April 23, 2004
The biggest poison

Days after the latest car bombing that murdered dozens of Iraqi innocents, the United Nations special envoy for Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, blames Israel:

The biggest poison in the region is the policy of Israeli power and the suffering of the Palestinians," Brahimi was quoted as telling a French radio station. The UN envoy, who is from Algeria, reportedly said many people both in the Middle East and outside it agree with the statement
Kofi Annan repudiated the statement, but there are no indication that Brahimi will not continue in his role.

The biggest poison in the region may in fact be the UN.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 23, 2004 08:40 AM
Comments

"From 1956 to 1961, during Algeria's independence struggle, he (Lakhdar Brahimi) was the National Liberation Front (FLN) representative in South-East Asia"

So his career was built on an organization that did in about as many Algerians as it did Frenchmen in using guerilla warfare, and terrorism against "wrong" civilians, in clearing France out of Algeria.

This qualifies him be be a diplomat, and to assign blame to Israel for the murder of those children. About time the UN's hiring policies took some pointed questions.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on April 23, 2004 10:17 AM

Koffi 'repudiated' the statement.... cough cough..... aheeeeeeeeemmmm - allergies kickin in.

Mike

Posted by: Mike on April 23, 2004 11:08 AM

IS,

But he was in the "political" not the military wing. You have to be more nuanced :/

Posted by: marek on April 23, 2004 02:11 PM

Marek:

I looked around the Web, but I just found that sanitized bio. You could have said the same of Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk, and you'd have been wrong before and after that event. Arafat's a more recent example. I am surely the most nuanced political thinker on my block, and I still will cut Brahimi no slack.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on April 23, 2004 04:37 PM

Islam is a religion of peace, so it has to be Israel's fault.

Posted by: Jedd on April 24, 2004 06:28 AM
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