September 24, 2003

No excuses

Speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday, President Bush wasted no time and minced no words. The world today, he said, faces "an unfinished war." That war is being fought in such places as Baghdad, Bali, Bombay, Mombassa, Tunis, Casablanca, Riyadh, Jakarta, and Jerusalem. And in this global conflict, "there is no neutral ground. All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization."

This is not what the president's critics, adversaries, and enemies wanted to hear. They hoped he would sound apologetic and chastened.
[Brother! Did Mr. May say a mouthful here!
You'd think that every Leftist talking head on TV had to have a barf bag nearby when they heard President Bush's "impertinent" tone yesterday!--Jen]
But he wasn't even particularly conciliatory. Terrorists, he admonished the U.N. General Assembly, "those who incite murder and celebrate suicide...have no place in any religious faith, they have no claim on the world's sympathy, and they should have no friend in this chamber."

The president's opponents won't like that kind of talk. They'll call it arrogant.
[Right again! and yep, they certainly did call it "arrogant," among other things. Pearls before swine.--J.T.]
They'll say it is bruises the tender sensibilities of the distinguished representatives of the international community. But speaking frankly and truthfully to the members of the U.N.--as Jeane Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to do--is a tradition worth reviving.

Bush took credit for the liberation of Iraq, reminding listeners that "the regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted by the world."

He added: "The Security Council was right to be alarmed...The Security Council was right to demand that Iraq destroy its illegal weapons and prove that it had done so ... The Security Council was right to vow serious consequences if Iraq refused to comply."

What followed was a diplomatic spanking[Too funny! I love it!--Jen]: "And because there were consequences — because a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace and the credibility of the United Nations — Iraq is free, and today we are joined by representatives of a liberated country."

Bush took credit for the liberation of Iraq, reminding listeners that "the regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted by the world."

He added: "The Security Council was right to be alarmed...The Security Council was right to demand that Iraq destroy its illegal weapons and prove that it had done so ... The Security Council was right to vow serious consequences if Iraq refused to comply."

Bush acknowledged that free Iraq has become "the central front in the war on terror," a place where remnants of Saddam's deposed regime have joined with foreign jihadi terrorists to wage a war not just against the Anglo-American Coalition, but even against U.N. civil servants. Before long, he promised, Iraqis will be trained and equipped to act in their own defense.

How soon? Bush agreed that power should be turned over to Iraqis as quickly as possible, but such a transfer, he said, would be "neither hurried nor delayed by the wishes of other parties." (He refrained from gazing toward Jacques Chirac and adding: "N'est pas?")

Overall, the president's speech was a clear echo of his September 2002 address to the U.N. At that time, he issued a memorable challenge to the organization. The U.N., he said, had reached "a difficult and defining moment...Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?"

Of course, we now know the answer: It proved to be irrelevant. The U.N. was created after World War II to "take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace." It has consistently failed to do that — from China to Cambodia to Rwanda to Srebrenica to the Middle East, the U.N. has taken no effective measures against dictators who threatened the peace, against despots who committed acts of genocide, or against rogue nations that have sponsored terrorism. On the contrary, the U.N. generally has shown great deference and respect to such villains.

It can not be repeated too often: Today, Syria sits on the Security Council. Libya heads the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
[And both Libya and Syria could certainly be put in the second tier of the "axis of evil."--ed]

And when faced with Saddam Hussein, who had refused to meet the obligations he had accepted in exchange for a ceasefire in the 1991 Gulf War, who had violated numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions, who had filled graves across Iraq with murdered Kurds, Shias, and Sunni dissidents (has any other figure in history slaughtered so many Muslims?), the U.N. could not bring itself to take meaningful action.

President Bush went on to talk about other issues — the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the AIDS epidemic, slavery, and child prostitution among them.

But the real news was that the president stuck to his guns. He implored the international community to stand for something other than self-interest and moral relativism. He reminded the crowd in Turtle Bay that the U.N. was founded to do more than provide a pleasant venue where diplomats could wine and whine.

The U.N., Bush said, was created to undertake "great tasks," and to take "decisive action." That's probably more than anyone should expect anytime soon but perhaps for at least for a few minutes the president provoked some reflection about what the U.N. could have been and what a reformed U.N. might still become.

I can only add a few thoughts to Mr. May's incisive analysis: first, did anyone really think that the United States of America (as embodied in Bush)would go hat in head and beg the rest of the world to help with money and troops?
I think a lot of these mooches still owe us money from WWII, if not WWI also!
And what troops are we going to get that aren't already aboard in the Coalition?
Or to put the question another way, if the UN were to vote an army of blue helmets, wouldn't it probably consist of the same contributors that are already sending soldiers to Operation Iraqi Freedom?
Worse yet, isn't it more likely that the force would be even smaller than the one there now?
Oh, I think so.
The salient moment of the Bush speech was his treatment of Israel as part of the WOT and Arafat's "outing" as the terrorist thug that he is.
Bear in mind that he made these remarks to the very body that has voted not one, but two resolutions in just the past week supporting Arafat and condemning Israel's right to protect herself and her citizens.
Better still, President Bush did this right off the bat in the speech when he read off a laundry list of the loci of the past year's terror attacks which concluded very noticeably with Jerusalem.
While he also included the Bali bombing, the Moscow theater siege was conspicously absent from the list.
While I still believe the Chechens to be Al Queda-linked terrorists, it seems that the official US position is that some of those terrorists are genuine "freedom fighters" for Chechen separatism that Putin likes to personally pick on, so apparently we're not ready to give Russia that one.
(Time will tell, but I think the Islamist Chechens in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia are going to have to be taken care of sooner or later.)
Putin is supposedly due for a 2-day visit with Bush later this week and I would love to be a fly on the wall at that meeting.
Vlad's got lot's of "splainin'" to do, particularly regarding all the help they've been giving the Iranians with that nuclear reactor at Bushehr (Ironic name, no?).

It took a real man and a leader with vision, courage and moral clarity to do what Bush did yesterday and what's he's been doing for the last two years.
He's not only doing what's right for America, but also what's right for mankind and the future of world peace if the leaders there would but see it.
Bush is, above all, an optimist and one who inspires others, so let's hope and pray for the best that some, if not all, of those present yesterday will agree with his words and act accordingly!