Posted on 12/16/2003 5:00:44 PM PST by ru4liberty
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 16 — Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, accused the United Nations Security Council today of having failed to help rescue his country from Saddam Hussein, and he chided member states for bickering over his beleaguered country's future.
"Settling scores with the United States-led coalition should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the Iraqi people," Mr. Zebari said in language unusually scolding for an occupant of the guest seat at the end of the curving Security Council table.
"Squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to the daily struggle for security, jobs, basic freedoms and all the rights the U.N. is chartered to uphold," he said.
Taking a harsh view of the inability of quarreling members of the Security Council to endorse military action in Iraq, Mr. Zebari said, "One year ago, the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
George W. Bush has shown us the value in not appeasing dictators or bowing to the will of a useless and corrupt UN.
The truth has come out. Had the liberals or weak Republicans been in charge, Iraq would not be free -- end of story. Had President Bush not been a leader, and if he had put the will of the world before the security of the U.S., Iraq would not be free and we would be in greater danger every single day of our lives.
Thank you for being the President of the United States, dear Sir, and keeping our national security as the priority.
-- scott7278
I love it!!
Every now and again, news actually gets past the minions at the Times, reportedly seven layers deep for politically sensitive stories and op-eds. After months of ridiculing Bush for not capturing Saddam, now that Saddam has been bagged, the Times will crank up its machinery to diminish the success. (The new ombudsman will presumably only deal with unintentional frauds.) Witness:
Saddam Is Ours. Does Al Qaeda Care?, By BRUCE HOFFMAN, OP-ED, Dec. 17, 2003
WASHINGTON — While President Bush was careful to remind Americans that even with Saddam Hussein behind bars, "we still face terrorists," the White House and Pentagon have characterized the arrest as a major victory in the war on terrorism. But is Iraq really the central battleground in that struggle, or is it diverting our attention while Al Qaeda and its confederates plan for new strikes elsewhere? There's strong evidence that Osama bin Laden is using Iraq the way a magician uses smoke and mirrors.
News reports that Al Qaeda plans to redirect half the $3 million a month it now spends on operations in Afghanistan toward the insurgency in Iraq lent credence to the view that it is turning Iraq into center stage for the fight against the "Great Satan." That might actually be good news: Iraq could become what American military commanders have described as a terrorist "flytrap."
But there's a better chance that Osama bin Laden is the one setting a trap. He and his fellow jihadists didn't drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan by taking the fight to an organized enemy on a battlefield of its choosing. In fact, the idea that Al Qaeda wanted to make Iraq the central battlefield of jihad was first suggested by Al Qaeda itself. Last February, before the coalition invasion of Iraq, the group's information department produced a series of articles titled "In the Shadow of the Lances" that gave practical advice to Iraqis and foreign jihadists on how guerrilla warfare could be used against the American and British troops.
The calls to arms by Al Qaeda only intensified after the fall of Baghdad, when its intermittent Web site, Al Neda, similarly extolled the virtues of guerrilla warfare. In urging Iraqis to fight on, the site invoked prominent lessons of history — including America's defeat in Vietnam and the Soviet Army's in Afghanistan.
But as useful as Iraq undoubtedly has been as a rallying cry for jihad, it has been a conspicuously less prominent rallying point, at least in terms of men and money. The Coalition Provisional Authority may be right that thousands of foreign fighters have converged on Iraq, but few who have been captured have demonstrable ties to Al Qaeda. Nor is there evidence of any direct command-and-control relationship between the Qaeda central leadership and the insurgents.
If there are Qaeda warriors in Iraq, they are likely cannon fodder rather than battle-hardened mujahedeen. In the end, Qaeda's real interest in Iraq has been to exploit the occupation as a propaganda and recruitment tool for the global jihadist cause. While America has been tied down in Iraq, the international terrorist network has been busy elsewhere. The various attacks undertaken by Qaeda and its affiliates since the occupation began have taken place in countries that are longstanding sources of Osama bin Laden's enmity (like Saudi Arabia) or where an opportunity has presented itself (the suicide bombings in Morocco in May, Indonesia in August and Turkey in November).
