On the Other Hand You Have Five Fingers
Mulling over the current rhetoric from the White House on the UN.

''It's time for them to determine whether they'll be the United Nations, or the League of Nations. It's time to determine whether or not they'll be a force for good and peace, or an ineffective debating society[.]"

W has framed the question as one over the legitimacy of the UN. More importantly, he feels that if the Security Council doesn't enforce its resolutions, it ceases to carry the legitimacy to pass such resolutions. This is the kind of black and white rhetoric we heard just after al Qaeda (remember them?) attacked us last fall. With us or against us. Force for good and peace, or an ineffective debating society. Given the history of the UN, one might be careful toeing this line however. You might have to live up to it later in much less clear circumstances. For instance, there are two thorny Security Council resolutions (242 and 338 -- both links .pdf) which deal with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Res. 242 is 35 years old (forget 10!) and calls for Israel to remove its troops from all areas occupied during the 1967 war. As with his earlier problem with the fall's rhetoric, what will be W's reaction when the Arab states inevitably use current rhetoric to justify UN troops to secure the safety of the Palestinians? How about forcing the issue of the Palestinian refugee issue? As we saw after last fall, other states will quickly adopt the mantra of the US to serve their own interests. Is there any dissident group anywhere in the world that isn't labeled a terrorist organization by the goverment that it opposes?


A thought provoking dispatch from Robert Scheer in Salon today. Not much press is given to the notion that Iraq may indeed be bereft of effective offensive weapons. My interest to this kind of missive is hightened because I have yet to see, or hear of being presented, any evidence that Saddam does in fact have, or is currently producing, such an offensive arsenal. I certainly believe he would if he could but, as Scheer points out, his most effective days of gassing and mongering were when he was (or just after he was) a client of US foreign policy. I won't shed a tear when he's gone, but I am not convinced it's worth sacrificing our soldier's lives now to force this inevitability.
- posted by levinson @ 9/19/2002 07:44:00 PM