News

Megadeth targets United Nations on new album
2006 08 24

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Heavy metal maven Dave Mustaine is so angry with the United Nations that he is naming his group Megadeth’s next album “United Abominations.”

“I was watching TV and saw the trucks that said ‘UN’ on them and said, ‘Man, you are so uncool, ineffective, anything,” the singer/guitarist said in a recent Billboard interview.

“I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got to run with this. I got it—United Abominations, ‘cause it’s an abomination what they’re doing!”

The longtime bane of American conservatives, the United Nations has been criticized for its slow responses to humanitarian crises in hot spots such as Darfur and Rwanda. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan recently expressed frustration that the group took so long to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon.

Mustaine said Megadeth is putting the finishing touches on the album, its debut for indie label Roadrunner Records, and it should be ready “some time next year.”

“We’re taking our time with this one,” Mustaine said. “It’s a great feeling to make a record and not have our feet held to the fire. One of my heroes growing up was Kiss, but they really frustrated me ‘cause they would put out a record just about every year. I couldn’t figure that out. I pretty much have a cycle of about 18 months to 24 months between records. I just can’t put them out any quicker than that and feel comfortable about them.”

Megadeth’s last album, “The System Has Failed,” was released by Sanctuary in 2004.

Mustaine expects Megadeth to tour heavily in support of “United Abominations,” perhaps into 2008. In the meantime, the group is gearing up for the September 6 start of the second Gigantour traveling heavy metal festival in Boise. The tour, which also features Lamb of God, Opeth and Arch Enemy, runs through October 8 in Orlando, Fla.

The United Nations is a millstone around the neck of the U.S.
2006 08 15

by Kevin Roeten
published August 15, 2006 12:15 am

People constantly complain about the deficit, and how the Iraq war has eliminated the surplus. They refuse to believe that government revenue has increased every time a tax cut has been enacted. The kicker though, for those who will remove partisan blinders, is expenditures. And the UN is one, big, hairy expenditure.

Sure, the deficit is decreasing to where a surplus is expected in the next five years. But expenditures increase every year. One stands out, not only because of its sheer magnitude, but because of its immorality. This huge millstone around America’s neck is the United Nations.

Americans are coming to realize that the UN is not the organization once trusted — even revered. Signs of decay are obvious. In their Human Rights Council, they included Cuba, Zimbabwe and Sudan. The United States was removed from the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCHR) for the first time since 1947 in favor of Sudan. The Commission’s officials have already confirmed Sudan’s involvement in slavery. Members with poor human rights records include Algeria, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Both China and Saudi Arabia are gross violators of human rights. China has a documented record of forced abortions and sterilizations. Other members are frequently guilty of imposing birth control, and denying the right to life in certain circumstances. In fact, the UN considers abortion formally established as a defacto ‘‘right.’’ If you take a cursory look at the UN alleged social programs, you’ll also find them granting UN ‘‘NGO’’ status to homosexual activist groups.

Certainly the UN’s Oil for Food scandal is public knowledge. Even in 2004, Gary Halbert (InvestorsInsight) succinctly said: “The nature and scope of these abuses were so grievous and so widespread that the Oil for Food program may well have been the greatest financial scandal of the last 100 years.” Halbert continued to delineate UN’s hypocrisy as they loudly criticized our efforts in the war on terror as inhumane, yet at the same time skimmed millions from the program, depriving the Iraqi people of needed food and medicine. It seems obvious that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was bad for certain countries’ business.

Fred Gedrich (Senior Analyst/ Freedom Alliance) believes that “the UN created an environment where Saddam could funnel large sums of money to terrorists … to the detriment of humanity and civilization …” This was the clinching connection between al-Qaida and Hussein, and recently translated Iraqi documents confirm it. There was very little UN opposition to U.S. military action in Afghanistan, but the UN protested loudly when the U.S. went into Iraq — despite Hussein denying UN resolutions for a decade.

The UN has had a history of anti-American activity. Despite 14 resolutions demanding that Hussein comply, the UN was very negative to his outing by the Allies. Flaws in the Oil-for-Food program: 1) all deals were confidential between Hussein and the UN, 2) Hussein would select the parties who would buy the Iraqi oil, and 3) he would select the suppliers of the humanitarian aid.

But now, the U.S. GAO estimates that Hussein skimmed as much as $10 million from the program. It all went either directly to Hussein, or to supporters of his regime. We know at least 50 countries had benefited.

At the top, Russia, with four pages of entries detailing voucher recipients that total over a billion barrels of crude. Now we know why Russians opposed the war in Iraq from the very beginning. France, also opposing the war, was second with oil vouchers for 150.8 million barrels.

Syria was third with 14 names accounting for 116.9 million barrels. Remember, Syria was even announced in the book by Iraqi General Gorges Sadaas (Saddam’s Secrets) as the beneficiary of most of Hussein’s WMDs before the invasion.

The U.S. pays for 31.7 percent of peacekeeping and other UN missions.

The next highest: Japan, at 12.5 percent.

We should keep in mind that the D.O.D. incurs hundreds of millions every year for U.S. military participation in missions not reimbursed by the UN. The UN budget in 2004-05 was $3.608 billion. It is estimated that the U.S. contribution in (just) 2003 was well over $3 billion.

Let’s back up for just a second. The U.S. already contributes billions to such disasters as the African AIDS crisis, Mideast peacekeeping, the Indonesian tsunami, Katrina (last year), etc., etc… Now the U.S. is supposed to give billions more for an agency who never backs up its own resolutions, allows Hussein to starve his own people, was anti-American during the Iraq invasion that outed certain countries on the take in Oil-for-Food, destroyed the 4,000 year-old institution of marriage, envisions human rights as a joystick, has determined that the killing of the unborn is a right, and has dramatically less power than NATO?

