| Does ANYONE on these boards think that he United Nations is a worthwhile organization? Should it be abolished or not?
An interview with former Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14471
Inside the Asylum
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 4, 2004
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Jed Babbin, the former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. A contributing editor of The American Spectator Magazine and a contributor to National Review Online, he is the author of the new book Inside the Asylum: Why the United Nations and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think (available from the FrontPage Bookstore for a special offer of $19.95).
FP: Mr. Babbin, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview. It is a pleasure to have you with us.
Babbin: It's my pleasure entirely.
FP: Tell our readers why you have titled your book “Inside the Asylum.”
Babbin: One definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way again and again and expecting different results. By that definition, the UN is an asylum, and America is one of the inmates. We keep trying with the UN but the result is always the same: we become stuck in a quagmire of diplomacy. The point is that the UN's mission -- as seen by many of its members - is not to solve threats to peace, but to constrain the United States from pursuing its interests.
FP: Could you give us a little glimpse into the outrageous Oil-for-Food program that you discuss in your book?
Babbin: The program itself wasn't outrageous, but what the UN and Saddam did with it was. The program was the only way Saddam was supposed to be able to sell oil. He was to use the proceeds to purchase food and humanitarian supplies (such as medical supplies) to benefit the Iraqi people. But the Iraqis managed to bribe many -- in the UN bureaucracy and -- apparently -- in UN member governments with the oil sales. At least ten billion dollars were stolen, and much of the food and medical supplies that were bought weren't fit for human consumption. As I explained to the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, the UN is not even allowing us to see its internal papers. Imagine if an American company pulled that stunt. The leadership would be marched off to jail, quick time.
FP: Inside the Asylum tells the story of how France and the United Nations have cost American lives in Iraq. Please give us the general theme.
Babbin: President Bush has established a policy of pre-empting terrorist attacks on the United States. To be successful in pre-emption, we must retain the advantage of surprise. Terrorists move quickly, and can easily disappear before our forces arrive if they have a warning. The UN provides that warning. We went into Afghanistan without so much as a "by your leave" to the UN, and we dealt with the Taliban decisively. As we did in Iraq, if we spend months fiddling and diddling in the UN, pre-emption cannot work.
In fact, the UN quagmire is the antithesis of pre-emption. We have to choose between them. In Iraq, we played the UN game for six months. Zarquawi -- the head al-Qeda operative in Iraq -- was there no later than September 02. We gave him six months to plan the insurgency that is now taking American lives. France is one of the principal malefactors in the UN quagmire. But there is worse, much worse. We know now that France was selling arms to Saddam during the UN arms embargo, and that these arms were used against American troops. On top of that, France was passing intelligence information we allowed them to share right to Saddam. They'd done the same thing in Bosnia.
FP: The French are pathetic. What exactly is their problem? Has anti-Americanism become so pathological in France that they would rather side with despots and religious fascists than be on our side for democracy?
Babbin: The French are congenitally uncooperative, but that's not half the problem. They have sunk into a level of decadence unseen since Madame Guillotine made her first appearance in 1792. Where we see terrorist regimes -- such as Syria -- they see trading partners. The whole thing boils down to their anti-Americanism. France sees the world as a zero-sum game. For them to grow, they think, we have to diminish. What they refuse to see is that no matter how strong we are individually, we are stronger when we work together.
FP: Why do you think anti-Americanism has become such a large force in the world?
Babbin: First off, I don' think anti-Americanism is as big as many in the media say it is. To the extent it exists, and it clearly does, there are several reasons. First, in large parts of the Arab world, it's convenient to blame us for their self-generated problems. Next, in Old Europe, there is the fear of history. They don't see that an American superpowe |
