Think the UN should be the organization to take over reconstruction of Iraq? Weren't convinced by their stellar non-performance in places like Kosovo? Try their looking-to-be-as-stellar non-performance in Afghanistan. Short summary: things aren't getting done in that country because the UN way of doing things is to sit around talking about it for years. But people still seem to think that saying "United Nations" is a real-life version of "Abracadabra!" I can only figure that they have been subjected to so much propaganda on how the UN is the be-all and end-all of human political existence that they have grown a titanium scar around those particular brain-nodes that deal with the subject. If the United Nations was a surgeon, the way to deal with a cancerous tumor would be to talk at it and form committees about it in the hopes that it would voluntarily leave the body.
(Via Dave.)
Posted by Andrea Harris at April 30, 2003 01:42 PMSaying "UN" is a way of removing responsibilty from ones self. Once a task is given over to the UN, the people who were responsible can then safely ignore the issue, secure in the knowledge that the UN is solving the problem in the most humanitarian way. Just like the people that passed the buck to the UN.
Please note that I disagree with some people's assement of the UN's abilities, intentions, and morality.
Posted by: Byna at April 30, 2003 at 02:58 PMI blame Disney. People seem to confuse the UN with its cartoon version in ‘The Rescuers’ and ‘the Rescuers Down Under’ The Disney version of the UN, The Rescue Aid Society, is populated by a international coalition of brave mice who devote their lives to rescuing kids in distress.
Or maybe they have it confused with Star Trek’s Federation. In any case, the real UN is made up of a bunch of unelected, dictator-supporting freeloaders whose only response to genocide and oppression is no response at all.
The idea that the UN is a humanitarian organization that’s capable of taking action is make-believe. Anybody who believes it is watching too much TV.
At this point, the UN should be regarded as a fetish item. Its entire import is symbolic; it has no beneficial powers in the real world. Experience has borne this out.
I await the creation of an AngloSpheric replacement for NATO, which will ultimately render both NATO and the UN completely irrelevant.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at April 30, 2003 at 05:43 PMLook into all the abuses in the UN managed oil for food program and you will retch at the thought that those blood suckers get another dollar out of the Iraqi people.
Posted by: Will at April 30, 2003 at 06:43 PM"the real UN is made up of a bunch of unelected, dictator-supporting freeloaders whose only response to genocide and oppression is no response at all."
That's not true: their response is to continue non-payment of their umpteen zillion dollars in NYC parking tickets.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at May 1, 2003 at 10:03 AM