In fact, Saif al-Adel, the senior Qaeda operational commander who was credited with writing the "Shadow of the Lances" articles, is widely believed to have been behind the May attacks that rocked Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but he has yet to be linked to any incidents in Iraq.
And even if Osama bin Laden has now decided to commit some new funds and Qaeda forces to Iraq, it is unlikely to be a significant drain on his wallet or the vast reservoir of operatives trained in Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere. According to a Congressional report on the 9/11 attacks, an estimated 70,000 to 120,000 jihadists passed through those training camps. So even if a few thousand are sent to Iraq, Osama bin Laden will retain a healthy reserve capable of sustaining his global jihad.
As we bear down on Iraq, Al Qaeda is bearing down on us. Chatter on Web sites affiliated with Al Qaeda reveals that the jihadists are constantly monitoring America, studying and gauging our reactions to intelligence we gather on them and adapting their plans accordingly. One recent posting read: "The enemy has set up special bodies to analyze and correlate all this information and deduce the conclusions from them. If we know the importance of the information for the enemy, even if it is a small piece of information, then we can understand how important are the information that we know."
For America, the fundamental challenge remains our willingness and our ability to fight our adversaries across several fronts. Turning Iraq into a viable democracy is of course important, but we must not be drawn into concentrating on one battleground to the exclusion of all others.
Answer:
The United Nations Wants to Take Your Land!
"Private land ownership ... contributes to social injustice.... Public control of land use is therefore indispensable."
- United Nations "Habitat I" Conference Report, 1976
Are you concerned...
...that the UN is militantly anti-property rights?
The UN is dominated by socialist, communist, and other collectivist regimes that are hostile to private property, the basis of our freedom and prosperity. Karl Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto that "the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property." Marx continued: "In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend."
Are you concerned...
...that the UN intends to carry out Marx's plan?
In true Marxist fashion, the report of the UN "Habitat I" Conference declares that private land ownership "contributes to social injustice.... Public control of land use is therefore indispensable...." Agenda 21, the UN's massive environmental manifesto, envisions a UN empowered to control and micro-manage our planetary environment and the actions of every person on Earth. It says: "All countries should undertake a comprehensive national inventory of their land resources" and "develop national land-management plans." The UN's Assessment would "reallocate" property rights and have "stakeholder groups," instead of property owners, make decisions on private land use.
Are you concerned...
...that our own U.S. government is adopting many of the UN's anti-property rights and policies and treaties?
The U.S. has signed Agenda 21 and has begun implementing the UN's "Wildlands Project," an incredible plan to push millions of Americans off their land to make vast nature preserves out of half of the nation. Also, under the UN's 1988 Convention on Narcotics, the U.S. has adopted unconstitutional "asset forfeiture" laws that allow seizure of property without due process.
Are you concerned...
...that UN treaties could destroy our heritage of freedom?
Nobel Prizewinning economist, Friedrich A. Hayek, noted that "the system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves."
'The Sun Has Returned To Shine on Iraq', REVIEW & OUTLOOK, December 17, 2003
By now we've all seen the pictures of Iraqis dancing in the streets upon hearing the news of Saddam's capture. On Monday they woke up to headlines, such as the one above, and the following compiled by the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org1):
• "This is a great day indeed. The era of oppression and dictatorship has gone forever." (Al-Zaman)
• The "time has come to restore [the nation's] health and bid farewell to the Republic of Fear." (Al-Sabah)
• "This is the clearest and most beautiful morning in my country, Mesopotamia. Be joyful, oh my brothers, be joyful oh my brothers, for this is great news for Iraq." (Al-Ahd Al-Jadid)
Elsewhere in the Arab world, the news of Saddam's arrest was often (though not always) welcomed. But writers also spoke of the shame to Arab honor that he was taken alive or that he was captured by Americans:
• "Even Saddam's Little Nephew Was Braver." (Al-Hayat, London)
• "We all saw the pictures . . . Saddam was miserable, and I, as an Arab, felt humiliation. But my other feelings against Saddam were stronger. He was a paper knight." (Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia)
• "He did not wear an explosive belt, did not rely on a submachine gun, and did not swallow cyanide capsules to commit suicide." (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London)
• "No Arab would wish this upon the Arab president of Iraq." (Al-Ahram, Egypt)
Whatever Saddam's "humiliation," we'd note that nobody humiliated more Arabs than Saddam himself.
