Article

2003-04-12 Europe

UN must oversee Iraq reconstruction, say ~~"AoW"~~ Russia, France and Germany

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Posted by George 2003-04-12 06:42 am|| || Front Page|| [16 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I love the term "axis of weasels", but now they're starting to look more like "The Three Stooges". Actually, I shouldn't insult Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard with that remark!

Posted by George 2003-04-12 07:14:53|| 2003-04-12 07:14:53|| Front Page Top

#2 You're right, George. The Stooges were brilliant artists who brought laughter and joy to millions. Chiraq, Schroder, and Putin are merely laughable.

Posted by Mike 2003-04-12 09:58:25|| 2003-04-12 09:58:25|| Front Page Top

#3 Also posted to the Command Post as I think it is important.

In this week's Economist (print edition - no link) the head of the UN's operation in East Timor - effectively the UN's governor - Jarat Chopra head of the UN Office of District Administration in East Timor - is quoted as saying "The unavoidable conclusion may be that the UN despite its ability to monopolise the image of legitimacy is ill-suited to administering territories in transition."

This comment from a UN functionary who is actually responsible for transitioning (a fairly small place) to democracy is damming evidence against those who say the UN should run a post-war Iraq.

It deserves to be widely quoted

Posted by Anonymous 2003-04-12 10:10:44|| 2003-04-12 10:10:44|| Front Page Top

#4 I suspect if you replace the phrase "may be" in the above quote with the word "is", that it would neatly summarize the Administration's position with regard to the UN.

"Image of legitimacy", indeed. And that's all it is: an image.

Posted by Dave D. 2003-04-12 10:36:55|| 2003-04-12 10:36:55|| Front Page Top

#5 The whole weasel "summit" PR stunt was idiotic. The timing was exquisitely poor. The self-serving motives were laughably transparent. And the weasels still think that insulting GWB and Americans is going to advance their interests!

Chiraq, Schroder, and Putin are acting more like a bunch of reprimanded schoolboys than world leaders. It's beneath the dignity of their positions. They're just digging themselves into deeper holes, and taking the U.N. down with them. Irrelevant, one and all!

Posted by Tom 2003-04-12 11:39:53|| 2003-04-12 11:39:53|| Front Page Top

#6 You know George, Ott did not include Russia in the Axis of Weasels. What that an oversight? Does Putin get a pass because Bush gazed into his eyes? We may find that Russia is the arche of Weasels. We know they've been supplying Saddam with embargoed weapons. So have the French but follow the money, who had more to lose from with Iraq's fall, the Elf or the Kremlin?

Posted by Scott 2003-04-12 13:41:36|| 2003-04-12 13:41:36|| Front Page Top

#7 Leaders of fiercely anti-war Russia, France and Germany Saturday reiterated their call for a central UN role in the reconstruction of Iraq

Nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk..........

Posted by Alaska Paul 2003-04-12 14:02:27|| 2003-04-12 14:02:27|| Front Page Top

#8 UPDATE:

SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) The leaders of France, Germany and Russia wound up a two-day "peace camp" summit on Iraq stressing the primacy of law as embodied in the United Nations as the means of resolving global crises.

Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Jacques Chirac of France and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder demanded a central role for the world body in the reconstruction of Iraq but implicitly acknowledged their powerlessness by ending their meeting without a joint declaration.

Posted by George 2003-04-12 14:28:05|| 2003-04-12 14:28:05|| Front Page Top

#9 What a surprise. It boggles the mind at the hypocrisy oozing out of these guys. Have they no honor at all? Even with a pro-US Iraq they are desperate to preserve their market for weapons in the mid-east.
Although I could not understand why Putin, of all people, is willing to forgive Iraq's debt, while the others are not.

Posted by RW 2003-04-12 14:42:15|| 2003-04-12 14:42:15|| Front Page Top

#10 U.S. congress wants to bar French, Russian and Germany from taking part in the Iraq reconstruction.

Mr Wolfowitz asks France, Russia and Germany to write off all Iraqi debts

The UN security council needs to pass a formal resolution to lift the sanctions still in force. France and Russia could veto the lifting indefinitely.

Can you spell TRADE-OFF?

Btw Schroeder did not say he's not willing to forgive Iraq's debt: "There is no sense in discussing a possibility of Iraq's debt write-off until that country gets a legitimate government", he said. "The right place where to raise debt redemption issues is the Paris Club of Donor Countries that has special procedures for it. To do this, however, Iraq must have a legitimate government, which is does not have at the moment."
I don't think Putin has a different idea about this.

Posted by True German Ally 2003-04-12 16:29:50|| 2003-04-12 16:29:50|| Front Page Top

#11 the release of gases from this "summit" surely violated some, if not all, terms of the Kyoto treaty on Global warming

Posted by Frank G 2003-04-12 16:50:35|| 2003-04-12 16:50:35|| Front Page Top

#12 help! i was watching fox news and someone was interviewing a former amb to nato. he seemed very smug and said that we needed france and germany to pay for recontruction in iraq. does this ring true?

Posted by Carolyn 2003-04-12 17:35:54|| 2003-04-12 17:35:54|| Front Page Top

#13 It's not just the debts here that are odious.

Posted by someone 2003-04-12 18:36:16|| 2003-04-12 18:36:16|| Front Page Top

#14 This is called playing to the home audience. Even Kofi knows better than to get sucked in to their game at this point. There is still a lot of diplomacy to go before Chirac can steal the Iraqi UN accounts to cover Saddam's debts.

