Recently in UN Category

The UN is asking for total disarmament of all nuclear weapons around the world, beginning with the Western powers and not confronting Iran or North Korea.

I am all for this program, however, IF the UN really means it. The UN is big on expensive programs that provide millions of dollars for the managers of those programs. They are not big on actually doing anything that does not enrich themselves.

Urging world to disarm, Ban kicks off countdown to UN Day

13 June 2009 - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today launched the "WMD-WeMustDisarm" campaign, beginning the 100-day countdown to the 2009 United Nations International Day of Peace, which this year focuses on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Over the next 100 days leading up to the International Day, observed annually on 21 September, Mr. Ban and others will raise awareness of the need to eliminate nuclear weapons by issuing a daily message, via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, email and radio, urging the world to disarm.

The Secretary-General is taking the lead by issuing the first 10 'tweets' of the campaign.

"Over the next 100 days, the United Nations and our partners around the world will work to raise awareness of the true costs and dangers of nuclear weapons," Mr. Ban said in a message to mark the start of the countdown.

"Unless we vigorously work for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, we will continue to face threats from existing nuclear weapons, as well as additional risks that more States, even terrorists, might acquire and deploy such weapons, potentially annihilating millions of people," he stated.

This is an outrage! Why is the UN still allowed to operate in the US? They should have been banned at least a decade ago. They have been increasingly irrelevant to the Free World since the Great Communist Collapse.

Now we know where out of power Communists and failed tyrants end up. Why should the US foot the bill for this kind of abuse? If they want to investigate criminal activity, this "top UN official" should know all about it since he is/was the friend of a Communist tyrant who used death squads and torturers to keep his peons in line. Isn't that right Senor Brockmann? You support killing people for disliking you and your friends? And you shift the blame to the people who would really like to help those same victims of your abuse?

I can crap stuff that is smarter than most UN "diplomats".

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504965,00.html

A top U.N. official accused the United States of committing inhuman "atrocities" in Iraq and Afghanistan during a speech Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," said U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.

D'Escoto claimed that U.S. actions have directly led to more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003, a vastly inflated figure that does not correspond with the U.N.'s own estimates.

The U.N.'s health and medical agency, the World Health Organization, says 151,000 Iraqis have died since the 2003 invasion. IraqBodyCount.org puts the death toll between 90,000- 99,245.

...D'Escoto, once the foreign minister for the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, ...

The Left takes over the White House and now the Far Left Hollywood types finally can get demands taken care of.

I want to know who is against aiding the people of Darfur? President Bush tried to get a coalition of UN forces for it, and NO ONE wanted to help. Now, will The One finally decide to go it alone, like the Lone Ranger, or will he be able to find some others who are willing to save those poor souls? Clooney and his ilk jumped all over President Bush for going it alone in Iraq, even defining alone to mean less team members than a football team, yet more than a baseball team. I wonder how they will react to The Ones efforts to spread Peace?

I really hate activists who get face time because they are famous. If they were experts on the topic it would be one thing. Well, I guess on Darfur, there is no real expert except those who have been there. But Clooney still irritates me.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/24/clooney-gets-white-house-promises-darfur/

Academy Award-winning actor and activist George Clooney met privately Monday night with President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to urge the new administration's action on the crisis in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

Mr. Clooney told reporters that Mr. Obama said once a foreign policy review is completed, he would appoint a "full-time, high-level envoy" to the region to report directly to the White House.

"The administration has assured me that Darfur is one of a small handful of foreign-policy reviews being undertaken at the [most senior] level," Mr. Clooney said.

He said the envoy would be "a huge policy step" since, in many cases, envoys have only been in the region "when the fire starts."

