 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan proposed the creation of a comprehensive treaty on terrorism Thursday, denouncing attacks that target civilians and arguing that no political grievance justifies killing the innocent. Speaking at an international conference on terrorism, Annan said prevention is the best counterterrorism strategy, though he stressed that human rights and the rule of law must always be respected.
| Hunting terrs down and doing terrible things to them is the best counterterrorism strategy. It's my opinion, and I know I'm neanderthal about these things, that you give up your "human rights" when you cut somebody's head off, or kill a school full of children. |
"We cannot compromise on the core values," he said in an address to experts and world leaders from 50 countries, including Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
| That's a pretty mealy-mouthed statement. We can't compromise on our core values, but we can define our core values in such a way that we can't actually do anything except administer a stern talking-to, apparently. My core values would allow me to sign a death warrant for somebody like Zarqawi or Basayev or Zawahiri, to be implemented immediately upon capture or at any time thereafter. |
Taking a veiled swipe at the United States, Annan said that some countries were violating human rights in their fight against terrorism.
Although he did not name any country, many of the attendees took that to be shielded criticism of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, which came in for frequent roasting from participants during the conference. International human rights experts "are unanimous in finding that many measures which states are currently adopting to counter terrorism infringe on human rights and fundamental freedoms," he said.
| I'd say that cutting people's heads off, sending people to explode in mosques, shooting up churches, kidnapping, and assassination infringe more deeply on fundamental freedoms than anything we've done. |
Annan's speech touched on themes discussed by experts during the conference - that the world community must join together to fight violence and rally around common goals. He appealed for vigilance, particularly in light of the possibility that terrorists could obtain weapons of mass destruction. He said: "Perhaps the thing that is most vital we deny to terrorists is access to nuclear materials. Nuclear terrorism is still often treated as science fiction. I wish it were."
| Then why the hell don't you try to do something about it? |
The four-day conference is sponsored by the Club de Madrid, which is comprised of 56 former presidents and prime ministers. Delegates have worked since Tuesday on research panels trying to identify causes of terrorism and to propose solutions. Their recommendations, including a proposed UN definition of terrorism, will be refined into guidelines called the "Madrid Agenda" that conference participants plan to take back to their governments.
| They will then proceed to ignore it, but they'll expect us to adhere to it, whether we sign on or not... |
Addressing the conference, Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged the international community to unite to eradicate terrorism, as it had done to free his country from Taliban rule. "Afghanistan has proved that when the international community wakes up and joins hands it can defeat any menace," he said, regretting that for too long the world had "unfortunately neglected" Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. "Afghanistan was incapacitated by years of war" which gave way to the rise of the Taliban, finally ousted in 2002 by a multinational force with a United Nations mandate. The absence of such a mandate poisoned relations between the international community and Washington when it came to the conflict in Iraq. "When the help of the international community came [Afghanistan] was freed immediately," Karzai told delegates. "The election wrought a massive transformation in the minds of the people," he said.
| But that was just a fluke. We were expected to return home when it was over, and let the country fall back into its wonted anarchy. |
Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief and former head of NATO, said respect for democracy had to be paramount. "In the struggle against terrorism we should be the first to uphold democratic values. It would be our first defeat if we resort to the methods of the terrorists," he told the assembly.
"Therefore the proper way to handle terrorism is to hold lots of meetings."
Whoopdy do. |
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