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Blix was the failure here. Get US out of the UN!!!!

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
Iraq better off under Saddam, says Blix

Former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Wednesday described the United States-led invasion of Iraq as a "pure failure" that had left the country worse off than under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

In unusually harsh comments to Danish newspaper Politiken, the diplomatic Swede said the US government had ended up in a situation in which neither staying nor leaving Iraq were good options.

"Iraq is a pure failure," Blix was quoted as saying. "If the Americans pull out, there is a risk that they will leave a country in civil war. At the same time, it doesn't seem that the United States can help to stabilise the situation by staying there."

War-related violence in Iraq has grown worse, with dozens of civilians, government officials and police and security force members being killed every day. At least 83 US soldiers have been killed in October - the highest monthly toll in 2006.

Blix said the situation would have been better if the war had not taken place.

"Saddam would still have been sitting in office. Okay, that is negative and it would not have been joyful for the Iraqi people. But what we have gotten is undoubtedly worse," he was quoted as saying.

Blix led the UN inspectors that searched for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the US-led invasion in 2003. He came under heavy fire from Washington when he urged US President George Bush to allow the weapons inspectors and the International Atomic Energy Agency to continue their work as a way to stave off a war.

Ultimately a US-led coalition invaded Iraq and no such weapons were found. - Sapa-AP

This article was originally published on page 14 of The Mercury on October 26, 2006
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=vn20061026063400559C925359
 

Econ101

Well-known member
The cost willing to be paid and whether it was in the best interest to keep Iraq under Saddam instead of the current situation will ultimately be determined by the Iraqi people. I , for one, am glad he is gone. There have been PLENTY of mistakes that have lead to making the cost of freedom higher for the Iraqi people and we should be held accountable for those if we had any part in them, which we did. It is imperative that we learn from our mistakes instead of continuing to make them over and over again, especially when others pay the cost.
 

passin thru

Well-known member
This only points out ole Hans and his genius mind. Since he likes mass graves holding tens of thousands of bodies, torture chambers, rape rooms, tens of thousands killed by Saddam's chemical weapons. Gotcha Hans'..............I see your point! What a brilliant man you are!
 

Econ101

Well-known member
passin thru said:
This only points out ole Hans and his genius mind. Since he likes mass graves holding tens of thousands of bodies, torture chambers, rape rooms, tens of thousands killed by Saddam's chemical weapons. Gotcha Hans'..............I see your point! What a brilliant man you are!

I have always said that when the rumors of the "people eating machine" were circulating that the machine should have been prominantly positioned in front of the United Nations in New York----if it was true and actually existed.
 

Steve

Well-known member
people eating machine......................where did you get that from!!!!

"Men and women were tortured for days and babies were left to die in an interrogation facility that featured a meat grinder for human flesh,"

""I swear by God I walked by a room and on my left I saw a grinder with blood coming out of it and human hair underneath," said 38-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who said he had been kept in Room 63 at the Hakmiya intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.""
 

Econ101

Well-known member
It would have been the best thing ever to put something like that in front of the UN to show all the other tin bit dictators what could become of them.

Deterence works better with a little advertisement.
 

passin thru

Well-known member
Deterence works better with a little advertisement

Funny thing is that is just what GW has been doing with Iraq and see how the libs respond...............oh well you can never please a person he77 bent on hating Bush
 

Cal

Well-known member
War-related violence in Iraq has grown worse, with dozens of civilians, government officials and police and security force members being killed every day. At least 83 US soldiers have been killed in October - the highest monthly toll in 2006.
This is how the insurgents are trying to turn the US voters against the war to the point that they'll elect Democrats.
 

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
One more reason to get US out of the UN - from the Wall Street Journal:

Secretary of State ElBaradei
The U.N. arms inspector goes soft on Iran, but hard on Congress.
October 26, 2006


Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, is supposed to be the Jack Webb of the nuclear nonproliferation scene, a "just the facts" man who reports his findings to his political superiors in the U.N. Security Council. Lately, however, he's been sounding more like the real life Jimmy Carter than the fictional TV detective.

