US Ambassador John Negroponte Asked UN to Send Help to Iraq

[DemBones DemBones]

I saw this on C-SPAN so no link.

"The Iraqi people and the coalition (sic) welcome and need the participation of the international community in these efforts to help bring security and stability to Iraq." Yadda yadda yadda. Discussion of attack on UN Embassy, that being their way to ask for help without having to eat too much crow, I suppose.

He was followed by British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry also calling for help from other nations.

[Khephra]

1. The two faces of Janus speaks

"We don't need the UN."

"We need your help, UN."

[gWbush is Mabus]

10. .

didn't Bush say that the UN is irrelevant?

[sujan]

16. yeah

decide already

:bounce:

[blm]

Yep....

this, after their declaration last week that they would NOT seek UN involvement. Bomb the UN and let them OFFER to bring in UN forces. Fockin' Bush. So gawddam predictable in their nefarious mindset.

[qb]

2. Yeah, you can support our illegal occupation...

but you sure as hell don't get any say in the future of Iraq.

[pw]

3. So what's in it for the UN?

As long as the same US crew is still in charge of the operation, it's just throwing more lives away.

[MaineDem]

5. Right

And I'm sure I read that the US won't give up control to the UN and some countries (Germany maybe?) said they'd only go in in under UN control. Between Iraq and a hard place... (I can't believe I typed that. )

[DemBones DemBones]

8. The Bush* Gang DESERVE to be

between Iraq and a hard place. :evilgrin:

(You made me laugh, even if I did groan, too!)

[lanlady]

4. The UN cannot be seen

as a tool of the US military. Otherwise they will permanently damage their status as a neutral international agent. Either the UN takes over the whole show in Iraq or it should stay out, except for humanitarian deliveries.

[cmd]

9. Absolutely correct

and we will owe them a huge amount for cleaning up after us.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. The French ambassador spoke after the British ambassador but

I didn't get to hear much of what he said. I did not hear him say "Oh, yes, we would love to help you, our wonderful American friends" but I also didn't hear him say "You must be joking, tete-de-merde."

Note: I don't really know how to swear en francais, beyond "Merde!" and "Sacre bleu!" but "tete-de-merde" sounds good to me. (Tete = head) Where's Tinoire when we need her? :shrug:

[Cocoa]

7. why do we need the "ineffective, irrelevant debating society?"

"The decision is this for the United Nations: When you say something, does it mean anything?" the president said. "Free nations will not allow the United Nations to fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/13/iraq/main540590.shtml

[Judi Lynn]

11. Negroponte, the knight in shining armor

He looked the other way while the Honduran gubmint tortured and murdered many, many, many innocent people.

He is dispised by many for his part as a player in the atrocities.

Here's information from Sister Laetitia Borders, who went to him for help in Honduras:

(snip) Negroponte



By Sister Laetitia Borders

John D. Negroponte, President Bush's nominee as the next ambassador to the United Nations? My ears perked up. I turned up the volume on the radio. I began listening more attentively. Yes, I had heard correctly. Bush was nominating Negroponte, the man who gave the CIA backed Honduran death squads open field when he was ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985.



My mind went back to May 1982 and I saw myself facing Negroponte in his office at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa. I had gone to Honduras on a fact-finding delegation. We were looking for answers.



Thirty-two women had fled the death squads of El Salvador after the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 to take refuge in Honduras. One of them had been Romero's secretary. Some months after their arrival, these women were forcibly taken from their living quarters in Tegucigalpa, pushed into a van and disappeared. Our delegation was in Honduras to find out what had happened to these women.



John Negroponte listened to us as we exposed the facts. There had been eyewitnesses to the capture, and we were well read on the documentation that previous delegations had gathered.



Negroponte denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of these women. He insisted that the US Embassy did not interfere in the affairs of the Honduran government and it would be to our advantage to discuss the matter with the latter.



