UN and USA sitrep: talkshow transcript (big read)

Lateline TV Talking Heads ^ | 8th November 2004 | ABC TV Lateline

[rocknotsand]

Robert Kagan (author, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment)

Q: You ask the question in your speech tomorrow night: "Is the Security Council really the depository of international legitimacy?"

KAGAN:...I think it's fairly clear that throughout most of its history the Security Council has not been the place where people go for ultimate legitimacy... When Europeans wanted to go to war in Kosovo to stop Slobodan Milosevic, Russia was unwilling to support action in the Security Council, so Europeans were perfectly happy to go without a Security Council resolution...

Q: ...Are you arguing essentially that the Europeans have been hypocritical over Iraq?

KAGAN: Well, they have short memories, put it that way. I mean, they would say that Kosovo was an exception and that it shouldn't happen too often, but I must say they held the United States to a much higher standard in 2003 when it came to going to war in Iraq, than they held themselves in 1999 when they went to war in Kosovo...

Q: Are we in fact seeing the waning of the United Nations as any kind of force, or will there be a move in this next term back towards re-establishing legitimacy for the UN?

ROBERT KAGAN: Well, I don't think that any American president for years has been particularly concerned with establishing a legitimacy of the UN. Again going back to Kosovo, the Clinton administration was delighted that the Europeans went to war without a Security Council resolution because they didn't want to have to depend on Security Council resolutions. Look, the UN itself has got a crisis of legitimacy. Kofi Annan is perfectly aware of that.... [snip]

[rocknotsand]

Good read and "big picture" blog source.

[rocknotsand]

UN "drop dead and ie" bump.

[rocknotsand]

btw -- a used 'd' key for sale or trae.

[claudiustg]

---The flag at UN Headquarters in New York was lowered to half mast in mourning.---

for Arafat...

[maine-iac7]

Two U.S. senators investigating the U.N. Oil-for-Food (search) program have told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) in a letter that they were "troubled"....

see thread

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1277906/posts

The UN is 'neutered" and may soon be "irrelevant" - "W" warned 'em

[rocknotsand]

Agreed the UN is the gold-medal 'Brain Dead But "still plugged in" In A French Government Clinic' metaphor:... The UN is corrupt

• morally, as an secular humanist mess
• ethically, as votes and vetoes are bought & sold
• democratically, as the reps and electorates are wayyyy skewed and jerrymandered

But then... what was to be expected from Hess & Global Commies Fronts Inc.