President Bush Wants UN to be 'More than Empty Debating Society' in MI Speech

January 29, 2003 | prairiebreeze

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Dubya is hoping to kick the UN's rear end and get some action. This was directed at Germany and France, I believe who said they would veto the 2nd Security Council resolution and then reversed field the next day. The President wants no more of that..

Yes, so that's a LOT different than telling the UN to take a flying leap and that we'd go it alone.

[prairiebreeze]

I think the objective is to name them as their behavior warrants (empty debators) and expose them as the ineffective collection of parasites that they are. And to try to shame them into not being spineless and following through on what they are supposed to do

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Thank you!

[RightWhale]

Yes, I heard some of the exact same terminology that appears on FR with some frequency.

[knighthawk]

[RightWhale]

--We're bad, we're worldwide

Frank, Billy, and Dusty

[SerpentDove]

Doing just swell.

:-))

[inquest]

That must be why he pushed through the Kyoto Treaty and signed us up for the International Court.

He didn't speak against either treaty in principle, but only complained about the extent of their requirements. And he effectively ratified the ICC treaty when he negotiated for exemptions for American servicemen.

[inquest]

It's characteristic of useful idiots to focus on one or two irrelevant truths while blinding themselves to the more important points. Calling the UN irrelevant is not necessarily the mark of pro-UN sentiment. Urging the UN to make itself more relevant most ceratinly is.

See the difference? (Hint: you have to take off your blinders in order to see it)

[Nick Danger]

he effectively ratified the ICC treaty when he negotiated for exemptions for American servicemen.

Stop telling people this stuff. It isn't true.

San Francisco Chronicle
August 21, 2002

Although President Bill Clinton signed the treaty that created the ICC, the Bush administration withdrew this nation's support of the court. Then, Washington announced that it would use military force to free any U.S. citizen detained by the court. Now, in a final attempt to undermine the court's authority, the Bush administration has threatened to cut off military aid to any nation unless it promises never to surrender any suspected American citizen to the ICC.

What more do ya want?

[inquest]

Nice try, but he made that statement after the enactment of the Servicemembers' Protection Act, which requires him to do just that, and which Congress essentially forced upon him. What he did prior to that was far more telling. He negotiated with the Security Council to grant a one-year exemption to American servicemen in Bosnia from the ICC's jurisdiction, thus giving the ICC legitimacy it was far from deserving.

[lakey]

Thanks for the ping. I think.

I purposely didn't listen to the speech last night. Dubya, IMHO, can't dupe Saddam this time the way George Herbert Walker did with former Iraqi Ambassador April Glaspie.

True, we need the oil. But there are things that rub me the wrong way - media silence re: the recent signing of a Unocal contract to build a pipeline across Afhganistan. The Taliban were in Sugar Land, TX, only a couple of months before 9/11.

It galls me that our troops are in fact working for giant corporations!

And if nobody likes what I'm saying, I really have ceased to care.

[Smile-n-Win]

The question is............ what does Bush hope to accomplish by saying this?

To make the point that the UN is an empty debating society. To get this point mentioned gazillions of times by the media. To inject this point into our national political discussion.

It worked with the Axis of Evil. The media hated him for saying that, and they kept repeating: "Bush is baaaaaaad because he called these three countries an 'Axis of Eeeeeevil!'" Soon enough, all the world was aware of the fact that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea form an axis and they're up to no good.

Then, President Bush educated the world by making it known that the U.N. "might become" irrelevant. Why? Because they're just an empty debating society. Of course, President Bush "feels their pain" and wants to help them overcome their "relevancy-challenged" status. He helps them by giving them a chance to act as grown-ups and pass a resolution outlawing Saddam. Which, of course, they won't do--so they will become irrelevant, and you can't blame President Bush for it.

[gridlock]

The Taliban were in Sugar Land, TX, only a couple of months before 9/11.

Oh those diabolical Bushies, getting the Taliban to fly jetliners into the World Trade Center just so they could score cheap crude from the Afghani pipeline. Evil geniuses, they are!

If you have an elephant on one side of the see-saw, and a housefly on the other, the see-saw will not balance.

[lakey]

Bush didn't have to know the exact target, or magnitude of an attack. He certainly did know the Taliban were not happy with whatever deal Unocal offered.

The Patriot Act and Homeland Security laws were ready on the spot....and thousands of illegal immigrants continue to flow into this country daily!

Gimme a break.

[gridlock]

And construction on the Afghani pipeline begins.... when?

Oh, wait a minute, we're on to them now! So the fact that nobody has started to build the Afghani pipeline is proof that there was some sort of mysterious deal afoot.

I'm sure that Dick Cheney and his evil henchmen are cursing Ted Rall for putting an end to their nefarious plans!

[lakey]

Up-to-date, aren't you? Search Google, "The Caspian is Widely Believed to be on the Brink of Becoming one of the Largest Oil Producers in the World, Second Only to the Middle East." You might even like to attend the Annual Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference in San Diego this coming June. 2 + 2 might = 4.

Cartoonists see light more often than most, and they zero in on absurdities. When a politician says his constituents aren't allowed to critcize, they (and I) ask why not?

[gridlock]

So you are saying that in order to get oil from the Caspian we would build a 2500 mile long pipeline across Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, some of the most rugged, inhospitable and politically unstable places in the world, instead of building a 300 mile long pipeline to the Black Sea?

Those evil geniuses at Halliburton must have been working overtime to figure that one out. But we're on to them now. They'll never try it, or a harshly worded editorial might show up in the Village Voice.

And all they had to do was trick the Taliban into destroying a few or our landmarks and killing a few thousand of our citizens. I'm sure that they feel that this is a small price to pay to line the pockets of Dick Cheney and his corporate cronies.