Wag the Libyan Dog

[Sandra]

Say what you will about Bush, he never bombed a country to win an election. But now Obama is wagging the dog. And wagging it hard.

Wag the Libyan Dog

 
 - Daniel Greenfield  Friday, March 18, 2011

 So now we have a No Fly Zone resolution on Libya. And the man who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2008 as being the candidate who wouldn’t have gone into Iraq, is now running in 2012 as the candidate who will go into Libya. Hypocrisy is a beautiful beast and politics is a petting zoo.

Khaddafi may be nuts, but he’s clearly taken a page out of Saddam’s handbook. Announcing a truce as soon as the No Fly Zone gets announced. Now the US and Europe are stuck demanding verification of the truce. Obama took a deep breath, butched up and is demanding that Khaddafi pull back from rebel strongholds or face UN led air strikes. Though by the UN he mentions the parts of it that actually support the attack, as opposed to the non-Western members of the UN Security Council and even Germany, who don’t.

If this feels familiar, just picture Colin Powell at endless UN sessions making the case for removing Saddam. The farce has dragged on long enough for Khaddafi to win, but not long enough for him to win completely. With sanctions and a No Fly Zone, Libya becomes another Iraq, in which we keep demanding that Khaddafi go, while he explains that he just wants peace. Sound familiar? Iraq. Again.

Obama’s defenders will claim that this time he has UN backing. Except that he doesn’t.

Obama’s defenders will claim that this time he has UN backing. Except that he doesn’t. Russia, China and Germany just chose not to fight this, because they’re uncertain of how this will all shake out. And it’s not really him. Sarkozy and Cameron wanted this, and their reasons for it have more to do with oil contracts and colonialism than a sincere concern for human rights. Sarkozy is also pitching his Mediterranean Alliance, a Franco-phonic alternative to the Caliphate. And Cameron has trashed the RAF but now wants to shake some military muscle. The US is overcommitted everywhere, and in the middle of two wars, a nuclear disaster in Japan, and a potential war with Iran, we’re off to enforce an indefinite No Fly Zone on Libya.

Whatever happens, Obama will still be happy taking credit for it. Clinton liked to run light bombing campaigns to distract people from his philandering and thieving. And Obama’s people hope that putting on his most serious face and dusting off Bush era rhetoric (either Sr or Jr) will sell the country on him as a strong leader. He’s wrong, but hey it’s only lives on the line.

Say what you will about Bush, he never bombed a country to win an election. But now Obama is wagging the dog. And wagging it hard.

While back at the UN ranch, the farce goes into overdrive

While back at the UN ranch, the farce goes into overdrive. The U.N. Human Rights Council, of which Libya was a member in good standing until a few weeks ago when Khaddafi became unpopular, is denouncing the US for not closing Gitmo and holding military trials for terrorists.

The attacks are coming from Iran, which rapes prisoners as a matter of policy, and Cuba, which just sentenced an American aid worker helping the remaining Jewish community there to 15 years in prison.

The Bush Administration got one thing right by refusing to participate in various versions of the UN Human Rights Council. But Obama knew better. As he always does. And now here we are.


If anyone doubts that the UN Human Rights Council is a farce of a joke of a mockery, here is its draft report on Libya... from January.

The Syrian Arab Republic praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its serious commitment to and interaction with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms.

Algeria noted the efforts of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [people’s republic] to promote human right

Bahrain noted that the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had adopted various policies aimed at improving human rights

Iraq commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for being a party to most international and regional human rights instruments, which took precedence over its national legislation.

Saudi Arabia commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’s achievements in its constitutional, legislative and institutional frameworks,

Tunisia noted progress made by the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Egypt commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for progress in building a comprehensive national human rights framework of institutions

The Islamic Republic of Iran noted that the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had implemented a number of international human rights instruments

In what is an even bigger farce, some of these same countries now support the removal of Khaddafi. A mere two months later.

Anyone who ever even breathes a suggestion that the UN and its human rights nonsense should be taken seriously, needs to be thwacked on the nose over and over again with a rolled up copy of this same report until they come to their senses.

The UN They have no honesty, no ethics and no standards

The UN is a bunch of quarreling dictatorships, which can only team up against us. Sometimes they team up against one of their own. There is no concern for human rights here. None whatsoever. Nada. Zero. Zip.

They have no honesty, no ethics and no standards. 

As a sad, sad punchline… the UN Human Rights Council has appointed a special commission of inquiry into Libya. Which will now find the exact opposite of their report from two months ago.

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch demands accountability.

Let’s put aside that in the past three years, U.N. headquarters in New York opened every golden door to the terrorist from Tripoli. Never mind that the Gadhafi regime was granted membership on the elite U.N. Security Council, that its envoy was made president of the U.N. General Assembly or that the dictator’s daughter, Aisha, was named a U.N. “goodwill ambassador.” Indeed, one wonders why Gadhafi bothered trying to pitch his Bedouin tent in the middle of Manhattan when U.N. headquarters itself was already in his hands.

The farce only gets ‘farcier’

When Najat Al-Hajjaji, a representative of the Libyan regime, was chosen to chair that conference’s two-year planning committee, Pillay stood by her side and became the world’s leading cheerleader for Durban II, the follow-up in Geneva to the 2001 anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, that devolved into an anti-Israel festival. Not a word about the brutal regime that stood behind the conference chair.

It gets worse. Al-Hajjaji is, in fact, still operating within Pillay’s office. It turns out she is one of the Human Rights Council’s investigators on human rights violations by mercenaries.

This is no joke: At a time when Gadhafi is using mercenaries to kill his own people, one of his longtime representatives is sitting on the world’s highest human rights body as a supposed defender of human rights ­ and, of all things, as a defender of victims of mercenaries.

All true, but whom would the UN Human Rights Council be accountable to? The world? NGOs? Public opinion? Twitter?

Governments are held accountable by their people. Most of the UN’s governments are not accountable to their people. Even when they are, they lack the same standards of human rights and freedom. Which makes the accountability nil.

You can’t hold a UN body accountable, because most of the world doesn’t practice those standards.

The farce is the farce, and the farce goes on. It’s time to kick the UN to the curb

The farce is the farce, and the farce goes on. It’s time to kick the UN to the curb. Free up some condo space in Turtle Bay and stop pretending that a club made of messenger boys for mass murdering thugs can protect anyone’s human rights by signing on to a piece of paper or casting a vote.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/34578

 

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]