The Quagmire in Iraq…and in New York, Too

No doubt we are in the deep weeds now. The tragic death of Sergio Vieira de Mello in Iraq marks a new level of all-out guerilla war. And we must now call it that, for that is what it is.

This bombing also marks the end of the neutrality dance the U.N. and its member nations have so far managed to negotiate. The world community has now officially failed in its decade-long effort to rehabilitate Iraq, largely destroyed by Saddam and not the U.S., while steering clear of participating in the “unilateral occupation,” so called.

Note to the U.N.: It’s over. History has moved on and right or wrong, it’s time for multinational military involvement in Iraq. And frankly, it’s now needed whether the U.S. administration actually wants it or not.

The barely suppressed smugness of the U.N. chief spokesman Fred Eckhard in New York that security at the UN site was the responsibility of the “host” country and not the U.N. serves to highlight the “neutral” hypocrisy of that organization. This statement from the misguided mother ship was quickly shown up by the UN’s own Iraqi spokesman, Salim Lone, who told CNN in Baghdad only minutes later that the UN mission there had expressly not wanted, nor asked for, a large US military presence to protect it. This would, he told the network, not be in keeping with the U.N. mission as espoused by Kofi Annan, namely, to help end the US oversight of Iraq as quickly as possible and return the country to the Iraqi people.

This U.N. hypocrisy should not go unnoted. This organization, now suffering tragedy of its own, must at this point recognize that the Iraqi anarchy is and was the enemy of not just the US but also the U.N.

State sponsored anarchy aimed outside its borders was what Saddam’s government delivered for years. Now this lawlessness, such as the urging of both Sunni and Shia leaders and clerics to rise up in armed resistance, is directed inward as well. And the U.N. must step up to the plate now and at least protect its own humanitarian workers by sending in the “blue helmets” to make it clear to all decent Iraqi people and Muslims worldwide that this is no longer just a US occupation.

Everyone knows that the Islamic radicals now causing chaos around the world weasel their way into hearts and minds…and communities… in the poorest and most dangerous countries not with their religious beliefs, but with their charitable and policing efforts. It is not their interpretation of the Koran, but their money, food, schools, policing and public works that give them purchase among the downtrodden.

They offer an alternative to the complete lack of government help and resultant total chaos in regions all over the planet ignored by the West…and the U.N. itself. Only after making a community safe, nourished and habitable do Muslim extremists exact their terrible price: The brainwashing of the young to turn them into human bombs dedicated to destroying throughout the world all alternatives to their iron, totalitarian and despotic rule.

Thus, clearly, for the U.N. to espouse that their humanitarian aid is somehow considered “neutral” is beyond naïve. Such an interpretation is disingenuous, evasive and morally corrupt for an organization filled with so many sophisticated experts. They are fully aware of the cultural war going on at this very moment in every country with a significant poor Muslim population.

In fact, the humanitarian workers of the UN are by far a greater threat to Muslim totalitarians (or any other kind of totalitarians for that matter) than the troops of the US. Aid workers offer hope, and more, a genuine alternative to join the secular world community in which people of all religions, regardless of their suspicions and prejudices, can get along, do business and live their lives in relative peace and quiet.
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