The UN's vaunted neutrality props up evil regimes.
More than 170 political leaders from around the world recently met at the United Nations to consider what the New York Times called "the most sweeping institutional changes" in the organization's history. But this exercise was, predictably, hopeless. Although both detractors and defenders eagerly proposed "reforms," they skirted the UN's insuperable problem: its corrupt "ideal" of moral neutrality.
The fundamental feature of the UN is its policy of opening membership non-judgmentally to all nations--whether free or oppressive, peaceful or belligerent. This is upheld as the UN's central virtue and a vital means to peace. Admitting blatantly tyrannical regimes, proponents say, creates opportunities for "dialogue" and rehabilitation. As Kofi Annan explains, the very fact that such "nondemocratic states" sign on "to the UN's agenda opens an avenue through which other states, as well as civil society around the world, can press them to align their behavior with their commitments."
But UN membership did not prevent the USSR from herding its citizens into gulags and forced-labor camps, murdering untold numbers of them, and invading other states; nor China from crushing under its military boot pro-freedom demonstrators and peaceful ideological dissenters; nor Iran and Saudi Arabia from infusing Islamist terrorist groups with abundant financial means and the ideological zeal to wage jihad against the West.
The UN's policy of neutrality accomplishes precisely the opposite of its putative effect; it actually protects and bolsters vicious regimes.
Participation in the UN confers on them an unearned moral legitimacy. That the leaders of such regimes are routinely invited to speak before the UN rewards them with an undeserved respectability. So it was with Fidel Castro: his self-justifying UN speech after seizing power in Cuba elicited rapturous applause. He was raised to the dignity of statesman--a man who deals in reasoned argument--despite being a totalitarian ruler who brutally silences dissidents. And the unwarranted recognition of arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat as a statesman arguably began when he first spoke at the UN in 1974. Though such men attain and hold power by force, though they preach murderous ideologies, though they devastate the lives of their subjects--the UN unfastidiously endorses them and their regimes.
The UN thus gives them a means to entrench their power.
Consider, for instance, the beleaguered UN Human Rights Commission, ostensibly responsible for protecting rights across the world. On the principle of neutrality, a country's brutal practices are no disqualification from joining this commission. Indeed, it has become infested with tyrannies; Syria and Cuba, two blood-soaked dictatorships, have each served as its chairman. And through the commission, notorious violators of individual rights scheme to bury any criticism of themselves. A bloc of Islamic countries, for example, self-righteously defends barbaric practices--stoning to death, crucifixion--carried out in certain states governed by Sharia. When a proposal was drafted to censure North Korea, which arbitrarily executes its enslaved citizens, the motion was soundly defeated thanks to Cuba, Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and others all guilty of similar and worse atrocities. (The toothless proposal to replace the commission with a new council on rights was foreseeable. Since tyrannies have voting prerogatives on UN "reforms," they will sink any proposed council or mold it into a new shield to deflect censure of them.)
Or consider the money corrupt regimes gain access to. For years the UN has showered millions of dollars in aid on the Palestinian Authority, the interim government in Gaza and the West Bank. That aid, mostly swallowed up by the leadership, has buoyed up a brutal regime that strips its people of their rights, their wealth, their dignity, and foments terrorism against Israel. UN aid has also flowed into North Korea's belligerent Stalinist dictatorship, which starves its people in order to fund an enormous military machine and a nuclear-weapons program. What these handouts do is reinforce the walls of prison regimes like North Korea, exacerbate the misery of their citizens, and arm corrupt rulers.
That the UN benefits evil regimes is a necessary consequence of its avowed ideal of neutrality. The willful refusal to discriminate between good and evil, between freedom and slavery, can benefit only the vicious. It is only an evil regime that fears moral scrutiny, that needs to conceal its crimes, and that struggles for a veneer of moral legitimacy. The UN's policy of moral neutrality is precisely what evil desperately craves: a license to commit any depravity and escape with a reputation for being decent.
No organization can resolve conflicts if it evades the objective difference between right and wrong, and perversely treats an aggressor as the moral equal of his innocent victim. The UN is far from a means to achieving peace. Because it arms and bestows a moral sanction on vicious regimes, it is an accessory to their incalculable atrocities and murders.
No "reforms" can salvage the UN; it is morally irredeemable.
Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.