"I don't think sanctions work as a penalty," Mr. ElBaradei opined after meeting with Condoleezza Rice on Monday. The director general was talking about North Korea, of whose leaders he took the forgiving view that they are testing nuclear weapons because "they feel isolated, they feel they are not getting the security they need." As for Iran, "the jury is still out on whether they are developing a nuclear weapon." However, he was quite certain that "at the end of the day, we have to bite the bullet and talk to North Korea and Iran." No doubt Condi was grateful for this free public chiding.

Leave aside for now the substance of Mr. ElBaradei's policy views; at stake here is the question of whether the IAEA can be trusted to be "continuously objective and impartial," words the director general has used elsewhere to describe his organization. That's also the line he took when he was lobbying in 2005 for an unprecedented third term against the opposition of then Undersecretary of State John Bolton, keeping the job after Ms. Rice and the White House acquiesced while asking Mr. ElBaradei to be tough on Iran.

These assurances look disingenuous now that Mr. ElBaradei is offering confident judgments, well above his pay grade, about Kim Jong Il's motives--and cautious ones about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's. It's even harder to believe given the selective leaks and political hits the IAEA has recently practiced against the Bush Administration and its allies in Congress.

Consider a recent imbroglio between Mr. ElBaradei and Pete Hoekstra, Chairman of the House's Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In the last year, and initially with bipartisan agreement, Mr. Hoekstra's committee has published regular reports on threats to American security, including on al Qaeda, North Korea and Iran. These reports are generally based on reputable open sources and are intended for broad public distribution and debate. They also repeatedly acknowledge that "the United States . . . [lacks] critical information needed for analysts to make some key judgments."

In other words, there's not much to get worked up about here. At least not until the IAEA decided to leak to the press an ostensibly private letter to Mr. Hoekstra detailing its objections to a report on Iran, which the agency variously labeled "outrageous," "dishonest," "erroneous" and "misleading."

And what was so dreadful about the report, which had bipartisan blessing? Aside from huffing over two committee "errors"--one of them trivial, the other semantic--the IAEA took furious exception over the committee's statement that the IAEA had decided to remove Chris Charlier, its chief weapons' inspector for Iran, after Mr. Charlier said publicly that he thought the Iranians were intent on building a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA insists that it was Iran, not the IAEA, that demanded Mr. Charlier's removal, and that Iran is within its legal rights to do so. That's true. But it is also true that Iran has repeatedly--and illegally--denied IAEA inspectors the multiple-entry visas they need to do their job.
"Iran has consistently been in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement on this point," a former IAEA official recently told the Platts news agency. "And until now the IAEA has been unwilling to draw international attention to that fact." Our sources tell us that, in addition to Mr. Charlier, Iran denied entry to two other IAEA weapons inspectors in August alone.

This is no small thing. Under Mr. ElBaradei's leadership the IAEA has presented itself as the ultimate arbiter on questions of nuclear proliferation, despite its failures to detect Iraq's nuclear-weapons programs in the 1980s and Libya's in the early part of this decade. Yet if the IAEA cannot get its personnel unimpeded into Iran--and especially if Iran can bar the toughest, most skeptical inspectors--the quality of the IAEA's information and the reliability of its judgments are bound to deteriorate.

Had Mr. ElBaradei been doing his real job, he might have made a more strenuous effort at pointing out publicly Iran's failures to comply with its obligations, rather than offer grand pronouncements on diplomacy and making partisan intrusions into American politics by critiquing Congressional white papers and Administration policy. As it is, we have Mr. Hoekstra to thank for bringing to light yet another instance of Iran's bad faith, and of the U.N.'s unreliability.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009149
 

nonothing

Well-known member
Was not George bush senior the american embassador of the United Nations?...I was under the understanding he was quite vocal and motivated in drafting many of the United Nations responsiblities....this making it not such a liberal institution.....
 

