The United Nations of Hypocrisy

 by George Shadroui  

| View comments |  Print This Post

George W. Bush might be accused of excessive idealism, incompetence, perhaps even criminal negligence. But he cannot be accused of doing nothing in the face of Saddam’s ongoing brutality, defiance of UN resolutions and horrific human rights record.

Outgoing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has done his part to reinforce the anti-American attitudes of his organization, all the while downplaying the real dangers that face the free world.
 
But let’s be clear. Despite what USA Today claimed in its headlines, Annan hardly “blasted” the United States. This was probably the wishful thinking of a liberal headline writer who never bothered to read the full speech. Annan actually praised the United States, including President Truman, and almost begged that the United States remain true to its ideals.
 
No, Annan’s final speech was not a blast, but it was a hefty helping of platitudes served up on a platter of surrealism. Against his speech, one most consider the realities of the world in which we are destined to be embroiled.

Annan: And I would add that this responsibility is not simply a matter of states being ready to come to each other's aid when attacked – important though that is. It also includes our shared responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity – a responsibility solemnly accepted by all nations at last year's UN summit. That means that respect for national sovereignty can no longer be used as a shield by governments intent on massacring their own people, or as an excuse for the rest of us to do nothing when such heinous crimes are committed.
– Reported in USA Today, December 11, 2006

Meanwhile in the News: Iran on Monday opened a conference that it said would examine whether the Holocaust took place, claiming the meeting was an opportunity to discuss the World War II genocide in an atmosphere free of what it termed Western taboos.
— Reported in USA Today, December 11, 2006

How does the UN go about saving people from genocide when the very nations that convene in that body consider the Jewish genocide during World War II an open question?

Annan: That is why human rights and the rule of law are such an important objective for all who truly care about global security and prosperity. Historically, Americans have understood this, and this country has been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America is true to its own principles, including in the struggle against terrorism. Many people are troubled and confused when the United States appears to abandon the ideals and objectives, and the international instruments, with which it has long been identified. In President Truman's words, "We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might."

Let us review for a moment the transgressions of the Bush administration according to those who oppose the policy in Iraq not as a practical matter, but as an issue of principle.

• We invaded and liberated Iraq, a country run by the most brutal dictator in the Middle East who was responsible for two wars, the deaths of well over a million Iranians and Iraqis, and the destruction of three nations. He used weapons of mass destruction repeatedly, tortured, brutalized and murdered his own people, and defied some 17 UN resolutions. In the wake of 9/11, President Bush decided enough was enough.

Might it not be fairly asked if might was not used for right?

Meanwhile in the news: Palestinian gunmen killed three young children of a senior Palestinian intelligence officer Monday, pumping dozens of bullets into their car as it passed through a street crowded with schoolchildren — in an apparent botched assassination attempt that could ignite widespread factional fighting.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and the Islamic militant Hamas group denounced the drive-by attack, which left the children's schoolbags and a small plastic bag with a sandwich covered in blood. However, senior officials in the intelligence service, which is allied with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party, blamed Hamas for the shooting.
— Reported in USA Today, December 11, 2006

• The United States is also accused of abusing the rights of prisoners captured in Iraq (Abu Graib) or being held in Guantanamo Bay. Several American servicemen have been tried and charged for abusive behavior.

Here are some of the transgressions as reported on PBS:

Well, they tell us that the issue of detainees complaining about the Quran being mishandled, handled roughly and disrespectfully were common, frequent, and the new document says that they told this to FBI agents. Now at Guantanamo, which is essentially an interrogation center as well as a detention center, there are different agencies that are questioning detainees all the time. And these detainees and these reports had talked about the Quran being mishandled and in one case and only one case one detainee said the Quran was flushed down the toilet.

Let us turn to the most egregious abuses documented by investigators and the media, according to this PBS report.

And the essence of it was that detainees were being shortchanged to the floor — chained, I'm sorry, to the floor, had their clothes taken away, bright lights shining on them, loud music, all kinds of things to disorient them, and one very grisly case was about a detainee who was left all night, an agent said, chained to the floor, and soiled himself, couldn't go to the bathroom otherwise, and pulled his hair out as a result.

