A Shameful End to a Shameful Career

Kofi Annan is exactly the Kind of Demagogue that This Blog is Against

A Wasted Human Life

Kofi Annan will go down in my history at least, along with other nefarious characters like Jimmy Carter and Jesse Jackson, as a man who has abused and wasted the abilities and power that God has given him.




Instead of doing great good for the world, as he could have done, he, like Carter and Jackson, have instead chosen to be demagogues. They are purveyors of lies that promote their personal and harmful agendas. Demonstrating the state of our world, both Annan and Carter are Nobel Peace Prize winners, and Jackson was a nominee, and all are beloved at the United Nations.

Annan's Agenda

Annan and Carter are darlings of the vicious left in America, the so-called "progressives." I know some "real progressives" in America, and these are decent, intelligent people who want only good for this country; but there is a strain of progressives who are full of hate, which is mostly aimed at America. This is the strain that loves Annan and Carter.

The common agendas of these two villains and their followers are:

The United States is a bad country that bullies the world, abuses its power, and engages in gross human rights violations.

Israel is also a bully country that abuses its neighbors, engages in Apartheid, and is the main reason for all the problems in the world today.

The United States does not have the right to defend itself. Only the U.N. has the right to decide how to defend the U.S.

It is understandable how the world can hate the U.S. In fact, the U.S. bears responsibility for being attacked on 9/11.

The Iraq War is illegal, and George Bush is a war criminal.

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The United Nations

The United Nations began life as a result of a secret meeting on board the warship "Prince of Wales" which was moored off of the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941. The United Nations came from a meeting was between F D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. At this time America was not in World War Two though she was giving help to the Allies as a result of Lend-Lease. Roosevelt and Churchill met to discuss what shape the world might take once the war ended.

On June 25th 1945, the representatives of the 50 nations in San Francisco met in the city's opera house. Here they signed the charter and it is this date that the United Nations is considered to have come into existence. The so-called Atlantic Charter outlined the hopes of Roosevelt and Churchill for a better world. The main points to it were:

All countries should have a democratic government.

All countries would engage in trade freely with one another.

All countries would share in world prosperity.

All countries would seek to reduce their weaponry.

K

ofi Annan

is retiring as United Nations Secretary General. The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the head of the Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The secretary general acts as the de facto spokesman and leader of the United Nations.

On 13 October 2006, the Security Council's choice of Ban Ki-moon of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) to succeed Annan was ratified by acclamation in the General Assembly, consisting of all 192 UN member governments. Ban's five-year term as the next Secretary-General is to run from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2011.

Kofi Annan is from Ghana. He is the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, and was the first to be elected from the ranks of UN staff.

As Secretary-General, Mr. Annan has given priority to revitalizing the UN through a comprehensive program of reform; strengthening the Organization's traditional work in the areas of development and the maintenance of international peace and security; advocating human rights, the rule of law and the universal values of equality, tolerance and human dignity; restoring public confidence in the Organization by reaching out to new partners and, in his words, by "bringing the United Nations closer to the people." The Secretary-General has also taken a leading role in mobilizing the international community in the battle against HIV/AIDS, and more recently against the global terrorist threat.

Annan's Final Speech

In his final speech (see also The Secretary-General's Statements) before leaving office, given on December 11, 2006, at at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library, in Independence, Missouri, Annan called for the United States to return to the multi-lateralist foreign policies of Harry S. Truman and to follow his credo that "the responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world," an apparent rebuke of the alleged unilateralist policies of the George W. Bush administration. He also said that the United States must maintain its commitment to human rights, "including in the struggle against terrorism."

He echoed earlier speeches, where he also hammered the theme that the United States is a rogue nation, stating, for example, that the Iraq War is illegal (BBC News). In other speeches, he has claimed that the United States is "dominating" the world and is a major human rights violator.

Hypocrisy

In December 2004, reports surfaced that the Secretary-General's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection SA, which won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program.

Kofi Annan supported his deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown who openly criticized the United States media in a speech on June 6, 2006, saying: "The prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable...You will lose the U.N. one way or another."

US ambassador John R. Bolton said to Annan on the phone: "I've known you since 1989 and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen in that entire time."

All the while, Annan has not done anything effective about the holocaust in Darfur. Israel is under attack and he blames the victim. He has been ineffective in handling the Oil-for-Food scandal, with its attendant rationale for why the world will not support the Iraq War.

