BUSH, THE UN, AND SPIN
David Adesnik compares the NYT and WaPo accounts of the Bush and Annan remarks at the UN today to the actual remarks by Bush and Annan and founds both papers wanting.
David Adesnik compares the NYT and WaPo accounts of the Bush and Annan remarks at the UN today to the actual remarks by Bush and Annan and founds both papers wanting.
Kind of weird. There’s certainly a lot more to this than reported – who knows what’s said in the back rooms and off the record.
On the record of preemptive war, the UN and Annan have always been consistent on this. The only time you can take preemptive action is through multilateral action. It’s been a red herring all along to say that the UN has been solidly against this. It’s the single nation taking unilateral preemptive action which the UN is specifically against – heck, it’s even in their charter.
So, while it may be news to the right side of American politics, it simply ain’t news to the rest of us.
Just as an aside, that’s one of the reasons discussing the war can be so frustrating for the left. After all, aren’t we the big fans of nation building and humanitarian intervention? 🙂
You may recall that the UN Security Council certainly had ample opportunity to take multilatral pre-emptive action in the forms they agreed upon in their own resolutions. When asked to follow through, certain members of the UNSC effectively refused to do so under any circumstances (‘”No matter what the circumstances we will vote ‘no,'” Chirac said in a televised interview.’). That pretty much meant that either we acted “unilaterally” with a coalition of nations who were willing to help or not act at all.
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