The actor, who made a documentary highlighting the Darfur conflict and has been outspoken on the issue, said it was "nice to hear" that the region is a priority for the Obama White House.

http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11275429.html

Human rights groups argued Wednesday that a detailed probe into Hamas's firing of Kassam rockets at Israeli communities is not necessary, because it constitutes such a "blatant" war crime. By contrast, Israel's actions are more complex, and therefore do require such investigation, they said... said Sarit Micha'eli of B'tselem... "It is quite clear that [Hamas is] attacking and targeting civilians... With Israel things are more complicated because Israel states it does not deliberately target civilians and that it safeguards them. With Israel, you have to investigate each specific incident because even if a civilian is killed in an attack..." "The Israeli authorities deny everything, so one has to prove what happened in a way that you don't need to do with the Palestinian rockets," said Donatella Rovera of Amnesty International.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304702123&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The United Nations is ready to address Hamas's use of children as human shields during last month's IDF offensive in Gaza, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN...

Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.
Photo: Ruth Eglash
Slideshow: Pictures of the week

"We have not yet dealt directly with the human shield issue, but we will now mention it in our reports," Radhika Coomaraswamy said in an exclusive interview following a four-day visit to the region.

"It is still very difficult for us to say that it was actually happening and we still need to conduct a full investigation into what exactly took place... but we are not denying that it happened; it is absolutely possible that Hamas was using its civilians as human shields," she said.

However, Coomaraswamy said that the UN's policy not to meet with leading members of the Hamas government - because it was officially considered a terrorist organization - seriously hampered all types of humanitarian relief work in the Gaza Strip.

The UN is such a poor joke. My favorite professor was a huge supporter of the UN and was an expert on the topic, but I always felt he overestimated their goodwill and underestimated their interest in the defeat of democracy. I willingly admit that the UN was a great force during the first two or three decades after its inception. I admit they they had great potential for good. I admit that they have lost their way and the forces of darkness have replaced the forces of good.

What good comes out of the UN today? Even things that seem to be well intentioned seem to have a destructive backlash. It is depressing.

http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=635

there is no 'genuine human rights agenda' at the UN; it has been hijacked not by the NGOs but by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the body representing the world's Islamic states.

That's why -- surreally -- the Durban II preparatory committee is chaired by a Libyan, Najat al-Hajjaji, with Iran as the vice-chair, Cuba as the rapporteur and other major human-rights offenders such as Russia and Pakistan also among its members. In short, the UN has turned 'human rights' into their antithesis -- and specifically into a weapon to destroy the right to statehood of the Jewish people.

Last month, the UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann said Israeli policies amounted to apartheid and 'must be outlawed' and met by a 'campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel'.

It is the UN and the architects of Durban II who are the racists and murderous bigots. Negotiating with them at all merely gives them legitimacy. For those committed to genuine human rights, there is only one option. Denounce this sick farce, and pull out now.

It is very hard to argue with Mr Bolton on this. Mr Obama will never do anything to worry our enemies. Which does mean that stopping the Iranians has to be done very very soon or not at all.

Please do something Mr Bush. Please.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20081205/cm_thenation/1096388155_1

But Bolton also said that neither the United States nor Israel will attack Iran to stop its nuclear program. "Neither one is willing to use military force," he said. Bolton said that until recently he believed that there was a small chance that Israel, on its own, might attack Iran before January 20, when Barack Obama becomes president. But Israel is mired in political confusion in advance of its coming elections, and there is no political will in Israel to go to war against Iran, he said.

Bolton also said that the likelihood of a US attack on Iran under Obama is nil. "Under an Obama administration, that possibility is essentially zero," he said. "After January 20, the chances are zero."