An excellent piece from Jihad Watch.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains how acts of violence and terror fit into the jihadists' larger goals:
Unfortunately, those whose duty it is to instruct us have not bothered to learn what it is they should be instructing us about. As long as they continue to harp on the notion that the only thing to worry about is "terrorism," that this is merely a "war on terrorism," then the successful foiling of terrorist acts, the suppression or removal of those in the early stages of planning such acts, and even the carefully-planned avoidance of such acts, will continue to be difficult and well-nigh impossible. Muslims engaging in carefully-planned avoidance of acts of terror? Certainly: not because such acts are considered wrong (they are not), but because acts of Muslim terrorism may inflame the Infidels and interfere with the continued campaigns of Da'wa and the continued expansion of a Muslim presence in the West through still-unstopped immigration and large families. And that presence immediately translates into Muslim demands for special treatment. They want to come as close to the shari'a -- for example, in family law -- as they can conceivably come in the West: see Ontario, see the "Muslim Parliament" created a few years ago in England, see all the Muslim groups working not to integrate, not to accept the Infidel nation-state, but to promote the ends of Islam. Those ends, it must be understood, are not merely those of an alien creed -- alien in the sense of foreign to Judeo-Christian Western civil...or whatever you want to call it (there are plenty of those managing to fit in) -- but a hostile creed.
Muslim terrorism is a problem. It is a tactic. It is an instrument of Jihad. There are other instruments of Jihad. Jihad itself, a permanent and immutable feature of Islam, found everywhere in Qur'an, Hadith, and the example of Muhammad contained in the Sira, has here and there in Islamic history fallen into desuetude. In the days of humble villages, cut off entirely form the world, Muslims -- under Ottoman rule, for example -- were only dimly aware that there were others. True, whenever possible Muslim raiders and slavers continued to wreak havoc on the coasts of Western Europe, and deep into the interior of black Africa -- in the former case, taking one million enslaved Christians back to dar al-Islam, in the latter, castrating young boys on the spot, and responsible for possibly as many as 15 million people being taken in what was a much larger slave trade, that began earlier and ended (to the extent it was forced to end by the European powers) later, than the Atlantic slave trade.
Jihad has reappeared because of three things:
1. The oil revenues from OPEC, ten trillion dollars since 1973, which have helped fund the Jihad through the building and maintenance of mosques, madrasas, and a vast propaganda effort.
2. The large-scale immigration of Muslims into, and settlement within, the Bilad al-Kufr, the lands of the Infidels, which Muslims regard (and non-Muslims failed to understand that they so regarded them) as essentially, behind enemy lines. Once it was forbidden by the ulema to live under non-Muslim (Christian) rule. But no longer: because in every way it is understood that Islam is expanding, and what cannot be conquered from without, by direct military conquest, can eventually (slowly it may seem, but in fact, if nothing is done to first halt and then reverse trends, really within a few decades) be conquered by demographic means and by unhindered Da'wa. That Daâwa especially appeals to the economically and the psychically marginal. And modern societies throw off, when they are not careful (and they are not careful) a good many of the economically and psychically marginal, who find in Islam not only a Community of Believers, but for those who like authority and direction, a Total Regulation of Life, a Complete Explanation of the Universe. No more floating about in the ether, a lone Leibnizian monad -- no, Islam is here to rescue you.
3. The advances (reverses?) in technology now have made the humblest Afghan villager in the humblest cot, in the most remote mountain valley, no longer unaware of the full meaning of Islam. The steady din of propaganda and of the contents of Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira itself now reach everywhere. There is no longer a Muslim who cannot be reached through audiocassettes (which were so important to Khomeini in his French exile), videocassettes, and satellite channels. The poison of Al Jazeera and Al Manar and other stations oozes everywhere. It is poured into the ears of world-wide Islam, but unlike the poison poured into the ear of Hamlet's sleeping father, this poison kills not the immediate recipient, but rather, the Infidels, and all their works and days.
This is where those analysts falter who think that Jihad was invented by -- oh, name your year, it could be 1954, with Sayyid Qutb, or 1928, with Hassan al-Banna, or 1924, with the fury over Ataturk's ending the Caliphate, or 1798, with the entry of Napoleon into Egypt. In reality, Jihad is as old as, as continuous as, Islam itself, which is why those who write books with titles such as "After Jihad" must be looked at in wonder and suspicion at their bland and self-assured ignorance.
That's why all books that remind us that terrorism is only a part of the problem, not the most important part, and that Islam itself is a threat to artistic expression, to science, to all free and skeptical inquiry, and to the emphasis on the individual that is, in Western societies, at the heart of our political and social understandings, are so valuable. This is why all Westerners should regard the collective with suspicion and distaste. In Islam, the individual hardly matters, does not matter. The collective, the umma al-islamiyya, the onward march of Islam itself, the Defense of the Faith, the Protection of the Faith, the Furtherance of the Faith -- that's what counts.