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
nonothing: Was not George bush senior the american embassador of the United Nations?...I was under the understanding he was quite vocal and motivated in drafting many of the United Nations responsiblities....this making it not such a liberal institution.....
What does George Bush Sr. being a former ambassador to the UN have to do with anything?

The United Nations is not a liberal institution, in the best sense of the word, it is a virtual insane asylum and whoever happens to be the ambassador from the United States can do nothing to change that. We couldn’t find a better ambassador than John Bolton, but he is just as helpless as the next guy when it comes to dealing with this stronghold of thieves, dictators and criminals.
 

Cal

Well-known member
Liberty Belle said:
nonothing: Was not George bush senior the american embassador of the United Nations?...I was under the understanding he was quite vocal and motivated in drafting many of the United Nations responsiblities....this making it not such a liberal institution.....
What does George Bush Sr. being a former ambassador to the UN have to do with anything?

The United Nations is not a liberal institution, in the best sense of the word, it is a virtual insane asylum and whoever happens to be the ambassador from the United States can do nothing to change that. We couldn’t find a better ambassador than John Bolton, but he is just as helpless as the next guy when it comes to dealing with this stronghold of thieves, dictators and criminals.
Besides that, GHB being in there 30 some odd years ago.
 

nonothing

Well-known member
Cal said:
Liberty Belle said:
nonothing: Was not George bush senior the american embassador of the United Nations?...I was under the understanding he was quite vocal and motivated in drafting many of the United Nations responsiblities....this making it not such a liberal institution.....
What does George Bush Sr. being a former ambassador to the UN have to do with anything?

The United Nations is not a liberal institution, in the best sense of the word, it is a virtual insane asylum and whoever happens to be the ambassador from the United States can do nothing to change that. We couldn’t find a better ambassador than John Bolton, but he is just as helpless as the next guy when it comes to dealing with this stronghold of thieves, dictators and criminals.
Besides that, GHB being in there 30 some odd years ago.


All I did was piont out that one of the builders of the UN and its mandate was Mr Bush.......and as asked on larry king live,about the UN.Mr Bush...metioned that if used properly the UN can be quite a useful tool.So back off and talk to Mr bush before you address me again on this subject...thank you vey much...
 

memanpa

Well-known member
nonothing said:
Cal said:
Liberty Belle said:
What does George Bush Sr. being a former ambassador to the UN have to do with anything?

The United Nations is not a liberal institution, in the best sense of the word, it is a virtual insane asylum and whoever happens to be the ambassador from the United States can do nothing to change that. We couldn’t find a better ambassador than John Bolton, but he is just as helpless as the next guy when it comes to dealing with this stronghold of thieves, dictators and criminals.
Besides that, GHB being in there 30 some odd years ago.


All I did was piont out that one of the builders of the UN and its mandate was Mr Bush.......and as asked on larry king live,about the UN.Mr Bush...metioned that if used properly the UN can be quite a useful tool.So back off and talk to Mr bush before you address me again on this subject...thank you vey much...

key words USED PROPERLY. bush was there over 30 yrs ago lots have changed since then, so you BACK OFF and get your facts straight.
mr bush wash not a founder nor builder of the UN, he did assist in setting some mandates addressing issues at the time but things change in 30 yrs!!
hope fully even you will become wiser!! but i doubt it
 

Econ101

Well-known member
The problem with getting rid of the UN is that we would be killing the voices of the rest of the world. While the UN has had corruption scandals that rival those here in U.S. politics, it probably would not be wise to squelch these voices completely and substitute the political corruption of the U.S. for the rest of the world. In other words, getting rid of the UN may seem advantageous but a heavy price would be paid by alienating cooperation with the rest of the world. It would incur costs the US could not bear despite all the bravado we as Americans feel.

If you want to fight everyone else in the world to have complete dominance in world affairs, the U.S. would lose. We need allies. If we alienate all of them it would be disasterous.

This is not to say that we shouldn't be trying to correct the corruption at the UN, but the corruption and abuse of power of the U.S. is no substitute.
 
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