GOOD NEWS WATCH

Well, a unanimous UN vote, and the New York Times is happy.

You have to look at the online edition for a note of trouble. It isn't in the paper edition:

The Iraqi people, however, are not themselves unified; Kurds in particular fear the resolution may leave the Shiite majority too much power.

(Does that really equal being "not unified?" We have laws all the time that the states from the region of New England may worry give too many resources to the farm states, the south worries about the Western states, there are all sorts of regional tensions all the time -- that means there are political tensions within a federal system, not that we aren't "unified." You don't have to be in perfect agreement to be "unified.")

You gotta love these guys:

France and Germany had pressed for language giving the Iraqis a veto over participation in combat operations that they objected to, but in the end the two nations settled for an expanded paragraph that honored the Iraqis' right to take part in all security decisions "including policy on sensitive offensive operations." The reference was to military operations like those in Falluja and Najaf where Iraqis were unwilling to join allied troops in fighting.

Not willing to put their own troops into the mix, but they want us to give an Iraqi military everyone understands is unprepared to take on the job on its own (meaning, not yet fully qualified) the right to veto what our troops do under fire. Sure. That'll happen. And that would, I'm sure, have no impact on public support for the mission whatsoever. But the Times is reporting it straight.

Note that reporting that the resolution calls for elections in January is incorrect. Like the President's recent rhetoric, the resolution has included the wording "no later than."

Now, this is just a joke:

The United Nations will advise the Iraqis on the development of civil and social services, the coordination of relief and reconstruction efforts, and the protection of human rights.

Who will do the advising on human rights? The members of their human rights Commission, like China, Libya, Sudan? What will they teach them -- that refugees can be bombed if you are bold enough with the international community? Or that if you time it just right there's a pretty penny to be made selling the organs of executed prisoners, a trick even Saddam missed out on? Who will coordinate relief and reconstruction efforts? The same people who worked with Benon Sevan?

Spare us.

If the UN wants to send in the saintly souls who actually do the field work, that's fine. But God help the Third World country that gets "advise" from the Secretariat's bureaucracy.

Comments

[David M]

Check here (http://davidm.blogspot.com/2004/06/reuters-reports-on-un-resolution.html) for Reuters' take on the resolution. They are not by any means happy.

"UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to adopt a U.S.-British resolution that formally ends the occupation of Iraq on June 30 in a move hailed as an historic victory for the people of Iraq."

Oops, I forgot it was Reuters reporting the story. My bad. Here's how the article actually starts:

"UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to adopt a U.S.-British resolution that formally ends the occupation of Iraq on June 30 but few believed the action would stop the daily bloodshed."

I briefly descended into a dream world where Reuters would depict a positive story on Iraq as, well, a positive story on Iraq. I'm back now.