No Help For Iraq From UN

Commentary on the News
Monday, September 27, 2004
- Omega Letter Editor

"Our struggle is your struggle, our victory will be your victory and if we are defeated, then that will be your defeat," Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told the UN General Assembly this week.

In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly's annual session Allawi urged governments to put behind them the divisions over Washington's invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein and later called "illegal" by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"Some countries objected to the war, and that is their right, but difference over the issue shouldn't stop the aid now," he said.

Allawi attracted only a moderately-sized audience in the General Assembly's chambers, where he barely mentioned the United States but had great praise for the other nations who helped liberate the Iraqi people, and especially for those that are now providing military, technical or financial assistance to the reconstruction.

Allawi told the world's assembled leaders that his nation was facing "a struggle between the Iraqi people and [their] vision for the future of peace and democracy [on the one hand], and the terrorists and extremists and the remnants of the Saddam regime who are targeting this noble dream [on the other]."

Allawi told world leaders yesterday that Iraq's foreign debt remains "the most serious obstacle" to reconstruction. Repaying it, he said, is beyond Baghdad's capabilities. "It is an unjust burden [accumulated from] unjustified wars and the search of weapons of mass destruction."

He urged them to 'look forward, rather than continue to examine the acrimonious buildup' to the 2003 war. Allawi all but begged Kofi Annan in a private meeting to send the UN mission back to Baghdad.

He even met briefly with Annan yesterday, but didn't even get promises of an expanded U.N. mission, let alone any hope of a dedicated protection force of U.N. personnel.

For the interim Prime Minister of Iraq to expect help from the UN is like a mugging victim waiting for his mugger to call 9/11 for him. The UN spent the better part of twelve years actively working behind the scenes to protect Iraq's mugger so they could continue to take their cut of the loot.

While Saddam's forces murdered and pillaged across the country, in full view of the United Nations, UN bureaucrats siphoned uncounted billions out of Iraq's 'Oil for Food' accounts. To keep Saddam from complaining about the theft, they authorized pretty much anything Saddam wanted.

During the 12-year embargo, Saddam was able to order luxury cars, telecommunications equipment, and even weapons, using money that was ostensibly supposed to be used only to buy food and medicine for the starving Iraqi civilians.

If there is any record of the United Nations denying any purchase requests made by Saddam's government during the embargo, it hasn't surfaced in the public domain that I've been able to find.

So it didn't come as much of a surprise that Allawi's reception at the United Nations was about as friendly as that of a homeless wino crashing a cocktail party.

Everybody was too polite to throw him out, so they did their best to pretend he wasn't there. Allawi's speech was scheduled on the fourth day of speeches being offered during the UN's annual international boreathon.

By the time it was Allawi's turn, most of the UN diplomats, including the French ambassador, had vacated the premises, leaving lower diplomats to anchor their spots at the Assembly while they did something more important than listen to the appeals from Iraq for help.

About the only real attention Allawi's visit got came from the White House, and later from John Kerry. The White House received Allawi as an important ally. John Kerry immediately attacked Allawi's credibility, scoffing at Allawi's promise to hold elections by January.

Kerry called Allawi's visit a political ploy to help the Bush administration get reelected, and criticized Allawi's contention that Iraq's government was making any genuine headway.

"The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy," Kerry told a press conference he convened immediately after Prime Minister Allawi's speech. "But the fact is that CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story."

Allawi fired back from the Rose Garden in a speech that was all but ignored by the mainstream media, saying, "When political leaders sound the siren of defeatism in the face of terrorism, it only encourages more violence."

But more violence in Iraq is EXACTLY what the Kerry campaign is counting on. Dismissing Allawi as an American 'puppet' is exactly the rhetoric the terrorists in Iraq need to keep up their recruiting goals. But if defeat in Iraq means defeat for George Bush in November, then so be it.

VP candidate John Edwards picked up where Kerry left off, saying Allawi was merely parroting President Bush's 'lies.'

"The best lesson for any fledgling democracy is that leaders should tell the truth, to always be straight with the people," Edwards said. "Prime Minister Allawi's trip to the United States was filled with all the wrong lessons, lessons from an administration that just can't seem to tell the truth when it comes to Iraq."

Kerry spokesman and former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart said of the man who is arguably America's most important ally, "The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips."

I say that Allawi is arguably America's most important ally because at the moment, American soldiers are in combat, risking (and sometimes, losing) their lives in what John Kerry and John Edwards are calling a lost cause.