Facts, however, revealed quite the contrary. (snip/...)
http://www.change-links.org/Negroponte.htm

[DemBones DemBones]

14. JudiLyn, thanks for posting this. Not all of us are old enough to

remember Negroponte's past, and even among those who are old enough, no doubt there are people who missed the story on Negroponte or have forgotten it over the years. I will definitely read what the sister has to say about her experience with him because I don't know enough about him.

[ewagner]

18. Thanks for the link

I didn't know this.

[dani]

12. reality therapy for Bush & Co.

I still remember reading (in Newsweek) quite some time ago, a UN official predicted Bush & Co's attitude (about the UN being irrelevant) would be tempered by "reality therapy".

[DemBones DemBones]

13. Just remembered what Jim Hightower said about Iraq this a.m.

on C-SPAN. He brought up the old Texas saying that when you discover that the hole you're digging is getting too deep, the first thing to do is stop digging.

[ewagner]

15. Combine this with Annan's statement

of yesterday "There won't be any blue hats in Iraq" and Powell's earlier announcement of "four new members of the coalition" and I think you see the gaming going on here.

Annan knows that the US will never,ever give up control in Iraq and therefore what help the US gets will be from countries who are either bribed or economically blackmailed into helping. There won't be any formal UN declaration. Negroponte is only using the UN as a bullhorn to convince the voters of the United States that the Bush administration is making a serious attempt at "internationalizing" post war Iraq. Its counterfeit just like the attempts to get UN approval before the war

[0007]

17. I'd like to see some help

to remove this Iran/Contra thug to the Hague where he belongs

Why can't junior use a little diplomacy to ask for help? Of course he'd be the laughing stock of the world after his famous "We'll go it alone" rhetoric. Better yet let's get that other Nixon bugger named Henry Kissinger to ask for help. Maybe Chile would kick in some troops, 'eh? I mean to shoot the assassin.

[Judi Lynn]

19. DemBones DemBones and ewagner

If you're interested in reading more about this right-wing beloved beastie, John Negroponte, this might help:

(snip) In March, 2001, George W. Bush nominated John Negroponte for U.N. Ambassador. This is a further step to bring back the Iran-Contra figures, and those on the periphery of that dark period of our history when we were heavily involved with Latin American countries against the will of their people, in an attempt to gloss over the participation of the first Bush, whose pardon of Iran-Contra figures such as Elliott Abrams and Caspar Weinberger right before their trials may, according to many people, be the reason that the Elder Bush was never criminally prosecuted.

In early 1981, then ambassador Jack Binns, Carter-appointed to Honduras, made numerous complaints about human rights abuses by the Honduran military. Reagan then replaced Carter, and in response to Jack Binns' complaints and concerns about murders and disappearances, called him home and replaced him with John Negroponte.

Negroponte served as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, a period during which U.S. military aid to Honduras grew from $4 million to $77.4 million. Accusations abounded against the U.S.-backed military regime for violations against human rights in Honduras. Reports suggest more than 100 people disappeared, with a special intelligence unit called Battalion 316 at the center of the controversy. The question senators have for Negroponte is why he didn't raise concerns. Negroponte denies having knowledge of any wrongdoing. It has been suggested that the vast amount of evidence and testimony supporting the human rights violations would have required that Mr. Negroponte live in total isolation not to have noticed the crimes that had so disturbed Jack Binns. Later, the Honduras Commission on Human Rights accused Mr. Negroponte himself of human rights violations. (snip/...)

http://www.geocities.com/ravencrazy/Negroponte.html

[AnnabelLee]

20. This is the building block

for the spin: It's not bushco's fault that American troops are dying in Iraq, it's the UN's fault, those traitorous furriners.:eyes:

[grasswire]

21. I think.....

....Bush referred to the U.N. as a "debating society."

[ewagner]

23. that's exactly

the spin that they want to put on this. First make the conditions for UN involvement so terrible that the UN cannot agree, and then blame them for not agreeing.

Good catch!

[Spazito]

22. I put the odds of the UN agreeing to help at....

ummmm, about the same as Gary Coleman becoming governor of California.