March 13, 2004
"Kofi lied, and people died."
There’s a strange story brewing about lies at the UN.
At first I wanted to believe that the UN had the answer to the worlds problems. They were right about not invading Iraq, right? We couldn’t possibly do anything successfully without them.
If only the UN were involved in Iraq like it was in Rwanda…
Earlier this week, Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard said there was no such black box and dismissed claims made in a French investigation that the United Nations was guilty of obstruction of justice for failing to inspect it. Later, Eckhard acknowledged the black box had been found.
Black box. What black box?
The allegations about the black box first appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde. According to the paper, a secret French investigation believes the chief suspect in the plane's downing is current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi who was the leader of a rebel movement at the time. Kagame has denied the allegation.
Genocide? What genocide?
Eckhard would not comment on the specifics of Beissel's remarks late Friday."This is the kind of stuff that will come out as the investigation goes forward," Eckhard said. "I would say let's let the inspectors do their work.
Inspectors? Where have I heard that phrase before?
The international community's failure to stop the genocide is a source of embarrassment and pain for Annan, who was head of U.N. peacekeeping at the time. Those killed were mainly minority Tutsis and politically moderate members of the Hutu majority.
We were really busy...
Denis Beissel, who retired from the United Nations last year, told The Associated Press he had received the black box and believed it was important, but there were so many peacekeeping missions at the time that it was forgotten. He said that during that period, he once got 1,000 pieces of mail in a single day.
Not my fault, really...
"My recollection is that we thought that somebody ought to be interested," Beissel said. "The air safety professionals that were working with us thought that some state ought to help us with that, but nobody came forward." -Kansas City Star
Boy, I really wish our President would get the UN involved in administering Iraq for us...
...So we could make America more secure.
Posted by Eric Simonson at March 13, 2004 02:34 AMIf the UN lied, tell me what they would have to gain by revealing the truth, and why would they reveal it so soon? It’s a serious mistake, not a coverup. As for not letting the UN participate in Iraq , the Bush administration doesn’t have a problem with that currently, now that it turns out they circumvented the UN for nothing.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at March 13, 2004 09:17 AMOne might ask the same question of the Bush administration and WMD.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at March 13, 2004 11:42 AMIf the Bush Administration lied, tell me what they would have to gain by revealing the truth, and why would they reveal it so soon? It’s a serious mistake, not a coverup.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at March 13, 2004 11:44 AMOh please, the Bush Administration didn’t reveal some great secret with the WMD’s, the whole would have known they didn’t find them anyway.There was no way for them to cover it up short of lying.
But wait, they already lied about them being there in the first place didn’t they…….
AS far as the UN goes, they should be investigated and if a crime was committed it should be punished. But they deserve a bit of slack, they’ve done more good in the world, than bad. Sigh can’t say the same for that old Bush Administration , now, can I?
Posted by: Suhasini at March 13, 2004 03:37 PMNot to mention the entire Oil-For-Food scandal, which was rife was mismanagement and corruption.
But they deserve a bit of slack, they’ve done more good in the world, than bad. Sigh can’t say the same for that old Bush Administration , now, can I?
Really? Let’s look at just a couple of sample points:
- Iraq has a constitution that enshrines individual rights and freedoms, by far the best in the Arab world
- The streets of Kabul, deserted under the Taliban, now face rush hour every morning, and are full of cars and people and business
These are just two indicators of the concrete improvement in the standard, safety, and dignity of people’s lives since the vile US intervened there.
Posted by: Vivek at March 13, 2004 04:52 PMIt’s kind of a sarcasm thing, Suhasini. My point being that the UN is not competent for the task it is hailed as being fit for.
…they deserve a bit of slack, they’ve done more good in the world, than bad. Sigh can’t say the same for that old Bush Administration , now, can I?
It’s easy to just take credit for trying to be good when you really don’t care to be responsibility for anything bad that happens.
I’d rather have US marines in charge of ‘peacekeeping’ any day rather than a UN beaurocrat.
Vivek’s right - the corruption in the oil for food program is shameful, and may also explain the UN’s reluctance to remove Saddam. That program was a profit making venture for the UN.
Ok, I think you’re focussing more on the role of the UN when it comes to specific functions it performs, I’m not saying the UN is infallible or anything, and that it has a perfect record,
but really to even assume that it does more bad than good is completely wrong.
UNICEF,UNFPA,WHO these are all organisations that do some of the best work in the world when it comes to providing millions with health care and food, not to mention safeguarding their human rights.
As for peacekeeping, yes you’d feel better if America were incharge of that, but the rest of the world wouldn’t, and who’s to say that at some point of time some government or other wouldn’t abuse the power this role of ‘peacekeeper’ gives it?
The UN IS competent to do the task it is meant to do, it may slip up here and there, but honestly there is no replacement for it, if you’re suggesting that America just take over all the UN’s functions, then how is that sort of situation any different from a sort of monarchy?
Eric, I don’t see Bush out there admitting his mistake. He’ll admit bad intelligence, but he’s so far stuck to his guns on the conclusions drawn from that bad intelligence
Like: WMDs! Terrorists! Terrorists with WMDs!
We’re not looking at a coverup here. A week passes between rumor and revelation. It’s not like the way it’s been with Bush, with him continually denying things
Heard anything from Bush about his administration’s dealings before 9/11? Now that’s where one might be justified in charging a coverup. Why do they not have to bother to tell the rest of America what they were doing before 9/11? The American people want to know, and deserve to know.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at March 14, 2004 03:13 PMStephen,
Remember when Bush retracted the Niger Yellow Cake quote from one of his speeches? What was that? It would have been easy to just say nothing and try to let it slide along with all the other ‘hyped up’ intelligence than to actually say, no I take that back. Why is it so hard to look past your partisanship and see that Bush might just be the guy he says he is.
I’m sure you want the President to say something alone the lines that this war was concocted for political purposes and wrong from the beginning and illegal, etc. but that would be lying. The invasion of Iraq had to be done. Bush did it because it was right.
You’ve said that if there were WMD’s in Iraq you’d still be supporting the war. But you’ve also said that Bush has mismanaged every aspect of this war. Do you think you could still support Bush even if the intelligence had been right?
Iraqi generals believed that they had WMD. It seems to me that even if we had succeeded (we may have in fact) in getting agents on the inside of Saddam’s regime we would have confirmed the intelligence we were relying on. In this kind of case it seems a bit extreme to hold Bush to a standard no one could live up to. Bush had probable cause. He executed a warrant and the stockpiles of WMD were not there. Too bad for Saddam. Everyone wins.
As for 9/11? You’ve got me there. What was he doing before 9/11?
Posted by: Eric Simonson at March 14, 2004 04:46 PM