Annan, while failing ever to rebuke the real bullies of the world, like the Palestinians who constantly shell Israeli innocents, or terrorists who blow up U.S. citizens, presided over all the U.N. corruption of recent years.

Mr. Annan and his cronies all got rich while blood still flows nonstop because of their policies.

In his final speech, he outlined "four lessons ". I cannot help adding my own take on them:

First, we are all responsible for each other's security.

Except, Mr. Annan, if you are the United States, or Israel.

Second, we can and must give everyone the chance to benefit from global prosperity.

Especially the beneficiaries of Oil-for-Food and other U.N. scandals.

Third, both security and prosperity depend on human rights and the rule of law.

Unless you are a terrorist or Palestinian.

Fourth, states must be accountable to each other, and to a broad range of non-state actors, in their international conduct.

This means, you bad U.S. people, that you cannot defend yourselves. Leave that to us, the nations of the world that value brute force, terrorism, corruption and graft.

My fifth and final lesson derives inescapably from those other four. We can only do all these things by working together through a multilateral system, and by making the best possible use of the unique instrument bequeathed to us by Harry Truman and his contemporaries, namely the United Nations.

So you can promote thuggery, graft and corruption, leaving millions starving, homeless, and dead.

Annan's Inspiring Words

IN his paper, IN LARGER FREEDOM: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All, Annan calls for:

I. Freedom from Want

II. Freedom from fear

III. Freedom to Live in Dignity, with:

Rule of Law

Human Rights

Democracy

IV. Strengthening the United Nations

What Could Have Been

Mr. Annan's words, as usual, are noble and inspiring. No one can disagree with the above goals. Yet, Mr. Annan has perverted these into a defense of dictatorships, anti-Americanism, and just plain thuggery. If he could have stood for all these points genuinely, then he would have earned his Nobel Peace Prize. Go in peace my brother.

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Rock


(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)

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Were the Democrats Right About Iraq?

Is Iraq like Vietnam?

Iraq, is it Vietnam? Paz, one of my liberal commenters, whom I am grateful to for his passion and commitment to the positions of his side, made some points in a comment yesterday that are worthy of a detailed response in a post. Conservatives have criticized liberals in the past for their positions on Iraq. Yet, it appears that some of us now agree with what liberals said a year ago—namely, that Iraq is similar to Vietnam, and so on.

My opinion is that Iraq was not similar to Vietnam a year ago, but now it is.







The reasons it has become similar are:

1. The Iraqis are not fighting hard enough to win their own freedom.

2. The liberal press has undermined the war effort, and prevented us from fighting to win.

3. We don’t have a President Truman or FDR in office who will ignore political correctness and do what it takes to install democracy in Iraq, using overwhelming force like we did in WWII with Germany and Japan.

Stay the Course

Basically, those of us who welcome the national debate on Iraq being conducted now because of the Iraq Study Group, are presumably pitted against those who are steadfast in their Stay the Course opinion. I don’t see it this way. I am still for Stay the Course, as I always was, except I want more troops and more vicious fighting to effect it. On this, I agree with Senator John McCain, at least on the more troops part of the equation.

I am a pragmatist, though. I don’t see this congress, and this president, and this American public, propagandized by liberals, agreeing with Senator McCain, nor with me. We aren’t going to get more troops in Iraq, and we certainly aren’t going to be allowed to fight the war the way it ought to be fought—the way we fought in World War II.

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Therefore, leaving our troops basically as standing guard in streets that are descending into civil war, in target zones for foreign insurgents, without allowing them to really fight, is cruel and unwise. Do I want to Stay the Course in Iraq? Yes, if we are allowed to Stay the Course and Win. Otherwise, we need to do some kind of pullback, and let the Iraqis kill each other if they choose this way of behaving. In this case, we must still remain in the region, in safer zones, to prevent the complete domination of the Middle East by Iran.

Did We Make Mistakes in Iraq?

Yes. I know some of you are fans of Donald Rumsfeld, and I can agree that the man was courageous in trying to change the nature of our armed forces to meet the challenges of the 21st century. On the other hand, I believe Colin Powell was right in saying we ought either to have not invaded Iraq, or gone in with overwhelming force—including an overwhelming force for the post invasion phase. We simply never had enough troops to deal with any insurgency. We can’t police the borders with Iran and Syria with the numbers we have. We can’t stop trouble spots and then hold them. Our present number of troops could be sufficient if the Iraqis were fighting with us, but they’re not.

Was It a Mistake to Invade Iraq?

