The Associated Press reports:
The Bush administration will maintain U.S. sanctions against Libya despite the country's acceptance of responsibility for the bombing of a Pan Am jetliner in 1988.Despite? One would think that establishing Libya's culpability in an act of mass murder would strengthen not weaken the case for maintaining sanctions.
Libya, which has been implicated in several other acts of terrorism, including the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco and the 1989 bombing of a French airliner, was recently elected chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 16, 2003 07:00 AMThis is just more evidence supporting the view that the US should get out of the UN. It is a worthless, spineless organization which has become nothing more than a tool for France and other third world countries to extort money from the US taxpayer. LETS GET OUT NOW!
Posted by: Jim Brown on August 16, 2003 04:44 AMWithout the UN the future of the world looks very bleak indeed. Look at the SARS virus what other organisation could have dealt with a situation like that. America with drawing from its UN responsibilities would be a shameful cowardly act.
I imagine Roosevelt and Truman are turning i their graves!
Posted by: Marcus on August 16, 2003 06:57 AMThere are some relics of original ideals of the UN that still function, like the WHO. But if you think the future of the world without the UN looks bleak, ask some surviving citizens of Bosnia or Rwanda or Cambodia how much better their lives are on account of it. Meanwhile, all the undemocratic thugocracies, who form a majority of the General Assembly, have eagerly taken up the rhetoric (NOT the principles)of human rights, largely to lambaste the US with verbiage. Solzhenitsyn was right, the the UN is far from a united body of nations, it's an association of self-interested, largely undemocratic governments. Preferably, it's the unrepresentative governments that should be refused active participation in the UN. Else the US could indeed bail, and form the nucleus for a United Democracies. And bill the thugs in the UN building for a realistic rent for the real estate.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on August 16, 2003 10:52 AMThe UN is anti-american and antisemetic and they are always siding with evil and they are constantly siding against the victims of evil, namely Israel and the Palestinian murderers! Koffi Annan never condemns the palestinian terrorists for attacking Israel. He only condemns Israel for attacking the palestinians in self defense!
Posted by: Stacey on August 17, 2003 11:04 PMThe UN is anti-american and antisemetic and they are always siding with evil and they are constantly siding against the victims of evil, namely Israel and the Palestinian murderers! Koffi Annan never condemns the palestinian terrorists for attacking Israel. He only condemns Israel for attacking the palestinians in self defense!
Posted by: Stacey on August 17, 2003 11:04 PMIf we are going to have equal-opportunity punishment for "mass murder" what punishment would you recommend for, oh, Chile 1973; Iran 1953, or any of dozens of other examples?
I'm not defending Libya in the slightest. Just pointing out the one-sided and hypocritical nature of your call for "maintaining sanctions."
Posted by: george on August 23, 2003 11:12 AM