Posted on 01/11/2003 4:27:26 PM PST by FreeSpeechZone
US scrambles to stop Libya heading UN rights body
The United States has mounted a last-ditch campaign to prevent Libya from assuming the chairmanship of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights this month, State Department officials said.
But the officials expressed doubt their effort would succeed and predicted Libya's leadership would badly damage the commission's credibility.
"It is not appropriate for a country like Libya to hold the chair of the commission and so we are going to oppose it," one said. "We can't just let this happen without doing something about it."
To that end, the State Department sent a cable late on Wednesday to its embassies in the 53 countries represented on the Geneva-based commission, instructing its diplomats to seek support for Washington's position, the officials said.
The diplomats, who have begun making representations to their host governments, were asking the other commission members to join the US in calling for a formal ballot on the chairmanship and then voting against Libya, they said.
The tactic is likely to spark a furore in the body, which usually decides such matters by acclamation. The chairmanship is to be decided on January 20.
Officials said they were not particularly hopeful the campaign would work.
Even if a vote were held, they said, some countries might seek to make the ballots public, possibly reducing the number of countries willing to openly oppose Libya.
Libya has denounced the US for its concerns, saying it aimed to divide African nations.
A coalition of the willing
Posted: January 11, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern
Among the momentous decisions George W. Bush must make in the next few weeks is to make good on his promise to "lead a coalition of the willing" into Iraq – or to acquiesce to the idea that only the U.N. can legitimize such an action.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov says that "military action by the United States and its allies against Iraq, without U.N. approval, [would be] illegitimate and unjustified." This view is shared by many U.N. member nations and, sadly, some of the members of the Bush administration.
The first responsibility of the commander in chief is to protect and defend citizens of the United States. In the case of Iraq, where weapons of mass destruction – and the demonstrated desire to use them – are known to exist, Bush has articulated a "pre-emptive strike" doctrine of self-defense.
Ironically, many of the voices that condemn Bush's pre-emptive strike doctrine embrace the "precautionary principle" when it comes to environmental issues. More than 170 nations embraced Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration, which says:
In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
The presence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a maniacal dictator certainly constitutes a "threat of serious or irreversible damage" to people and to the environment. If "full scientific certainty" is not necessary to take "precautionary" action to protect the environment, why are these same voices opposing "pre-emptive" action to protect the lives of humans?
The real question is, who has the authority to say what action, and when it should be taken? The U.N. claims this authority, for both environmental and military questions.
President Bush has announced to the world that he would take whatever action necessary to protect the United States and its allies. Under intense pressure from the international community, and from the U.S. State Department, he waited for the U.N. Security Council to adopt its resolution, while retaining the right to lead "a coalition of the willing," with or without U.N. approval.
Pressure continues to mount, from both the international community, and from anti-war activists in the U.S., for Bush not to lead a coalition of the willing, but to wait for authorization by the U.N. It is a matter of sovereignty.
Is the United States a sovereign nation? Or, is the United States a subject of global governance administered by the U.N.?
We find no fault with diplomatic efforts to avoid war. Ultimate victory is to win without fighting. If diplomacy can achieve the objective, wonderful. But for 11 years, diplomacy has failed in Iraq. The time for decision – and action – must come. Failure to decide and act is defeat.
The United States does not need the approval of the U.N. to exercise a pre-emptive doctrine to protect its citizens. The U.S. does have the responsibility to prove that a real danger does exist, but it would be tactically imprudent to reveal that proof before the danger has been eliminated. For eight years, we watched the United States surrender its sovereignty to the United Nations in decisions affecting the environment. The Clinton-Gore administration eagerly implemented policies advanced by the United Nations. The Bush administration has said "no" to the Kyoto Protocol and to the International Criminal Court. The same voices that condemn Bush for these courageous steps are now condemning him for preparing to lead "a coalition of the willing" into Iraq – with or without U.N. approval. The United States should not – indeed, cannot – allow the United Nations to usurp its sovereignty over either environmental or military decisions. To do so is nothing short of betrayal of the U.S. Constitution. No one wants to see America's youth go off to war. If, however, the decision to take pre-emptive action against Iraq becomes necessary, the decision must be made by the United States government – not by the defense minister of Russia, or the president of France, or by the United Nations.
Congress has authorized our commander in chief to defend our nation. We expect President Bush to lead a coalition of the willing, even if we are the only willing nation.