No. Saddam Hussein was a villain who needed to go; and he was intent on causing serious trouble for the world. We are better off with him gone, regardless of civil war in Iraq. We just need to be nimble, to adjust to the changing situation there.

Did our American Soldiers Die in Vain?

No. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have altered the worldwide equation for peace in a dramatic fashion. 9/11 has been answered in a way that ensures future terrorists will think hard about an unprovoked major attack on our soil. Terrorists know now that should they drop a nuke on us, for example, we will hunt them down and kill them, and go beyond this—we will take their countries away and send them into the hills and caves.

Plus:

A major villain is off the world stage.
The Iraqis have been given a chance for democracy.
Democracy is at least being considered in other parts of the Middle East.
Libya is no longer a threat.
Renewed efforts at peace for Israel and Palestine are being promoted with a new urgency.

The last reason why our soldiers did not die in vain is that invading Iraq was simply the right and moral thing to do. We stood up to a bully who was killing innocents, and who would kill other innocents in the future. It is never wrong to do the right thing, regardless of consequences.

The Strategic Situation Now

The major threat now is Iran. The failure in Iraq can give Iran an opening to expand its hegemony in the Middle East; or, we can handle this problem wisely. Since we have a base in Iraq, we are still in a good position strategically to keep Iran from overrunning the area. We don’t need to stay in the middle of the Iraq civil war in order to do this; merely being in the area would be enough.

The nuclear question is another matter. I don’t see that there is any worldwide will to stop Iran from getting the bomb, thanks to the liberals’ beloved U.N. Ideally what should we do? Invade Iran and effect regime change, and shut down their nuclear operations. Will we do this? No. Why? Because of the touchy feely liberals in our country, and because of the lack of will in the U.N.

What is for sure, given the present political situation, is that Iran will get the bomb. Then what? I’m not smart enough to say. What do you think?

Rock

(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)

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The Iraq Study Group

(God bless all veterans and soldiers now serving, and all America, on this anniversary of Pearl Harbor.)

It's a Good Thing

Baker and The Iraq Study Group has been a good thing, in my opinion, in that it has gotten the United States government and its people thinking about solutions to the Iraq problem.




The Iraq Study Group has gotten all sectors of the world, and of the United States, involved and invested in solving the Iraq conundrum. Most of us don’t understand all the factors involved in this whole mess over there, but we do know that something is wrong, and needs to be fixed. I would argue that no one is wise enough, given all the complexities, to know what is the best thing to do, but the Group made a good effort.

Another good thing about the Iraq Study Group is that Democrats and liberals are again thinking, which is unusual for them. A bad part of the Group is that these same liberals are engaging in their favorite pastime, which is gotcha politics. Many Democrats spend their whole day finding things the evil Republicans have done wrong. They feel vindicated by the Baker Commission Report, (another name for the Iraq Study Group), which basically says that Iraq is a mess, we ought to get out, and we ought to be talking with Syria and Iran.

Syria and Iran love the report. Al-Queda loves the report. The Shias love it. The Sunnis hate it. Saudi Arabia hates it. The bulk of the world loves it.

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Fight to Win or Get Out

Personally, I still remain a neo-con on the war in Iraq. I wish we were waging it all-out, and to win. We aren’t now and never were. We’ve fought a tentative, politically correct war almost the whole time (except for the initial invasion, which was waged the way a war ought to be waged, with overwhelming force.) We’ve never had enough troops in Iraq to handle the post war. On this, I remain in agreement with Colin Powell, who wanted either that we don’t invade Iraq, or that we do so with overwhelming force. John McCain also wants more troops in Iraq, not less. It was Rumsfeld’s idea that we go lean and mean after the initial invasion. This, in my opinion was a mistake.

Since we do not have a President who has the courage to wage an all-out war as is necessary, then the next best alternative, then, is to think about alternatives, now that our politically correct war has made such a mess. So, in this set of circumstances, the Baker Commission is a good thing.

Let's Do It

Again considering that we do not have the will to wage an all-out war in Iraq, the recommendations of the report are, I believe, good ones. We either need to fight to win in Iraq, or get out. If we “get out,” we need to stay in the region, maybe Iraq itself, in areas where our soldiers won’t be targets, to protect against a total takeover by Iran and the Shias; but other than this, we need to get out of the way, and let the Iraqis kill each other until they work things out for themselves. Yes, you panting conspiracy theorists, we do need to protect the oil reserves in Iraq, and keep them from falling into terrorist hands, or to Iran.

Rock

(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)

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