Posted by john 2003-04-12 18:56:49|| 2003-04-12 18:56:49|| Front Page Top

#15 If France and Russia refuse to initial (or at least not veto) a reasonable resolution for reconstructing Iraq in the Security Council, the U.S. should simply buy Iraq's oil and other products itself. If the Security Council doesn't like it, it can try to slap sanctions on the United States -- which the U.S. would thereupon veto. Where then, Germany, France, and Russia?

Posted by Michael E. McNeil 2003-04-12 19:49:51|| [impearls.blogspot.com/] 2003-04-12 19:49:51|| Front Page Top

#16 Had errands to do today, and just got back. It's an hour before midnight, time for quiet reflection. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem much quiet reflection being done by the Axis of Weasels and their mouthy leaders.

There's more than one way to handle the "sanctions", the easiest being to just ignore them. The same for any pronouncements from the "Wobbly three". NOBODY has to go back to the United Nations for anything. The United Nations membership made it irrelevant and immaterial. The United States military made it obsolete in three weeks. The world has changed. It's time for the old to be swept out with the rest of the garbage, and the place cleaned and tidied up a bit.

The United States and the rest of the Coalition of those willing to step forward and DO SOMETHING instead of mouthing inane nonsense will take the lead and make whatever decisions need to be made. The involvement of any others will be at their discretion, not any idiotic demands from screeching nonentities doing whatever possible they can think of to appear "important", while trying desperately to force every movement into what their tiny imagination consideres the desired role of those involved. Now the appeasers, the twisters, the illusion spinners have nothing but empty words. The deed is done, without them. They have no part in it, and no control over it. It's about time they figured it out.

George Bush owned a baseball team. So what? He also flew supersonic jet aircraft, worked in big business, and learned that things don't always go as expected. He's learned to wear hobnail boots and carry a big stick. He's not going to be pushed around. He's also not going to be browbeaten into doing something he doesn't feel is the right thing to do. Get over it.

Europe is a hollow shell, slowly dying. They have built a socialist system that has no chance of withstanding the future, and have no way to crawl out from under the destruction they face. A few - very, very few - of its nations have managed to pull out of the nosedive they've been in since th end of World War II. Their birthrate has dropped below replacement levels, the number of innovative new ideas has similarly dropped, and the amount of original thought coming out of its vaunted universities can be held in a thimble. Their future is in decline, just as is their present. Their only hope of staving it off is to hold on tightly to what little power they have, and bring the rest of the world down to their level. It's not going to work. In fact, it's already failed.

September eleventh was a wake-up call, and most Americans woke up. We see the terrible disasters our school systems have become, we've watched the attempted neutering of our men, and the brutilization of our women. Most people are doing something about it. We saw a problem in Afghanistan, and went out to correct it. We saw a murderous regime in Iraq that had strong financial, political, and physical ties to terror, and destroyed the power involved with those ties. Today, intelligent, hardworking men and women are looking ahead to the next task, the next problem that needs to be solved, so we can live in peace, and without fear.

France has become a boat-anchor. Germany is rapidly following the path into oblivion. Russia made a gigantic effort to pull itself out of the morass of communism, but is slowly slipping back on the path of totalitarianism and self-destruction. They, and the other nations of the world whose leadership have a "me first" attitude, one-party or no-party politics, feel they can each claim small chunks of the United States, each diminishing it a bit at a time, until it's torn down to their level. NEVER do they ever seem to grasp the concept of building UP to the level of the United States. The United Nations and other world bodies are their grappling hooks, their means to tie down the United States, and bring it low. Only the United Nations has been punctured like an over-inflated balloon and is dying.

The future of Iraq doesn't belong to the United Nations. The future of Iraq belongs to Iraq, and to the tough friends that took the time, effort, and fortune to rid Iraq of its terrorist leader. Those same tough friends, and they alone, are worthy of being there when Iraq pulls itself back together. Only those tough friends should have a say in how Iraq accomplishes this, and then only as stern, reasonable, and nurturing advisors.

The United Nations wants to be boss. The Coalition of the Willing wants to be friends. What Iraq needs right now are friends, not another tyrant at the helm. The United Nations is not worthy of even advising Iraq in its forward progress. Neither is the "Axis of Weasels".

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-04-13 00:32:53|| 2003-04-13 00:32:53|| Front Page Top

#17 Regarding Old Patriot's comment above, I basically agree. I'd suggest, however, that there is a point in the U.S. staying in the UN and on the Security Council -- so the it can deflect (with its veto) attempts in the Security Council to put apparent legitimacy on anti-U.S. sanctions or actions.

Posted by Michael E. McNeil 2003-04-13 10:16:17|| [impearls.blogspot.com/] 2003-04-13 10:16:17|| Front Page Top

10:16 Michael E. McNeil
09:46 raptor
07:16 raptor
06:53 raptor
04:27 Ned
04:00 Ed Becerra
03:52 Ed Becerra
03:20 becky
03:11 becky
01:42 HULUGU
01:27 Dan Darling
01:01 tbn
01:01 PD
00:51 Baba Yaga
00:47 Old Patriot
00:43 Baba Yaga
00:40 Baba Yaga
00:32 Old Patriot
00:16 Baba Yaga
00:15 Dar
00:12 Dan Darling
00:11 Rex Mundi
23:58 leonidas
23:13 Scott