Hosting Problems

It would appear that my hosting company is having some sort of problem. They are trying to figure out what is slowing this site down to a crawl. If you think it's hard to get to load, you should see what it's like to try to post on right now. I think they plan to try to reboot the server.

Indicting Annan

A blistering indictment of Kofi Annan is in the Times of London today. It details downright criminal behavior by the outgoing leader of the UN both during his tenure in his current office and in his previous job as head of UN Peacekeeper operations. It is utterly damning.

Srebrenica is rarely mentioned nowadays in Annan’s offices on the 38th floor of the UN secretariat building in New York. He steps down in December after a decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence, mismanagement and worse. Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) between March 1993 and December 1996. The Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 men and boys and the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda happened on his watch. In Bosnia and Rwanda, UN officials directed peacekeepers to stand back from the killing, their concern apparently to guard the UN’s status as a neutral observer. This was a shock to those who believed the UN was there to help them.

Annan’s term has also been marked by scandal: from the sexual abuse of women and children in the Congo by UN peacekeepers to the greatest financial scam in history, the UN-administered oil-for-food programme. Arguably, a trial of the UN would be more apt than a leaving party.

The charge sheet would include guarding its own interests over those it supposedly protects; endemic opacity and lack of accountability; obstructing investigations, promoting the inept and marginalising the dedicated. Such accusations can be made against many organisations. But the UN is different. It has a moral mission.

It was founded by the allies in 1945 to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights”. Its key documents – the Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the genocide convention – are the most advanced formulation of human rights in history. And they have been flouted by UN member states for decades.

A more specific charge would be that, under the doctrine of command responsibility, the UN is guilty of war crimes. Broadly speaking, it has three principles: that a commander ordered atrocities to be carried out, that he failed to stop them, despite being able to, or failed to punish those responsible. The case rests on the second, that in Rwanda in 1994, in Srebrenica in 1995 and in Darfur since 2003, the UN knew war crimes were occurring or about to occur, but failed to stop them, despite having the means to do so.

This is a very long, very thorough indictment of Annan's years in office, It is appalling.

Clear Signals

President Bush signed a bill passed by Congress that directs economic sanctions against countries that are providing nuclear technology or advanced weapons systems to Iran. This would be a rather obvious, pointed warning to Russia and China that there could be repercussions for continuing to block efforts to rein in Iran.

The measure, passed by the Senate Saturday after clearing the House of Representatives a day earlier, came as Iran and the European Union are engaged in delicate negotiations designed to persuade Iran to halt its enrichment work and avoid a major international showdown.

"I applaud Congress for demonstrating its bipartisan commitment to confronting the Iranian regime's repressive and destabilizing activities by passing the Iran Freedom Support Act," Bush said in a statement.

"This legislation will codify US sanctions on Iran while providing my administration with flexibility to tailor those sanctions in appropriate circumstances and impose sanctions upon entities that aid the Iranian regime's development of nuclear weapons," he said.

Mindful of the situation in Iraq, lawmakers warned that nothing in this document should be "construed as authorizing the use of force against Iran."

"My administration is working on many fronts to address the challenges posed by the Iranian regime's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, support for terrorism, efforts to destabilize the Middle East and repression of the fundamental human rights of the citizens of Iran," Bush said.

"We are engaged in intense diplomacy alongside our allies, and have also undertaken financial measures to counter the actions of the Iranian regime," he said.

Although it does not name any countries, the measure is seen as a clear warning to Russia and China, two permanent members of the UN Security Council that have resisted calls for new international sanctions against Tehran in response to its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

Russia is involved in an 800-million-dollar project to help Iran build a nuclear power plant in Bushehr and sells it modern weaponry. China has been accused of supplying the Islamic republic with advanced missile technology.

"This act also provides important new authority for the administration to block financial transactions related to Iran's weapons of mass destruction programs and encourages the administration to use all available leverage over Russia to gain Russian support for multilateral sanctions against Iran," said US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Economic levers against Russia and China may make them realize that they have much more to lose by supporting Iran than they will gain. The whole world, Russia and China included, have a lot to lose if Iran gets nuclear weapons.

Atta Video is released

The Time of London has posted the video. Also on the tape are Ziad Jarrah, the United Flight 93 hijacker pilot and Ramzi Binalshibh,  who coordinated of the September 11 attacks. He shared an apartment in Hamburg with Mohammed Atta, and was arrested in Pakistan four years ago.

Because there is no soundtrack, there is no way to tell what is being said. Undoubtedly the 9/11 conspiracy theorists will seize up this to "prove" something or other.