Friday Marks Registration Deadline For Over 7,000 Non-Immigrants
POSTED: 2:00 p.m. PST January 9, 2003 UPDATED: 2:11 p.m. PST January 9, 2003
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A Muslim advocacy group is stationing at least 25 human-rights observers at the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Orange County Friday -- the deadline for 7,200 non-immigrants to register nationwide.
It's more than double the number that crowded offices for the first of three deadlines on Dec. 16, leading to complaints of unfair treatment. About 550 non-immigrants were arrested in the Los Angeles District, which includes Orange County.
The registration mandate is designed to improve government tracking of foreign nationals from 20 mostly Arab or Muslim countries.
On Friday the INS will register nationals of 13 countries, including Yemen and North Korea.
Registration data has been translated into a variety of languages and outreach to religious and ethnic civic groups was increased to get the word out.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council's monitors, wearing easily identifiable yellow shirts, will be on hand throughout the day.
Mark Steyn National Post
Thursday, January 09, 2003
Here's a question we never got round to in the New Year retrospectives: What was the dumbest thing Canada's Prime Minister said last year?
Such a glittering array to choose from: "Da proof is da proof"? "He is not a moron, he is my friend"? In any typical Chrétien year, they might well have carried the trophy. But a few days before the chimes struck midnight, the Prime Minister snuck this one under the wire:
On December 19th, at a press conference in Parliament, M. Chrétien was asked how many terrorists are operating in Canada. He "quipped," as the press reports put it, that he didn't know because they don't hold up a big sign to advertise their presence. "Some were in Germany, some were in France, some were in Great Britain and in Spain and probably in Italy and some in Canada. Who knows? Perhaps there is one in the room here, who knows? I don't know," he shrugged. "They don't say, 'I am a member of al-Qaeda.' They don't have a big sign, 'Come and see me.' So we don't know where they are."
If he were the French President, the German Chancellor, the Prime Minister of Italy, Spain or the United Kingdom, this would be a reasonable if complacent answer. But not from the Prime Minister of Canada. For under the Government's immigration policy, membership of a terrorist organization is grounds for admission to our delightful Dominion. In other words, they do hold up a big sign: "I'm a terrorist. Let me in." So, when asked how many terrorists are in the country, M. Chrétien, unlike Messrs. Bush or Blair, is in the happy position of being able to say, "Hang on, I'll call the civil servants who run the terrorist fast-track admission program."
One of them is Mme. Huguette Shouldice, whom I quoted in this space three years ago after Ahmed Ressam was arrested at the U.S. border en route to blow up LAX. When he first landed in Canada, Mr. Ressam was commendably straightforward: He told officials he'd spent five months in jail in Algeria after admitting to being an Islamic terrorist. But as I wrote in those far-off days of pre-9/11 innocence:
"Immigration Canada was not persuaded by this: According to Ms. Shouldice, many asylum seekers try to pass themselves off as terrorists, the object being to 'exaggerate the persecution they fear in their homeland in order to impress Canadian immigration officials.' Read that again slowly: Your chances of being accepted as a refugee in Canada are likely to be improved if you've been convicted of terrorist offences."
So, as far as Huguette and her colleagues are concerned, sure, the Immigration Department has a database of people who say they're terrorists but most likely the majority are Scots software engineers and so forth who claim to be terrorists in order to jump the line and not be tied up in paperwork by Canada House in Trafalgar Square for two years.
As it happens, in the case of Mr. Ressam, Huguette was wrong and Mr. Ressam was right: He said he was a terrorist, and he was. How many others have managed to slip past the frontier guards through the cunning ploy of being perfectly upfront and honest?
Well, consider the Ottawa pizza-delivery guy arrested just before Christmas for alleged links to al-Qaeda. Mohamed Harkat has been here since 1995, when he checked in on a fake Saudi passport and, as his compatriot Mr. Ressam did, sportingly told the authorities that he was a member of the Front Islamique du Salut and the Groupe Islamique Arme, which wants to establish an Islamic state in Algeria "through the use of terrorist violence" and then "eliminate Western influences from the country."
In his new country, Mr. Harkat quickly made friends with many respected Canadians, such as Ahmed Said Khadr, now living abroad and believed to be the highest-ranking Canadian citizen in al-Qaeda (at least until the late Osama's Canadian passport is found in the ruins of one of those caves). Mr. Khadr, you may dimly recall, was arrested in Pakistan in 1995 for an embassy bombing that killed 17 people, but M. Chrétien, as befits a great humanitarian, intervened with the government in Islamabad and got him sprung from jail. Who says the PM has no legacy?
