The Iraqi Ambassador to the UN is calling the US and Britain a bunch of war criminals. This is not the usual parliamentary language that one expects from such an august body as the United Nations. The US Ambassador, John Negroponte, got up and walked out, which is UN-speak for ‘eat shit and die’.
Listening to the diplomats and the mouthpieces for both sides is like filling your head with white glue and foam packing beads. Nobody has the stones to stand up and invite their opposite number to “come by the Rose Garden at the White House and keep drippin’ that bullshit for spring planting.” The French, Russian and Germans are demanding that the US not be involved in setting up the new government in Iraq.
I suspect the US doesn’t want to be involved in it either. The US would just as soon finish up things and go home, as long as the essential problem, an insane dictator with nerve gas and maybe even nukes, isn’t driving the bus. It’s costing the US and UK a ton of cash, every hour, to keep this tent up and they could really use the money at home.
Unfortunately, the French, Russians and Germans are not the best choice to decide on what kind of new government should be set up. The French have long Arabic roots as a colonial imperialist power. Germany just wants to sell their industrial infrastructure. Russia wants the oil and arms sales along with the French who want some of the rearming sales too. The US and the UK are doing the noble thing, while the major whiners are just pissy that they got pulled off the money tit.
Speaking of the money tit, I have noticed that France, Germany and Russia have not been terribly vocal about humanitarian aid, or for that matter, forthcoming with planeloads or shiploads of humanitarian aid. Could it be that humanitarian aid actually costs money while sucking on the money tit, only makes money?
If they were so concerned about all the shocking things going on, then one would rationally expect those who are so concerned would do everything to help the innocent civilians with food and water. Except that innocent civilians are dirt poor and can’t sign off on multi-billion dollar government contracts to rebuild the country, re-arm the military and buy huge infrastructure projects.
As for prisoners, I’m not impressed with either side. The US has been holding a few hundred of truly vicious lunatics in Guantanamo Bay under very strict disciplinary rules that border on cruel. But, by way of explanation, the GitMo Bay guys are hard-core Al-Qaeda crazies from Afghanistan who are, essentially, rabid and are trying to kill their captors with anything they can get their hands on, including pencils, toast or raisins. The GitMo prisoners are being held very tightly because they have not demonstrated the common sense to give up. Even a tomato seed has the sense to not try to grow on gravel.
Conversely, the Iraqis are not setting their US prisoners up in the Baghdad Hilton either. We don’t have any information on how battlefield prisoners in Iraq are being held by the US, but I suspect the Iraqi POW’s, are at the hands of the Evil US who insists that their prisoners eat good food, see doctors and get treated reasonably well. Yes, the prisoners are behind barbed wire and have to wear flexi cuffs. What the hell did you expect, we’d just toss them the the keys to a new Ford Focus and invite them to the Kuwait City Wal-Mart for a shopping spree and a makeover?
It’s a War, not a Kiwanis Club luncheon.
RoadDave 