Annan Says U.S. Will Violate Charter if It Acts Without Approval

NYT ^ | 3/10/2003 | Patrick Tyler and Felicity Barringer

[ex-Texan]

Annan Says U.S. Will Violate Charter if It Acts Without Approval

UNITED NATIONS, March 10 — Secretary General Kofi Annan warned today that if the United States fails to win approval from the Security Council for an attack on Iraq, Washington's decision to act alone or outside the Council would violate the United Nations charter.

***

Mr. Annan's remarks drew a sharp response from Washington, where the Bush administration, like its allies overseas, was engaged in a strong lobbying effort to win the necessary nine votes to pass a resolution this week authorizing war.

The White House spokesman Ari Fleischer in a strongly worded retort said that "from a moral point of view," if the United Nations fails to support the Bush administration's war aims, it will have "failed to act once again," as it did in Kosovo in the face of persecution of the ethnic Albanians by Serbia and earlier in Rwanda in the face of genocidal massacres by Hutus against Tutsis.

Some international legal experts also took issue with Mr. Annan's assertions ***

***

[Centurion2000]

UNITED NATIONS, March 10 — Secretary General Kofi Annan warned today that if the United States fails to win approval from the Security Council for an attack on Iraq, Washington's decision to act alone or outside the Council would violate the United Nations charter.

PLEASE KICK US OUT :)

[aruanan]

Annan Says U.S. Will Violate Charter if It Acts Without Approval

U.S. to Annan: The U.S. doesn't need any approval to do what it already has license to do.

[Pukka Puck]

Or Clinton in Haiti?

Bush I in Panama?

Reagan in Granada?

Thatcher in Falklands?

Since when does every military action have to be approved by the Security Council?

[Jorge]

"Annan Says U.S. Will Violate Charter if It Acts Without Approval"

Are they going to be as tough on us as they've been on Saddam during his 12 years of defying the UN?
What a joke the UN is.

[Centurion2000]

Are they going to be as tough on us as they've been on Saddam during his 12 years of defying the UN?

That actually might try to get France, Germany and (snicker) Cameroon to authorize military force against us ..... BWAHAHAH !!!!

[squalus192]

SCREW EM!

[FreeReign]

Annan Says U.S. Will Violate Charter if It Acts Without Approval

So what!

[FreeReign]

Annan Says U.S. Will Violate Charter if It Acts Without Approval

So what!

[squalus192]

Annan, BITE ME!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kryptonite]

Once again, Kofi Annan has shown determined leadership by stating today that the UN may decide that it might be time to conceivably give serious consideration to possibly thinking about maybe addressing the option of debating whether or not it should take under investigation the idea of pondering the question as to whether it should regard the exploration of perhaps taking under advisement the many alternatives of ways to actually do something as a possible course of action that may be potentially viable.

funniest thing I've read this week!

[CommandoFrank]

Now I'm really scared...

[dalereed]

I wish Bush would go to the security Council meeting, tear up the UN charter in front of them and tell them they have 24 hours to get themselves and all UN personel out of the country or face arrest!

[DoughtyOne]

ROTFL: Dang it. I forgot. What am I talking to you for???

That's too funny. Good job anyway. You and I don't worry about such things do we. : )

[goldstategop]

Koffi Annan apparently overlooks Article 51 of the Charter. It gives us the right to attack in self-defense. And in event we haven't needed the UN's permission before and we don't need it now to protect our security. The only reason we went to the UN Security Council in the first place was to try to persuade Iraq to disarm completely through peaceful means. That has failed and now Saddam will have to be disarmed through force. Unless Koffi can get the French to change their minds, the UN is as relevant to the elimination of Saddam's twisted dreams of acquiring weapons of mass destruction as a dodo.

[FreedomCalls]

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed (that is the member states of the United Nations), that whenever any Form of Government (including the United Nations in general, and the Security Council in particular) becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The safety of the United States and the Happiness of the Iraqi people are in question and the United Nations continues to fiddle while the Middle East burns. How much longer will we stand for it?

[ConservativeLawyer]

Will this hurt Clinton's chances of being Secretary General??

Bwwwwhahahahaha

[mathurine]

English as a second language for UN fellows: Fiddler. Fart. Don't. Give. About. UN. Americans. Put this together and make your first sentence and best comprehension of reality. Americans don't give a fiddler's fart about the UN. Get it?Got it? Good!

[ConservativeLawyer]

Is this going to go on our PERMANENT RECORD??