Posted on 09/14/2003 9:45:16 AM PDT by dennisw
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:05:54 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Passive Saboteurs Ideological prejudice leads relief agencies to cut and run from Iraq.
The world is now witnessing an exodus from Iraq. But it is not an exodus of refugees, whom critics of the war told us would flood in panic across the borders into neighboring states. These simply didn't materialize--and it tells us much that is good about the postwar realities of the country that they didn't.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
More than cowardice, they do not want the effort in Iraq to succeed because it was spearheaded by The USA and The UK, the ultimate demons.
Think you missed the point
Ralph Peters did an excellent op-ed on this for the NY Post:
Here's the truth, relayed from within the UN compound:
In the weeks before the truck-bomb attack, the UN's veteran security officer on site struggled, argued and begged for better protection. He knew the Canal Hotel was a vulnerable and likely target - but the UN chain of command refused to acknowledge the dimensions of the threat.
The U.S. military did offer protection - repeatedly. But UN bureaucrats turned it down. They didn't want to be associated with those wicked, imperialist, ill-mannered Americans. After all, everybody loves the United Nations, don't they?
Repeatedly stymied by prejudice and inertia, the UN security chief - a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer with a wealth of prior experience - nonetheless managed to cajole his superiors into letting him build a wall around the hotel.
That wall was made of reinforced concrete, almost 17 feet high and a foot thick. But UN officials refused to let the security officer push the wall very far out from the hotel. They didn't want to annoy anyone by limiting access to a public alley. Still, the security officer inched the wall as far out as he could.
The truck-bomber could not get inside the compound - the security measures in place at least prevented that. But the truck was able to speed toward the wall's exterior, using the alley that "had" to be kept open.
The driver knew exactly where he was going. He aimed his truck-bomb precisely to decapitate the UN's in-country staff.
We all know what happened: Two dozen dead, including one of the UN's most capable senior diplomats. Almost 150 wounded. A tragic day, indeed.
But without that wall and the security measures for which one American veteran fought, the hotel would have been leveled, with a death toll in the hundreds. The wall absorbed the initial force of three separate bombs packed into the truck.
And there is some justice in the world: Although his office disintegrated around him, the security officer walked out of the wreckage uninjured.
An active-duty U.S. Army officer, Lt.-Col. Jack Curran, was in charge of local medevac operations. Weeks before the truck-bomb attack, he, too, recognized the vulnerability of the hotel compound. Diplomatically, he asked if his pilots and medical personnel could "practice medevac ops" at the UN headquarters.. "Just for training." With the security officer's help, he got permission.
As a result, there had just been two full, on-site rehearsals for what had to be done after the bombing. Thanks to this spirited, visionary officer, our helicopters and vehicles knew exactly how to get in, where best to upload casualties and where a triage station should be set up.
With impressive speed, the U.S. Army medevaced 135 UN employees and Iraqi civilians from the scene, saving more lives than will ever be known for certain.
Actually their true colors are RED. Western capitalism is evil. All other forms of government are legitimate and their wretchedness is the fault of the capitalists.
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