The American Spectator

Loose Canons

First in fraud, last in peace and utterly divorced from reality, the U.N. was hard at work this week. Applying its infallible pro-terrorism instinct and in its never-ending quest to be taken seriously, the U.N. again took a firm stand in favor of terrorism and against the measures democracies may take to defend themselves from it while reaching a state of near-panic over U.S. objections to its "reform" agenda. Neatly packaged by General Assembly president Jean Ping of Gabon, the agenda is old globaloney in a new package. When our newly arrived Ambassador John Bolton posed strong objections to about 400 passages of this nonsense, the U.N.'s media enablers began to harrumph at the fact that there were only a few weeks left until the September 14 summit that is supposed to adopt this mess. Never mind that these objections had been made many times before Bolton got there. Kofi and Ko. should take their complaints about the lateness of Bolton's input to Joe Biden and Chris Dodd.

Mr. Bolton's objections to the Ping package forcefully restated objections to reforms that have nothing to do with solving the U.N.'s obvious problems, and are nothing more than old U.N. frolics and detours we've already rejected enthusiastically, such as imposition of the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto "global warming" treaty. New ideas also having nothing to with reforms are included, such as Kofi's idea that every developed nation donate 0.7% of its GNP to U.N. administration of Third World "relief" and "development." For us, this would amount to about $67 billion per year, which fortuitously equals the total funds that passed through the U.N.'s seven-year oil-for-food-for-bribes-for-weapons scam. This huge tax on America would not, of course, be accompanied by any U.N. financial accounting reforms. The only element so far lacking is to get Benon Sevan back to run the new fund.

Mr. Bolton's objections to the phony reforms have the U.N. rabble, and their media enablers, in a froth. Their very real fear is that if the "reforms" aren't adopted, Americans will continue to demand serious solutions to what's obviously wrong with the U.N. But if the Ping Package can be passed, the world will acclaim the Secretary General as The Great Reformer Who Saved the U.N. and the despots and dictators, rogues and terrorists will get back to monkey business as usual at Turtle Bay. Which will mean trying to turn a deaf ear to what that bad old loose cannon John Bolton may complain about. There is nothing in the Ping package that means anything: nothing to define terrorism, far less fight it; no financial accounting reforms to prevent another Oil for Food-style embezzlement; nothing of value except a proposal to reform the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which both China and Russia have already said they won't allow to pass. Bolton can't make these reforms fail because they already have. It would be far better for Ping's package to sink, and for the U.N. members to be cornered into facing some of their real problems, such as Manfred Nowak and its human rights sham.

Mr. Nowak is the U.N. Human Rights Commission's "special rapporteur on torture." As such, he naturally believes he is entitled to tell the British government what it can and cannot do. According to the August 25 Guardian, Nowak "...threatened to cite the British government for violation of human rights over its planned deportations of alleged terrorist sympathizers." The U.N. Commission on Human Rights released Nowak's statement, saying that the Brits' decision to obtain written assurances from receiving countries that the deportees wouldn't be mistreated didn't provide the deported thugs more protection than they already have under treaties signed by the receiving nations such as Libya, Syria, Jordan, and Algeria that are already obligated to not torture people. (Methinks Nowak let that one slip. Sounds like a tacit admission that those nations are both signatories of the U.N. treaties against torture and some of the world's worst abusers of human rights. But I digress.)

If you look at some of the crew the Brits are trying to expel, the only conclusion you can reach is that the U.N. now thinks terrorists and their faux-religious enablers are some new oppressed minority deserving of special protection by the nations they seek to destroy. A day before Nowak began the latest pro-terrorist U.N. op, the Daily Telegraph published brief profiles of some of them: Sheiks Yusuf al-Quaradawi and Omar Bakri Mohammed, and Messrs. Mohammed al-Massari and Abu Qatada.

Qatar-based al-Qaradawi is notable for his defense of using children as suicide bombers, and preaching peace in terms such as, "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America." He will also be remembered unfondly for having said that the lives and property of non-Muslims are not protected under Islamic law.

Bakri Mohammed, the so-called "Tottenham Ayatollah," is just as interested in peaceful assimilation of Muslims in Western democracies as is al-Qaradawi. A Syrian who moved to Britain after being thrown out of Saudi Arabia, Bakri Mohammed, said, "I believe September 11 was a direct response to the evil American policy in the Muslim world," and "Why (sic) I condemn Osama bin Laden for? I condemn Tony Blair. I condemn George Bush. I would never condemn Osama bin Laden or any Muslims." He also blamed the British government for the July 7 London bombings.

Saudi Mohammed al-Masri is someone the Brits have been trying to get rid of since 1996, and have been blocked by their own courts. He openly supports fundraising for terrorist groups and has said of Osama bin Laden, "He's a fighter and fighting according to his beliefs... Anyone who fights according to his beliefs is a hero."

Palestinian Abu Qatada is reportedly bin Laden's "right hand man in Europe," and remains in Britain claiming political asylum, having obtained entry with a forged passport. He was arrested in 2001 under the British Anti-Terrorism Act, but was set free by the Brit courts. Formerly one of the preachers at the infamous Finsbury Park mosque, he is believed to have been an advisor to shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zaccarias Moussaoui, who is the only person charged in U.S. courts for the 9-11 attacks. In one statement he said, "The time for victory is near. All over the world, Muslims are sacrificing more and contributing more to the struggle. May Allah accept us all to be slaughtered." Qatada is under a life sentence in Jordan for terrorist attacks there in 1998 and for a Millennium bomb plot.

These four are among the terrorists and terrorist-supporters the British want to expel, and the U.N. wants to force them to keep. The U.N. denies the obvious truths British Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, said in response to Manfred Nowak: "The human rights of those people who were blown up on the tube in London on July 7 are, to be frank, more important than the human rights of the people who committed those acts." Or the people who encourage, excuse and proclaim the heroism of terrorism, such as al-Qaradawi, Bakri Mohammed, al-Massari, and Qadata.

Terrorists and those who aid and abet them, including those who instruct and exhort others to join their cause, are not an oppressed minority. It is the ultimate irony for them to demand protection under the constitutions and systems of law they seek to replace with their own tyranny by mass murder. Those who can be deported must be, regardless of how they may be treated at their next port of call. That's their problem, not ours or Britain's. Maybe we're being too harsh. Maybe we, and the Brits, should have a change of heart and send these guys somewhere else. How about France?

TAS contributing editor Jed Babbin is the author of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think (Regnery, 2004).

topics:
Joe Biden, Business, Islam, Global Warming, Books, Constitution, Law, Russia, NATO, Oil