April 11, 2003

U.N. Needs to Get Its Own House in Order Before Lecturing Coalition on Legitimacy

Letter-writer Stephen Plafker makes an excellent point in today’s LA TIMES:

Secretary-General Kofi Annan claims that giving the U.N. a hand in rebuilding Iraq would bring legitimacy to any government that rises from the ruins of battle (April 8). What legitimacy? The U.N. considers the most despotic country as the equal of the freest. [.....] Under Annan’s theory [...] Libya should help decide the kind of government Iraq is to have.

He refers, of course, to the inexplicable fact that Libya is the chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Per Sky News:

Libyan terrorists were responsible for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people, and Gadaffi’s regime has been criticised for violence against its own people.

The U.N. needs to get its own house in order.

Why the War is Having the Right Effect on Terrorists

The terrorists can now see the actual result of their attack on America.

The
whole reason terrorism vs. the U.S. exists at all is that the
terrorists say to themselves, “If we don’t tell the U.S. what countries
are supporting us, the U.S. will be powerless to oppose us.”
Fortunately we’re not dumb enough to fall for that. In fact what
happens is, we pick the nation which we think presents the greatest
terrorist threat, conquer it, and give it back to its oppressed
populace. We have now shown we can do this without breaking a sweat, so
to speak. This is not the result the terrorists were looking for.

The
inevitable effect of this is, somewhere out there a terrorist says,
“Let’s blow up something in the U.S. now,” and his friends all look at
him like, “Are you out of your mind? That will just give them all the
excuse they need to conquer Libya, Iran, or North Korea.”

That’s why the war is having the right effect on terrorists.

What’s the Point of Anyone Being “Against the War” at This Point?

Yesterday a friend of mine emailed that he disagreed with me about the war. I emailed back, “Good heavens, man, it’s over. We won.”

There was no house-to-house fighting for Baghdad. There was no quagmire. There was no World War III. All these things so confidently predicted by those against the war were notable by their absence.

Anyone still trying to argue against the war on the basis of injury to Iraqi civilians needs to read this article by CNN executive Eason Jordan. Crimes committed for decades by Hussein’s regime, far outweighed civilian casualties resulting from the war.

Kurds, celebrating the coalition victory, via MSNBC.