Tragedy Strikes the UN

Tragedy strikes the United Nations.

It's established that I'm not a big fan of the United Nations, and will not be until every country in the general assembly who demands that their vote count the same as everybody elses is a country in which each individuals vote counts the same as everybody elses. Until that time, I will continue to refer to it as the billionaire bastards club, providing cover for dictators, and being unable to protect the innocent or weak.

Today, employees of that club were felled by a heinous act of cowardice. A suicide bomber tore apart the UN compound in Baghdad.

Perhaps this will cause the United Nations to ask - why do they hate us - which the world so helpfully suggested America do after 9/11.

Perhaps there should have been a condemnation of this most cowardly sort of attack to intentionally kill noncombatants in the General Assembly? Every time a suicide bombing happens, Kofi Annan tells the victim that they should remain calm, that the tragedy is regretable. I think the United Nations should now apply to itself exactly the same standard it applies to Israel every time there is a suicide bombing. Call for calm and demand that they do nothing.

Perhaps it's that there is a tacit acceptance of "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter?" Perhaps it's that suicide bombing is a legitimate form of struggle? It's just the Iraqis doing what they should rightfully do to vent their anger at the perfidy and complicity of the UN, if we're to follow most UN logic about suicide attacks. After all, the United Nations oversaw the Oil for Food program which devastated the Iraqi economy while Saddam bought bombs, and bribed and skimmed his way through.

Perhaps there's residual anger over that? The world was powerless to stop Saddam, says that article. Bullshit. The world lacked the will to stand up to him. Or worse, the world WAS powerless to stand up to a brutal raving dictator who was killing his own people, forcing them to live on around two dollars a day, while he paid $35,000 a body to suicide bombers in Palestine. And the world wanted to stop the United States from doing anything about it.

United Nations officials looked the other way as Saddam Hussein's regime skimmed $2 billion to $3 billion in bribes and kickbacks from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program, said U.N. officials who told ABCNEWS they were powerless to stop the massive graft.

An international investigation conducted by ABCNEWS found widespread corruption in the U.N. program, which helped Saddam build his fortune in U.S. currency.

"Everybody knew it, and those who were in a position to do something about it, were not doing anything," said Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Office of Iraq Program. When asked if that included him, he told ABCNEWS, "I have no power."

...

"They made no show of concealing it," he said, "because the U.N. was just turning a blind eye to it."

One Russian oil dealer actually complained to the United Nations that Saddam's son Odai took a $60,000 bribe, but never came through with the oil contracts.

Can you imagine living on two dollars a day, while your president for life, a brutal dictator, earns billions in bribes, and ships a large portion of that money to the palestinians in order to further their cause? Would you be angry? I certainly would. Would you be angry at the United Nations for aiding and abetting him? You betcha.

This was a senseless attack, as the United Nations was ostensibly there to help. It was despicable, disgusting and I can't find enough negative words to describe this horrible tragedy. Suicide bombings are a cowardly and craven method used by degraded people who have a truly insane view of life.

Perhaps the perpetator should be brought in front of the International Criminal Court? No, wait, he or she is dead, that won't help.

While condemnable, I mean, this suicide bombing is understandable. The United Nations is full of colonial powers, and obviously those powers were not there to help. They're there to colonize. Right? There can't be any other reason they're there.

The UN should really ask itself - why do they hate us?

UPDATE: Now, I've already heard a lot of people blaming the US for the UN's problem. I'm unsurprised. Find a way to blame America, and if possible, Bush, for another organization's failings.

America made a suggestion to the UN:

After a bombing at the Jordanian Embassy last week, senior American officials warned that other soft targets might be next. But the United Nations deliberately avoided sealing itself off because it feared that such barriers would send the wrong messag to Iraquis seeking help.

(Hat tip: Beldar via Instapundit)

I won't even address the question of whether the New York Times was using its articles to spin this (see Beldar's post) but the complacency and the "we don't want to send the wrong message" attitude caused this tragedy.

UPDATE:
Dori comments:

paying a suicide bomber seems kind of useless, tho, doesn't it?

Not at all, Dori. He never paid the suicide bombers, he paid their families and for their graves. And for a people made destitute by the unwillingness of UNRWA to actually help them, by neighboring arab nations who slaughter and export them by a leadership who, in bad faith, started an intifadah in the middle of peace negotiations, and who can receive large sums of cash in exchange for their sons willingly going off to slaughter children on a bus, no it doesn't seem stupid or useless at all to me. It seems evil. Evil on the part of their leadership for not trying to better their situation, evil on the part of Saddam and the Saudis for paying the families of these children for killing themselves, and evil by those who support the use of these children as walking bombs who should target people out at a disco or pizzaria rather than getting an education and trying to build a state for themselves.

UPDATE:
Nina asked me to back up my assertion that Saddam paid the families of suicide bombers. Here's one such article, from 2001, at the beginning of the Intefadah.

Mr Salem is a popular figure himself. He is charged with handing out sizeable compensation payments on behalf of Saddam to the families of the dead and wounded in the uprising. For every martyr, the family receives $10,000 (£6,500) - about six years' average salary. The wounded are compensated with $1,000 or $500 depending on the severity.

So - is it worth six years salary to sacrifice one of your children? I'm sure it's about their deeply held beliefs. Really. I am. And the price went up as the Intehfadah wore on.

Question - why hasn't anyone in Arafat's family been a Suicide Bomber? Or Sheik Hassins? Or Abdel Rantisis? Or Iyad Sawalha's? Hmm?

Posted by Swerdloff at August 19, 2003 10:23 PM