The Toronto Star's Rosemary Spiers hailed M. Chrétien's intercession as evidence of a newfound commitment to human rights, and Mr. Khadr's release prompted an outbreak of delirious celebration, if only from the PC cheerleaders of the media: "Pakistani Court Frees Aid Worker," said the Calgary Herald. That's what Mr. Khadr was: an "aid worker." "PM Plans To Raise Case of Aid Worker" (Canadian Press). "Caught In A Muddle: An Arrested Aid Worker Appeals For Chrétien's Help" (Maclean's).
Mr. Khadr's present whereabouts are unknown, but two of his teenage sons were captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, after one of the lads hurled a fatal grenade at an American soldier. Having got Khadr père out of the slammer to continue his "aid work," M. Chrétien understandably attempted to do the same for the fils, but Washington told him to take a hike. Poor old Bill Sampson, under sentence of death in Saudi, must be wondering who he has to blow up to get the PM's attention. Khadr Jr. is, technically, a Canadian, though, as Peter Worthington noted, that's probably not how he thinks of himself. In theory, that could have been a Princess Pat he blew to pieces.
What is immigration for? In the U.S., many parts of the country have, to all intents, full employment so immigration fills the jobs the locals won't do. In Europe, they have an aging population and costly social welfare, so young immigrants fill the gaps left by the Continent's collapsed birthrate. Neither of these arguments works in Canada: We have higher levels of unemployment than the Americans. And unlike Europe, thanks to the bias of our immigration policy toward "family reunification" (i.e., gran'pas and great-aunts), our immigrant population is actually older than our native-born. But the fact that immigration is of no discernible benefit to Canadians is what we like about it: It confirms us in our sense of our own virtue.
In that sense, the ever-growing Terrorist-Canadian community is only an extreme manifestation of our willingness to elevate over all other considerations the masochistic frisson we get from demonstrating our "tolerance" by letting in someone avowedly intolerant. True, as M. Chrétien and several of my colleagues have pointed out, September 11th was a failure of U.S. border control not Canadian border control. The difference is simple: In the U.S., letting in terrorists represents an immigration failure; in Canada, it's an immigration policy.
That's why we're now spending vast sums of public money investigating whether Mr. Harkat has actively participated in terrorist activities on Canadian soil. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to take him at his word seven years ago, when he said he was a member of groups committing "terrorist violence" with the object of eliminating "western influence"?
Of course, if he returns to Algeria he has a well-founded fear of persecution, mainly because he and his pals have done such a cracking job of persecuting others. Only the other day, 56 Algerians were murdered by Mr. Harkat's comrades -- a useful reminder that the first victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims: Over 100,000 Algerians have been killed in the last decade.
More to the point, the Islamist terrorist groups Mr. Harkat was a member of seek freedom from western influence not just for Algeria but the world. Is it likely he would put his beliefs on hold simply because he's not in Algeria? The seven Muslims arrested this week for a plot to release the killer toxin ricin in London are said, to be, like Mr. Harkat, members of Algeria's GIA. The "Detroit Five," a terrorist cell arrested by the FBI, are mostly Algerian. One of al-Qaeda's most popular videos shows captured conscripts of the Algerian army having their throats cut by Mr. Harkat's GIA confreres.
Get the picture? Strolling past Montreal's world-famous Concosama University the other day, I noticed the many signs saying, "Support Non-Status Algerians," "non-status" being one of the euphemisms du jour, like the "undocumented" down south. There are compelling reasons for being wary of according "status" to Algerians. Many are no doubt refugees from terrorism.
But many others are terrorists seeking refuge from the people they've been terrorizing. It's time M. Chrétien's decrepit ministry stopped declining to distinguish between the two.
I'm a little surprised that we don't hear more public grumbling about the UN from the Republicans. Disdain for the UN seems to be a unifying theme for the conservatives here at FR. I'm sure it doesn't play the same way for the less ideological Republican-voting masses, but I don't detect any particular love for the UN from the people I bump into from day to day. Maybe it's like the IRS or something, though, where people have sort of accepted the necessity of it's existence, even if they have no affection for it, and would consider it strange to drastically change it or our relationship with it.
The UN just doesn't stand for the ideals that originally led to its inception. It's time to ditch it.
what? it most cerainly does... designed and built by communists for the furtherance of communism to the detrement of the despised USA, at the expense of the US taxpayers.
it is no more than that, and their agenda is to end the sovereignty of the United States.
This is not clearly written. Is Libya aimed to divide African nations?
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