If strong action had been taken in the past, say, starting five years ago, Iran could have been stopped, Bolton said. Tough sanctions then would be biting now, he said. Alternately, the United States could have adopted a policy of "regime change," supporting ethnic minorities, disaffected youth, and Iran's youth, to create revolutionary unrest, even though nearly all experts on Iran have argued that regime change was never a viable option. Said Bolton: "If we had started it five years ago, we might be in a different place,. It was a good policy option. We should have pursued it. We didn't pursue it."

http://www.debka.com/

Covert marine operation uncovers Syria's return to plutonium production

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

December 5, 2008, 4:14 PM (GMT+02:00)
The Orontes River, Syria

The Orontes River, Syria

In the face of Damascus' refusal to allow UN inspectors access to three suspect "research laboratories, Western agents recently carried out a daring covert operation to collect water samples from the Orontes river in Syria where it drains into the Mediterranean, DEBKAfile's intelligence sources reveal. Their discoveries were presented to a closed session of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's board on Nov. 27-28.

Situated on the river bank near Homs is one of the three research institutes where Syrian, Iranian and North Korean technicians and scientists are suspected of reprocessing plutonium for Syria's clandestine military nuclear program. The Orentes samples confirmed the suspicion that Syria has gone back to the plutonium project which was cut short when Israeli destroyed its reactor at Al Kibar in September 2007.

The Orontes rises at Tal al Musa north of Damascus and south of Homs. It flows into the sea near Antakya, which is north of Latakiya and west of Aleppo, not far from the Turkish border.

The IAEA board meeting was told in general teams how the tainted river samples were obtained. DEBKAfile's military sources add that western nuclear technicians collected them from a boat which sailed surreptitiously up to the river mouth in Syria. To make sure of their finding, they collected river water on three different dates in the last two months.

Their discovery tied in with a separate report reaching the nuclear watchdog board that Iran and North Korea were frantically drafting in nuclear specialists to help Syria revive its plutonium reprocessing project. The product is to be stored in protected hideouts.

It was the view of some board members that Tehran and Pyongyang had determined to prove that the Israeli attack had not put Syria off its nuclear program. Both were even more insistent on showing the world that the Iranian nuclear program of which the Syrian project was a part was unstoppable.

Syria and North Korea accordingly renewed their clandestine nuclear cooperation accord on Oct. 22, so making sure of an uninterrupted flow from Pyongyang of nuclear materials, technology and experts for Syria's covert nuclear facilities.

When the local government does everything short of declare war, it is time to pack up and get most of the people out. Only leave the Ambassador, Marines and a couple of communications guys to keep the lines open.

Sure, Syria gave us a few terrorist tips in exchange for some serious cash and good works, but they received much more than they gave. They need to be reminded about that occasionally! And they just were.

US shuts Damascus embassy amid rising tensions

DEBKAfile Special Report

October 29, 2008, 11:47 PM (GMT+02:00)
US embassy in Damascus shut

US embassy in Damascus shut

The statement cited "increased security risk and rising tensions."

DEBKAfile's military sources report that the Syrian government expects more US attacks after Sunday's US raid in the north which left 8 people dead. A spokesman in Damascus announced Wednesday night, Oct. 30, that if US strikes are repeated, Syria will break off security cooperation not only with the US but also with Iraq on their common border. The situation is explosive enough to lead to a Syrian declaration of war if Iraqi forces hit terrorist bases on its soil.

Thursday, Syrians will demonstrate against the US helicopter-borne raid in the north. US official has said a smuggler of foreign fighters into Iraq was targeted. "The U.S. Embassy in Damascus remains concerned about the continued threat of terrorist attacks, demonstrations and other violent actions against U.S. citizens," said the embassy spokesman.

DEBKAfile's sources reported earlier that following a Syrian threat of "painful responses" for the American attack, the embassy had prepared for extreme events, such as possibly a Syrian military siege of the embassy, violent demonstrations or even a direct attack that would force the evacuation of staff.

The embassy spokesman declined to comment on whether the number or status of US diplomats in Syria could change.

Our sources believe that the Assad government's closure of the American cultural and school Monday and protest to the UN Secretary General and Security Council Chairman were only the beginning and that more extreme steps are in store in Syria and Iraq.

Following pressure from Tehran, the Baghdad government denounced the American incursion into Syria after first accusing Damascus of cross-border terror against Iraq.