by Michael G. Mickey
(9-14-09)

The Financial Times is reporting the following, in part:

Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council.

The topic for the summit-level session of the council on September 24 is nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament – one of several global challenges that the US now wants to see addressed at a multinational level.

“The council has a very important role to play in preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and it’s the world’s principal body for dealing with global security cooperation,” Susan Rice, US envoy to the UN, said last week.

The U.N. is the world's principal body for dealing with global security cooperation, huh? Could've fooled me!

The United Nations, in case there's anyone left on earth who doesn't know it, is highly anti-American and anti-Israel. And its ever-growing record, in terms of providing for 'global security'? Laughable at best! We need look no further than its impotence in dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program that has been going on for years now, full steam ahead no less, to know that, but let's look at its excellent work on another front, namely the lack of prowess of its peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon).

On UNIFIL's website we're told that its present role includes monitoring "the cessation of hostilities" between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as accompanying and supporting the Lebanese army "as they deploy throughout the south of Lebanon." In spite of this, UNIFIL, knowing some 10 days in advance that Israel was going to be attacked via rockets from Lebanon, apparently did nothing to prevent this past Friday's attack on northern Israel other than notifying the Lebanese army.

According to Ynet News, witnesses inside Lebanon reported that four men arrived at a forest near the village of al-Kalila and planted three rockets, then set a timer and fled the scene. If this information is accurate, this is a reasonably clear indication that neither the Lebanese army nor UNIFIL, knowing over a week in advance that a rocket attack on Israel was going to occur, was able to prevent or deter it from happening. Additionally, it raises the question of whether either party was greatly concerned by the matter, there being no indications I'm aware of that either party was actively trying to stop the attacks when they occurred. Little wonder it is that, in the aftermath, Israel filed a complaint with the United Nations, indicating the Lebanese government was responsible for the incident. Personally, I think Israel should've complained to the U.N. that UNIFIL wasn't more active in preventing the incident in accordance with their website's stated mission in Lebanon as well! They're equally to blame, in my opinion.

During Saddam Hussein's final years in power, the United Nations was as effective at keeping him in line as it presently is in dealing with the situations in Iran and Lebanon and yet we're to believe that the U.N. is the "world's principal body for dealing with global security cooperation"? It's sad bordering on pathetic that we're expected to do so, is it not? And then, to beat it all, the president of the United States, for the first time ever, is going to pump some hot air into the U.N.'s sails by chairing its Security Council later this month, at a time when the U.S. economy is struggling and the U.N. is trying to derail the dollar no less! God help us!

Adding further insult to injury, President Obama is going to do this after United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was in New York City on September 11th, snubbed all events memorializing the victims of 9/11, choosing instead to "attend a local book party honoring the International Civil Service Commission (a part of the U.N. bureaucracy) and issue a statement hailing ozone preservation."

Conclusion

When President Obama chairs the U.N. Security Council near the end of the month, he may think he's doing something beneficial to the United States and the world by cementing U.S. - U.N. relations, but he won't be. What he'll be doing is buddying up to a body largely comprised of nations that would like nothing more than to fill Uncle Sam's boots with cement and sink him into the East River. (Ditto where Israel is concerned, as if that needs to be said.)