Look around. Look at the past 1350 years. Look what the Muslim conquest meant for the Middle East, for North Africa, for Sassanid Persia, for India. Like what you see? Impressed? No objections if Western Europe is islamized? No problems, none whatsoever, with what happens to the military capability of the former members of NATO? What happens to the Louvre, the Prado, the Alte Pinakothek, the Rijksmuseum, the Uffizi, the National Gallery? No problem with what happens to the universities? To the publishing houses? To free thought everywhere?
Look closely at the Muslim states. Look at the handful that have managed to have a little bit of mental freedom. Look at Kemalist Turkey, a country which for 80 years did its damnedest to constrain and contain Islam as a political and social force. Look at some of the former Soviet republics that had Islam squeezed out of them during the Soviet years and the basmachi revolt, and only some of which are now returning to the old ways and beliefs. Look at Lebanon-- but wait, Lebanon was a few decades ago 60% Christian, and the Christian influence is still strong. But where else in dar al-Islam shall we say -- yes, and yes, and yes. Do you really have no objection, no objection at all -- as long as terrorism is not involved -- to living in a future that looks like Egypt, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan, or Morocco, or...?
Editorial in the Pakistan Observer. If the English language media (which targets a small urban educated elite runs this tripe, the Urdu press must be rabid.
HURRICANE Rita is on rampage in border areas of Texas and Louisiana as well as the already Katrina battered city of New Orleans. Texas capital of Housten turned a haunted place as millions of its residents abandoned the city to escape Ritaâs fury. Hurricane Rita has hit New Orleans as it was still battling Katrinaâs devastation. Its streets are under three to five feet of water with flood water gushing out of the lake.
The mighty United States is helplessly watching devastation of its cities and towns by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita despite all its military and economic strength and scientific and technological advancement. Its citizens are on the move to escape Natureâs fury. There is hardly any difference in their haplessness and that of those who had to flee from US bombs, missiles and rockets elsewhere in the world. The American people are apparently facing divine retribution for the follies of their leaders. Mother Nature is, perhaps, in action ultimately and the situation has an unambiguous message that man howsoever powerful is weaker than Nature. He cannot withstand Natureâs fury and retribution. The devastation caused by Hurricanes, Tsunamis, earthquakes etc, constitute clear manifestation on this count.
The Holy Qurâan reveals destruction and extermination of nations through such natural disasters that had ignored Almighty Allahâs commandments. Itâs time for the American people to bow before God and seek His forgiveness and protection from the divine retribution. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are obviously a warning to the effect that man should not arrogate himself against Natureâs mercy and fury. If US can impose death and destruction on other innocent people through its bombs, rockets and missiles, its own people can also face turmoil through natural disasters. The US leadership ought to pause and ponder over the situation, shun its arrogance and retract from the path of aggression, coercion and intimidation against other peoples. It has to invoke the blessings of the mightiest of the mighty to escape Natureâs fury and to save its people from death and destruction currently being faced by them through Hurricanes. We, however, express our sympathy for the victims of the natural disaster.
I'm not a theologian, but since we get hurricanes every year, is there some schedule where we should pause and ponder, shun our arrogance, and all that? Every March, maybe, when spring comes? And how does Katrina and Rita compare with the tsunami last year that wiped out thousands in Indonesia? Or a good, healthy, earthquake in Bam? How's our corpse count in comparison? Doesn't that mean God likes us more? Maybe he's only sending us a warning because He's thinking we haven't killed enough Muslims.
Posted by: john ||
09/25/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I wonder... if I point out that Rita's strength dropped some 50% before hitting shore, will these same people be blaming the Secret Halliburton Weather Manipulation Machine?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
09/25/2005 0:12 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I think Fred's on to something. 2005 looks to be the first odd numbered year since 1999 when we will not topple a wacked out dictator ship in a muslim country. Maybe God is punishing us and we need to atone by taking out Baby Assad or something. It's worth a try.
#4
I'm not a theologian, but since we get hurricanes every year, is there some schedule where we should pause and ponder, shun our arrogance, and all that? Every March, maybe, when spring comes?
Yep, the kids do it every years - it's call Spring Break. The usual sacrifices and orations to the gods - something on the line of Baccus. However, it is never to be done before Spring Equinox as it will be ineffective in placating the deities of wind, water, and hot air.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
