captive, who is just barely alive after the torture session. Ms. Allen is so outraged when she learns of it that she fires the offending security council staffer and adopts a perplexed, angry frown.
"There is always another way to get information," she says.
* * *
Would that it were true. We like problems to have easy solutions in America, just as we like stories to have neat, happy endings. The show illustrated to me some of the wishful thinking, mythmaking and confusion that surround the difficult issues of torture, coercion and prisoner abuse which our nation seems incapable of thinking about coherently. Sen. John McCain has tacked a provision on the annual defense budget that would ban cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for anyone in American custody. Having been terribly abused himself as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Sen. McCain is a national hero, and brings a heavy load of moral authority to the table. His measure has passed the Senate, but faces trouble in the House, and a likely veto if it ever reaches the White House.
I don't understand why. The provision offers nothing new or even controversial. Cruel treatment of prisoners is already banned. It is prohibited by military law and by America's international agreements. American citizens are protected by the Constitution. I see no harm in reiterating our national revulsion for it, and maybe adding even a redundant layer of legal verbiage will help redress the damage done to our country by pictures from Abu Ghraib and reports of widespread prisoner abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. One thing it will not do, sadly, is stop the abuse of prisoners.
The story line of "Commander in Chief" portrayed a classic "ticking bomb" scenario, where a captive refuses to divulge urgent, life-saving information. Such instances do happen, but they are rare. The national debate over torture and prisoner abuse is about something different: the tendency of soldiers in a combat zone to mistreat enemy prisoners. This latter issue was brought to a head by the photographs from Abu Ghraib, depicting the grotesque treatment of Iraqi prisoners, and by reports of more severe abuses at prison camps there and in Afghanistan.
One of the myths of the American soldier is that he never mistreats a captured enemy. If our enemy dead had voices, a multitude would testify to having been summarily shot, tortured or otherwise abused in every war Americans ever fought. Some of the worst examples took place when Americans fought each other -- almost 13,000 Union prisoners died of malnutrition, disease and exposure at Andersonville Prison in Sumter County, Ga. As a race, we are no worse, or better, than anyone else.
Where there are prisons there is prisoner abuse, and where there are prisons in a war zone, whether makeshift ones in the field or the established ones like Abu Ghraib, such behavior is commonplace. Abuse should be considered the default position whenever one group of men is placed under complete supervision by another.
Laws and rules are vitally important, but enforcing them requires good soldiers and strict, vigilant leadership. Even in an ideal situation, say, in a civilian prison in peacetime that is well-funded and well-run, and where the guards and prisoners share the same language and culture, abuse can at best be minimized.
War is the exact opposite of an ideal situation.
* * *
"Abuse has always gone on, but I think today we just hear about it more," says Lt. Col. Lewis "Bucky" Burruss, a retired special operations commander with wide experience in conflict, who wrote about his own abuse of a prisoner in his Vietnam memoir "Mike Force." "I've always been surprised by how well-disciplined American soldiers are, but when you have more than 100,000 armed men in the field, and they are facing a suicidal enemy who is shooting and blowing up their buddies, not to mention their own citizens, men, women and children, you are going to have anger, and you are going to have some bad soldiers, some bad leadership and some bad treatment of prisoners."
In the vast majority of such cases, there is no justification whatsoever for breaking the rules. Apart from moral considerations, there are practical ones. In a world of digital cameras, the Internet and global telecommunications, abuses will be reported and broadcast with graphic illustrations, and deservedly or not they will color the entire war effort.
Abu Ghraib has hurt the American mission in Iraq more than any insurgent bombing or beheading. So it is terribly important that we not accept mistreatment as inevitable, and we should do everything in our power as a nation to make sure that those who break the rules are appropriately disciplined. Congress ought to pass Sen. McCain's provision and the president ought to make a great public show out of signing it. But we also need to realize that prisoner abuse, like collateral damage in a bombing campaign, is one of those things that will happen whenever the country -- any country -- goes to war. "Atrocities follow war as the jackal follows a wounded beast," wrote John Dower, author of "War Without Mercy," an unflinching look at racial hatred and atrocity on both sides between America and Japan in World War II.
The White House's objection to Sen. McCain's provision has little to do with Abu Ghraib or widespread prisoner abuse; it concerns the smaller piece of the torture debate, the "ticking bomb" scenario. The administration wants to protect the flexibility of the CIA, and of military special ops interrogators, to coerce intelligence from rare captives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, chief engineer of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and operations chief for al Qaeda.
Despite the moral assurance of a television show like "Commander in Chief," this question also has no easy answer. If there were "always another way" to get vital, potentially life-saving intelligence, as the show suggested, or if coercion always yielded bad information, cruelty would be completely unnecessary and virtue would cost nothing. We could treat all captured terrorists as honored guests without sacrificing a thing. But in certain singular instances coercion is necessary and appropriate.
The point the White House is missing here is that even with important captives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, official authorization for severe interrogation is not necessary. Just as there is no way to draw a clear line between coercion and torture, there is no way to define, a priori, circumstances that justify harsh treatment. Any attempt to codify it unleashes the sadists and leads to widespread abuse. Interrogators who choose coercive methods would, and should, be breaking the rules.
That does not mean that they should always be taken to task. Prosecution and punishment remains an executive decision, and just as there are legal justifications for murder, there are times when coercion is demonstrably the right thing to do.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/07/2005 11:43 ||
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#1
Bowden is a pragmatist but he must not be aware that McCain wants to also rule out CIA interrogations.
Moreover, the military code book that McCain is pushing has yet to be written. Can you imagine what kind of political bull shit would be stepped into in crafting this code book?
Finally, rules are meant to be broken under certain circumstances. A rule book does nothing but set up a punishment guideline for preventing someone from using wise judgment in the "ticking timebomb" scenario.
We should have a rational debate on intelligence. But as the Commander In Chief demonstrates, who can anticipate the liberal freakozids to be logical?
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/07/2005 12:00 Comments ||
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#2
Torture those bastards till their gut come out!
#3
Article: The point the White House is missing here is that even with important captives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, official authorization for severe interrogation is not necessary. Just as there is no way to draw a clear line between coercion and torture, there is no way to define, a priori, circumstances that justify harsh treatment. Any attempt to codify it unleashes the sadists and leads to widespread abuse. Interrogators who choose coercive methods would, and should, be breaking the rules.
What Bowden is missing is that this bill would criminalize torture carried out under ticking time bomb situations. If one president does not prosecute, another one certainly can - or a special prosecutor can be appointed who will prosecute. Maybe selected journalists like Bowden should agree to carry out any torture that is necessary, thus relieving government officials of criminal liability. Fact is that the FBI had Moussaoui (the 20th hijacker) in custody for weeks before 9/11, with the knowledge that that he wanted to learn how to fly airplanes, but not how how to take off or land. If they had tortured him, would 3,000 people in the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers be alive today? But the FBI did not, because no government employee is going to risk losing his pension, his liberty and his reputation by carrying out an act for which he will be held criminally liable. Who's going to raise his children and pay their bills?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
