EARTH TO UNITED NATIONS: First You Fort Up. Then You Hand Out the Wampum

“Come On Down to Crazy Kofi’s! Our Security is INSANE!”

The US just can't catch a break from the towering pile of greed and ineptitude that goes by the name of the United Nations. Following the deadly 1,000 pound car bomb attack that reduced its headquarters to rubble, one of the first orders of business from Annan was to blame the US for not stopping it. Of course, a bit later, we learn that it was the UN's own lassitude and vision of itself as a benevolent entity that doomed over 20 UN workers in the Attack on the UN in Iraq

It emerged Wednesday that amid the rubble are the remains of what would have been a concrete barrier that the UN had begun to build to prevent vehicles packed with explosives from being parked near the compound -- as happened Tuesday with devastating results. At least 20 people were killed, including two Canadians.

Building the planned 12-foot barrier earlier might have made a difference, UN officials conceded.

Oh, yes, it "might have made a difference." We thought this little lesson was learned long ago in Lebanon by the US Marines: "First you dig in and then you hand out the candy bars." Must have slipped the UN's mindset. It would seem that the UN has such a high opinion of itself as the world's primo humanitarian relief agency that it feels nobody in their right mind would harm it.

Alas, the truth is that Iraq is now home to the world's major surplus of people who are not in their right mind; people who, indeed, have no right mind at all; people whose idea of a having a good day is to kill others in massive quantities whenever possible.

Annan rejected, however, Washington's reasoning that UN officials in Baghdad had refused offers by U.S. forces in Iraq to protect the compound.

"Nobody (asks) you if you want the police to patrol your neighborhood," he said as he returned to UN headquarters after cutting short his holiday in Europe. "They make the assessment that patrol and protection is needed, and then they start, and that's what should be done in Iraq."

Let’s get this straight. According to Annan the US is at fault because it didn’t act like the cop on the block without being asked? According to other sources, the US offered security -- as referenced above -- but the UN declined because it didn’t want to be seen as abetting the victors in a war it failed to support. The UN wanted, in short, to enjoy the fruits of victory, to insert itself as a player in Iraq, but to shirk the responsibility that comes with it. By trying to have it both ways, it got neither. All it got was body bags going home to many different countries.

UN officials say the United States, as an "occupying power," is responsible under international law for providing security. But they also admit they did not want to frighten ordinary Iraqis by having their compound heavily fortified.

Yes, no sense in scaring “ordinary Iraqis” by fortifying your position in a war-zone. Those Iraqis have probably missed the decades of murder, insanity and death that have been the hallmark of their society. They’d naturally be loathe to come and get their UN handouts if they saw a truck-bomb barrier and guard posts around the building. Not for ordinary Iraquis to brave a checkpoint in search of food, water and money. Nope. Never happen. The United Nations is known to them to be a vast machine for throwing them into paper shredders and gassing their village. Best to stay far away unless the UN drapes the headquarters in balloons, colorful streamers, and bright banners declaring, in Pharsee, “Come On Down to Crazy Kofi’s! Our Security is INSANE!”

Or as spokesman Fred Eckhard so coyly put it:

"Security around our location was not as secure as you might find at the U.S. compound, and that was a decision we made so the offices were available to the people. We did not think at the time we were taking an unnecessary risk."

Another item for the vast UN filing cabinet marked “It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.”

Posted by Vanderleun at August 21, 2003 11:27 AM