No one should endorse disrespecting another person’s religious sensitivities or culture (though comedians and moviemakers make fortunes doing precisely that at the expense of Christians), but how does one take this seriously when compared to the brutal beheadings of the prisoners of our enemies, or the power drilling into bodies being done by the thugs in Iraq – who torture every victim to death and dump their bodies on the streets, or the deliberate targeting of children by terrorist groups who take cover behind the nonsense routinely spewed by the likes of Annan and the leftist critics of the Bush administration?

Annan: In 1946 he (Truman)  offered to place all nuclear energy under international control — an offer rejected, tragically, by Joseph Stalin — and in 1950, faced with aggression by North Korea against the South, he insisted on bringing the issue to the United Nations and placing US troops under the UN flag, at the head of a multinational force.

Lest we forget, Bush asked the UN to assist in Iraq, and many of the major nations refused. This might be a lesson in real politick but it is hardly the lesson in morality and courage the Secretary General seeks to impart. One wants to ask the Secretary General what Truman would have done had the UN failed to support U.S. action in Korea? One suspects he would have gone it alone, just as he did when he dropped the bombs on Japan.

Annan: My third lesson is that, at the national and the international levels, both security and successful economic development ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Meanwhile in the news: Mohammed al-Askari, Iraq's defense ministry spokesman, said security forces are doing everything they can to protect victims of sectarian violence, including families that are being driven from their homes in mixed neighborhoods of Shiites and Sunni Arabs.
He cited the example of Iraqi soldiers who rushed to Ghazaliyah, a primarily Sunni area of west Baghdad, on Monday morning to free 23 Iraqis who had been taken hostage at a fake checkpoint set up there.
– Reported in USA Today, December 11, 2006)

We all regret that Iraq turned out to be a vision too bold by half. Bush’s team might be accused of excessive idealism, incompetence, perhaps even criminal negligence. They cannot be accused of doing nothing in the face of Saddam’s ongoing brutality, defiance of UN resolutions and horrific human rights record. Nor can they be blamed for the violence of sectarians who would rather blow up a child than risk being ruled by a rival sect. Considering UN inaction in Rwanda, Darfur and Iraq, we are left wondering what Annan would do to stop such violence short of making speeches. At least he seems to know that his words are empty gestures.

Annan: And when I look at the murder, rape and starvation to which the people of Darfur are being subjected, I fear that we may already be failing that test. The lesson here, surely, is that high-sounding doctrines like the "responsibility to protect" will remain pure rhetoric unless and until those with the power to intervene effectively — by exerting political, economic or, in the last resort, military muscle — are prepared to take the lead . . .

Notice the use of the word “effectively” (e.g., if it gets sticky don’t expect the UN to stand with you). It brings to mind the scene from the movie Dances with Wolves when the Sioux boys try to steal Lt. John Dunbar’s horse. When the clever horse throws one of boys, breaking his arm, and the adventurous lads realize they are about to get in trouble, the hurting child angrily reminds his companion that it was his idea. The older boy wryly replies that it was his idea to steal the horse, not to get thrown off. It is a funny line, but in the real world actions have consequences that are not so easily disowned.

In short, it is an easy to second guess tough decisions that go wrong. Washington pundits and politicians make their living doing precisely that. And so it has become common wisdom to declare Iraq a horrible mistake, a war of choice, an act of imperialism, all the while ignoring that America gave Iraq its only chance at long-term freedom and stability. Whatever Bush’s critics may claim, this is undeniably true, which is why the situation in Iraq today is so tragic.

Most likely, we will wind up with a Shiite strongman ruling most or all of Iraq. One doubts he will remember that his power came not from Iran or the UN, but from the sacrifices of tens of thousands of brave Americans and Iraqis, people who dared to imagine – if only for a few fleeting months – an Iraq where human rights, democracy and the rule of law actually seemed a graspable reality, not merely rhetoric spouted by hypocritical officials from a safe distance, under cover of American arms.

Foreign Affairs: Iraq War, Foreign Affairs: United Nations, National Sovereignty

Read more articles by George Shadroui