It will only be a lost cause if Allawi fails and Iraq descends into civil war. All Allawi has to work with is his credibility as a leader. Kerry and Edwards know that, or they aren't qualified to hold the jobs they seek. The worst POSSIBLE thing that could happen would be for Iraqis to view Allawi as an American puppet -- it would be the kiss of death to his government. And knowing that, they attacked Allawi's only real asset -- his credibility -- mercilessly and in public.

The war in Iraq is a real war, involving real people shedding real blood. It isn't political theater, it is life and death, both for the Iraqis and for the Americans trying to restore their country.

Last year, Kerry called America's coalition allies -- including England, Australia and Poland, "some trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted." In a speech in March, he called them 'window dressing' -- on the same week Poland lost five of its soldiers in combat.

At the same time, Kerry continues to criticize the White House for alienating our friends and allies, something he promises to rectify if elected. (To this point, I've yet to be able to find out how he plans to make up with the 'bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted' after getting elected.)

If America loses in Iraq, then the war was for nothing. Our troops shed their blood for nothing. America gave its sons and daughters for nothing. Are these guys even Americans?

One would assume that the rest of the Democrats are ALSO Americans. There might even be a few Democrats in harm's way in Iraq right now. But to listen to the Democrats now, one would also assume there is no hope in Iraq and the best thing to do is to bring our troops home and let the Iraqis sort things out themselves.

John Kerry asked the Congress in 1971,"How do you ask a man to be the last one to die in a lost cause?" before riding his 'lost cause' theme all the way into the United States Senate. Thanks to his testimony, America's Vietnam veterans have hung their heads in shame for the last thirty years.

But it got him elected to the Senate, and he's hoping the same tactics will win him the White House.

The amazing thing about it is that there are millions of Americans who don't seem to care, as long as it defeats George Bush.

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." (2nd Timothy 3:1-4)

(Excerpted from the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest, Volume 36, Issue:25)

I'm not a Bircher (member of the John Birch Society) by any stretch of the imagination but, I've said for years that the U.S. needs to get out of the U.N. We pay the largest share of the bill for it to exist just so they can spit in our face (and Israel's) on a regular basis. It's too bad the planes of 9/11 didn't fly into the UN building instead of the twin towers. Should that ever happen, it might change some people's warped opinions about who their enemy is.

"VP candidate John Edwards picked up where Kerry left off, saying Allawi was merely parroting President Bush's 'lies."

Even if every "Wrong" prediction Stan and Ollie make were to come true, IRAQ will have been liberated. IRAq, as a soverign nation will turn its back on who ever shuns them now. The Degenrats, should they get in, will be reminded, "It's the economy, stupid." The UN will be reminded "It's the economy, stupid." ... but if I know the Japanese, they are the ones helping "big time" monetarily. Corporate Japan will be the biggest benefactors! (Unless we have GWB in the WH)

powerful stuff... you really have to wonder whose side these guys are really on. Kerry's track record of slamming our military and our allies, even in a time of war, does not in my mind qualify him to be worthy of the title of commander in chief of our military. After insulting our current allies, you have to wonder what the great alliance builder plans to do in the way of winning allies (his only definite plan in Iraq that I've been able to make out, except for "doing everything differently"), besides "wooing" the French. INSULTING our current allies as "bribed, coerced, bought and exploited" doesn't offer much incentive to join up with us...

i don't want the UN's help with anything! They have a habit of making a worse mess than originally existed. I am, however, outraged by their treatment of Mr. Allawi. The idiot French couldn't even stay long enough to listen to his speech.

For Kerry and his minions to speak ill of Mr. Allawi was stunning. His behavior toward our President has been abominable, but when he criticized the Iraqi Prime Minister he reached (even for his own past performance) a new low. I don't remember ever being so embarrassed, on an international diplomatic level, by a federal employee!

My soninlaw is in Iraq at this moment and he is very pissed off at kerry saying these hideous things,he says its demoralizing and untrue. blood shed for nothing is a national tragedy i do not want to see happen,this country cant go wobbley and leave Iraq in the dust and at the mercy of the viscous terrorist's. mr.Allwia is a brave and courageous man who faces death every day when he gets out of bed. and its upsetting to me that he gets this terrible treatment from one American citizen let alone the UN. shame on you kerry ,shame on you lockehart,shame on the UN although i see why they do it but for the people here who didn't even bother to go to hear mr.allwia's speech and then say these nasty and rude things is despicable.

Darfur is the sorry example of "going the U.N. route". Anyone who espouses that tactic for the U.S. is a blind idiot.

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