http://tomfriedmann.wordpress.com/

This Blog has moved home. You can now find the same good hardline political analysis in the new improved surroundings of Wordpress.

The UN will remain a negative force in the world as long as it allows itself to be Hijacked by Tyranny

For many the UN serves as the ultimate moral arbiter on the International stage. Regularly in debates on foreign affairs you can hear the resolutions and statements of the UN being invoked as if they carried the unquestionable authority of God. And yet the reality is that the UN operates a level of hypocrisy that is proving lethally dangerous for thousands of innocent victims all over the world. For while the world's democracies find themselves in the dock at the UN Human Rights Council, the worst atrocities are going uncommented upon while those Governments perpetrating them are legitimised and rewarded by the UN as they sit in Judgement of the Defence policies of the Governments of the Free world.

Indeed it is not simply the Foreign policy of democratic Governments that come under attack but their Domestic arrangements also. Time and time again the UN has witnessed motions from Islamic nations condemning the free press of the West accusing it of defaming Islam, this of course coming from the diplomats of countries whose State controlled media carry the most luridly anti-Semitic cartoons. And while the floor of the UN chamber is thrown open to those denying the Genocide in Darfur and attempting to silence NGOs that attempt to expose the truth about these atrocitie,s the UN congratulates itself on the wonderful job that its 'Peace' keeping forces in Southern Lebanon have done, hence why the Security Council has unanimously voted to extended their stay in the region. And yet the truth is that the UN forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have acted as a blanket under which the genocidal Islamic terror organisation, Hizbollah, has re-armed to a level that puts their military capabilities on par with some States in the Middle East. Whereas in 2006, during its last assault on Israel's civilian population centres, Hizbollah had 14,000 fighters it now has 30,000 and whereas back then it had 15,000 rockets it now has 40,000 which, thanks to generous Syrian support, can now reach deeper into Israel than ever before. The very re-armament that the UN forces were sent to Lebanon to prevent has been so extensive that Hizbollah now has fortified military positions embedded in over 160 Lebanese villages.

Yet this kind of failure to be effective on the ground is nothing new or unusual for UN forces. While the 1994 Rwandan Genocide may be the most infamous example of UN troops standing by and looking on as the very people they had been sent to protect were slaughtered in their thousands, this is by no means the last example of such shocking complicity. Only just in August of this year did Rwandan and Congolese rebels rape over 200 wmen and children in Eastern Congo. After three weeks the UN peace keeping mission to the Congo has still failed to make any official Statement on the incident but the lack of comment on their part is nowhere near as damning as the fact that it was this very same mission that was posted in the area that they knew to be occupied by the rebels that stood back and failed to make any kind of attempted intervention in these shocking events.

Indeed even the most casual glance over some of the atrocities committed around the world in the past twelve moths reveals to just what an appalling extent the UN is failing to fulfill even the most basic elements of its own self proclaimed mission. Indeed under the Vienna Declaration all UN members pledged to defend human rights including the right to life. And yet.....

June 2009: Tehran dozens of protesters killed.

July: China troops fire on Muslim Wiga protesters 200 killed.

August: Russia two foreign aid workers killed in Chechnya with suspected Government complicity.

September: Yemen government bombs refugee camp killing 80.

October: Terrorists attack a Mosque killing the Iman and 14 others.

November: Philippines 57 opposition activists murdered.

December: Iran protesters met with live ammunition, beatings and arrests; 10 killed.

January: Pakistan 182 civilians killed in terror attacks.

February: Afghanistan Taliban attack kills 18 including medical workers.

March: Nigeria 500 Christians killed in religiously motivated attacks.

April: Kirghistan troops fire on demonstrators with 84 being slaughtered.

May: Libya executes 18 foreigners without proper trial.

The UN Human Rights Council reaction to all of these crimes? Silence!

And yet the emergency sessions and investigations that these violations failed to merit was exactly the response witnessed when Israel defended itself against the Gaza flotilla weapons smugglers; killing 9 self declared Jihadis with the HRC holding an urgent debate, issuing a condemnatory resolution and establishing yet another unimpartial investigation.

As long as the UN continues to allow itself to be used by the tyrannies and human rights abusers of the developing world against the Democracies and free societies of the West the UN will continue to act as a facilitator for supporting and legitimising the worst crimes perpetrated against human beings. If the UN is to have any hope as serving as a genuinely moral forum for the world's nations then those with terrible human rights records must be prevented from having any influence over the UN's processes and only those countries with authentic functioning Democracies should be given any real say over UN rulings. However for as long as the UN remains in its present form it will continue to serve for a tool for dictatorships to continue delegitimising and weakening the free world in the face of tyranny.

Once more Israel finds itself paying a bloody price for American ‘Peace’ dellusions

You really don't have to be an expert in the recent events of the Middle East to have been able to predict what might happen if yet another round of unwanted Peace talks was imposed on the Palestinians, but then Obama really is no expert. For Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority who is now well overdue in his electoral term, the status quo could hardly have been better. With a freeze on Jews building in the West Bank, Israeli security forces significantly pulled back in Palestinian areas, the Palestinian Economy experiencing unprecedented growth and copious amounts world sympathy, legitimacy and money all flowing in his direction, Abbas really has very little interest in seeking his rather cushy arrangement shaken up. No surprise then that Abbas set so many demands and preconditions before he would be so gracious as to even talk directly with the Israelis. Indeed at one point the Palestinian President's demands were essentially just setting the outcome of the negotiations before they'd even began, something which threatened them ever getting off of the ground in the first place.

Yet a general unwillingness to cooperate with negotiations is the least of problems with brash American attempts to impose negotiations on the two parties. Every round of so called Peace talks in the past has been marred by the murderous campaigns of Palestinian terror groups. And it didn't take miraculous levels of clairvoyance to foresee that the relative quiet Israelis and Palestinians have enjoyed in recent months would be brought to an abrupt end by so called Peace talks clumsily forced by Obama. Yet few could have predicted this intolerably familiar pattern of violence would be resurrected so soon.

Hamas however has wasted no time in attempting to derail even the slim hopes that these talks would succeed. Tuesday saw the grisly attack on an Israeli car near Hebron leading to the murder of the four passengers, including a pregnant woman. And the following day there was yet another shooting on an Israeli civilian vehicle in which two were badly injured. And while the media continues to peddle Palestinian excuses about Jewish settlements the reality is that Jewish settlers have seen normal life in their communities put on hold, the Israeli security measures formerly in place to protect them irresponsibly pulled back and now find themselves sitting targets for Palestinian terrorists desiring to foil attempts for peace.

What Hamas apologists in Britain and elsewhere will make of these attacks and the huge celebratory rallies that have accompanied them in Gaza is anyone's guess, although the capacity of Israel's enemies in the West to attempt to justify the murder of civilians and attack Israel's attempt to defend its population never ceases to amaze. And no doubt also of amazement to many, if only the media were to cover it, would be how in recent days the streets of the Palestinian city Ramallah has witnessed large crowds of Palestinians actually demonstrating against the Peace talks. A dark secret for such news agencies as the BBC.

How much more violence these ill conceived attempts for peace will unleash is hard to tell, but we can only hope that it will not be seen on the same horrendous scale witnessed with Oslo and Camp David.