UN: Still unpopular with non-dictator types
The paper of usually making up the record writes:
Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, accused the United Nations Security Council today of having failed to help rescue his country from Saddam Hussein, and he chided member states for bickering over his beleaguered country’s future.
“Settling scores with the United States-led coalition should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the Iraqi people,” Mr. Zebari said in language unusually scolding for an occupant of the guest seat at the end of the curving Security Council table.
“Squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to the daily struggle for security, jobs, basic freedoms and all the rights the U.N. is chartered to uphold,” he said
My personal favorite:
The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure.”
He declared, “The U.N. must not fail the Iraqi people again.”
And Kofi Annan responds with:
Now is not the time to pin blame and point fingers
Yes, Kofi, it is. The UN has sat idly by while dictators commit atrocities, and this was par for the course. Glad someone called you on it.
Side note: I caught part of Dubya’s interview last night and some how had missed that during the announcement of Saddam’s capture, Iraqi reporters stood up and shouted Death to Saddam.
December 17th, 2003 at 10:18 am
An Arab speaking person who saw the announcement said on one of the cable news shows that “death to Saddam” was a “polite” translation of what they really said.
December 17th, 2003 at 10:27 am
Heh agreed, Bubba. It probably involved colorful moustache based curses.
Note to Mr. Annan, yessir, now is the time for such remarks.
December 18th, 2003 at 2:10 pm
That last comment about the Iraqi reporters(Uncle’s, not Drake’s) got me to wondering: If somebody somehow came in and forcefully overthrew Bush, there would doubtless be some people who would cheer the move. Could the deposer find a group of those people and hold them up as a shining example of the US “supporting” his overthrow of their goverment?
I fail to see the difference between that hypothetical situation and some of the real pro-US Iraqi demonstrations. Finding a group that supports this or opposes that isn’t by itself very helpful, without also knowing roughly what percentage of the population feels the same way.
You can get a few hundred people together to support or oppose just about anything, but that doesn’t give you any insight into how the public at large feels about the issue.