Posted on 12/22/2003 9:14:34 AM PST by BCrago66
The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, believes the United Nations should intervene militarily wherever dictatorships abuse human rights.
He delivers a passionate defence of America's intervention in Iraq in an interview in today's Spectator magazine in which he suggests it should mark the start of an era in which a "community of democracies" intervenes in the internal affairs of countries ruled by despots.
Mr Berlusconi said he told President George W Bush during an informal chat in the margins of last June's G8 summit in Evian that the concept of "liberty" that emerged enhanced from the ashes of the September 11 attack should become a guiding light for the world's democracies.
"I said, given the enormous and paradoxical success of fundamentalism, why don't we reform the UN? Let us say to Mr X or Y in this or that dictatorship, you must recognise human rights in your country and we give you six to 12 months to do so, or else we intervene.
"We can do this now because there is no countervailing power," he said referring to the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union.
"We are able, with Russia and America, to look at the states of the world and assess the dignity of the people and we give them democracy and liberty. Yes! By force if necessary, because that is the only way to show it is not a joke. We said to Saddam, do it or we come. And we came and we did it."
A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi said the prime minister had been telephoned recently by Col Gaddafi of Libya, who said: "I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid."
Mr Berlusconi said Europe needed to spend more on defence to participate fully with America in creating a new world order based on freedom and democracy.
He said that while Italy might have had "many doubts" about the American intervention in Iraq, it came out in support when "we saw that America and Britain, our traditional allies" were determined to proceed.
He said he was convinced that Saddam had either hidden, exported or destroyed his weapons of mass destruction, as any leader would have done if faced with the immediate prospect of invasion by an unbeatable foreign power.
And why not? They've been fighting for wrongs since they were first created.
Wow, that would include two-thirds of the UN. This left wing organization would never allow that to happen. Unless, of course, they allow Amnesty International to be the watch dog who would say the US is the chief abuser of human rights.
But, but, we want to be loved, not feared...
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