In other words he didn't want to be remind of his nations duplicity with Saddam.
Albright Accuses Bush of Success
Some of the Democratic presidential candidates have been taunting President Bush over the failure thus far to capture Osama bin Laden--as if that task would be any easier if someone like Wesley Clark were in the White House. But this weekend's capture of Saddam Hussein has one Dem singing a new tune. Madeleine Albright, who served as Bill Clinton's secretary of state, is accusing the Bush administration of having captured bin Laden.
According to journalist Morton Kondracke, Albright was in the green room at Fox News Channel yesterday when "She said, 'Do you suppose that the Bush administration has Osama bin Laden hidden away somewhere and will bring him out before the election?' " Although Albright now says the remark was a "joke," Kondracke says that at the time, "she was not smiling," and other witnesses back him up: "Two makeup artists who prep the guests before their appearances also reported that Albright did not ask her question in a joking manner," Fox reports.
Whether serious or jocose, Albright's comments seem to be sheer speculation, and we know of no evidence to suggest that bin Laden is in custody. But the idea that he is actually is plausible. As Mark Bowden explained recently in The Atlantic Monthly, there are reasons other than domestic politics to keep such matters secret:
It is likely that some captured terrorists' names and arrests have not yet been revealed; people may be held for months before their "arrests" are staged. Once a top-level suspect is publicly known to be in custody, his intelligence value falls. His organization scatters, altering its plans, disguises, cover stories, codes, tactics, and communication methods. The maximum opportunity for intelligence gathering comes in the first hours after an arrest, before others in a group can possibly know that their walls have been breached. Keeping an arrest quiet for days or weeks prolongs this opportunity.
Albright served in an administration that was similarly accused of politically opportunistic timing; Bill Clinton's decisions to bomb Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq in 1998 coincided with key moments in his impeachment ordeal. Whatever his motives, Clinton would have been entitled to a full measure of political credit had he succeeded in killing bin Laden or ousting Saddam. If bin Laden is indeed in U.S. custody, no one but the angriest of the Angry Left will begrudge President Bush kudos for a job well done.
Free Iraq Confronts U.N.
Hoshyar Zebari, foreign minister of liberated Iraq, gave the U.N. Security Council a much-needed dose of reality yesterday. "The U.N. as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny of 35 years," he said. "The U.N. must not fail the Iraqi people again." Agence France-Presse reports he also "called for a swift UN return to the country," which prompted Secretary-General Kofi Annan to sniff that it is "no time to pin blame and point fingers." Annan added that "I think the U.N. has done as much as it can for Iraq."
It's fair to note that before 2002 the U.S. failed Iraq as much as the U.N. did. Although liberating Iraq has in theory been U.S. policy since 1998, in practice Washington mostly went along with the status quo of international sanctions, bombing and containment--until President Bush shifted course last year. He invited the U.N. to join the U.S., France balked, and as a result the U.N.'s policy toward Iraq is today in shambles. After being hit by a terrorist attack, the U.N. cut and ran, whereas the U.S., which has suffered far more casualties, is in for the long haul.
Remember this the next time someone urges that America should make way for the U.N., as the New York Times does today in an editorial arguing that Saddam Hussein be tried in a tribunal "under United Nations authority." The U.N. has no moral authority, especially where Iraq is concerned.
"The U.N. has done as much as it can for Iraq," says Kofi Annan. Fine--let's leave it at that.
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