Remind me that the next person who yells ‘‘deficit’’ better have his priorities put in order.

Originally from New Orleans, Kevin Roeten has a B.S. from Louisiana Tech in chemical engineering. He lives in south Asheville.

To view this article online click here.

The UN Fails Freedom - Again
2006 08 11

Common Sense

by

Oliver North

“The UN Fails Freedom - Again”

Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, August 9th, when Israel finally launched a major ground operation into Lebanon aimed at crushing Hezbollah terrorists, there was a collective gasp from the striped pants set at UN Headquarters in New York. But this offensive wouldn’t have been necessary if the unaccountable, America-bashing, Jew-hating, tea sippers at the United Nations had the integrity to act in accord with their own charter.

Over a month ago, Hezbollah terrorists crossed the Lebanese border, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and started a daily barrage of Iranian-supplied rockets, missiles, even sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles against Israeli towns and cities. All but ignored by the so-called “western media” – more than 1,500 Israeli casualties inflicted by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s “rain of steel.”

For thirty days, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) responded with air and naval strikes and limited ground operations against known and suspected Hezbollah positions in Lebanon – and were pummeled in the press for a “disproportionate response.” The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, naively hoping for a “forceful international reaction” to Hezbollah’s aggression, adopted a “go-slow” approach and reigned in the IDF. To some, Mr. Olmert’s caution appeared wise. It was not.

On August 4, Kofi Annan’s flaks leaked word to willing press puppets that a “diplomatic breakthrough” had been achieved to “end the conflict in Lebanon.” In fact – Washington and Paris had reached only a tentative agreement on the general shape and size of a multi-national force (MNF) to “supplement” the Lebanese Army and the ineffective UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). But on August 8th, Mr. Olmert learned what he should have known all along – the UN will not stand up to Iranian supported and directed terrorism.

Four days after promoting a UN accord that would “end the bloodshed,” the deal was dead – shot in the head by Arab “leaders” who viewed a powerful, well-armed, European-led intervention force – along the lines of Kosovo in 1999 and today in Afghanistan – to be an “affront to Lebanese sovereignty.” The new UN proposal: an immediate cease-fire, withdrawal of all Israeli troops, followed by the introduction of 15,000 Lebanese Army soldiers along the border, “backed up” by the same UNIFIL contingent that had done nothing to stop Hezbollah aggression in the first place.

If Mr. Olmert was surprised at this outcome, he shouldn’t be. It’s just the latest in a long string of failed UN initiatives emanating from the most expensive debating club on the planet. Since Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon on 24 May 2000, there have been 40 UN Security Council Resolutions on “the Situation in the Middle East” – an average of one every two months. This year there have already been six – and none of them are worth the paper they are printed on to Hezbollah – or their masters in Tehran.

As Tom Kilgannon points out in his new book, “Diplomatic Divorce: Why America Should End Its Love Affair With the United Nations,” the UNIFIL contingent now being so highly touted in the big blue building in Turtle Bay, was established by UN Security Council 425 in 1978 “for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area.” Like so much else of what the UN does, it has been a miserable, impotent failure.

Based in Naqoura, Lebanon and commanded by French Major-General Alain Pellegrini, UNIFIL did indeed accurately report on the Israeli withdrawal – but did nothing to stop Iran and Syria from turning Hezbollah into the best armed terrorist force in the world. With an annual budget of $97.5 million and contingents from China, Ghana, India, Ireland, Italy and Poland, the blue helmets turned a blind eye to tens of thousands of Iranian weapons, rockets, anti-tank mines and missiles being trucked across the Syrian border into the Biqa’ Valley and offloaded from ships in Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese ports like Tyre. A month into a shooting war, the UN has yet to condemn Syrian and Iranian complicity in the carnage.

For proponents of “multilateralism,” the present conflict has been a missed opportunity to prove that the “international community” could respond in a coherent, forceful manner to a serious threat to peace. Unprovoked aggression, like the Hezbollah attacks that precipitated the present conflict, is after all, the raison d’etre for which the United Nations was created. Yet, the same day that the bodies of Iranian Revolutionary Guards were found among dead Hezbollah terrorists, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman proclaimed that, “Iran is a stabilizing factor in the Middle East.”

Confronted with diplomatic dithering and “globalist” lunacy such as this, the Israelis have belatedly decided to do what could not be done in the corridors of confusion at the UN – to crush Hezbollah’s military power. It’s likely to be a costly endeavor.

History and war are cruel pedants. Those who know too little of the former are likely to have too much of the latter. The Olmert government has learned the hard lesson that the UN can’t be counted on in the clinch. Hopefully, as we gauge Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, Washington has come to the same conclusion.

Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist and the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance.

To view this article online click here.

John Bolton Or Kofi Annan: A Time Of Choosing
2006 08 08

By Thomas P. Kilgannon
August 4, 2006

Because John Bolton is a blunt-spoken guy, Democrats believe they must rally their Rodney King - “can’t we all just get along” - constituency to defeat his nomination and force him to pack his bags and leave the United Nations once his recess appointment expires in December. In his place, they would like to send to the UN an American who - like too many previous U.S. Ambassadors - will allow themselves to be used as a doormat for the international riff-raff assembled in Turtle Bay.

The fight over John Bolton’s nomination is not about the man’s qualifications for the job - on that front Bolton wins hands down as the most qualified, most capable representative the United States has ever sent to the United Nations. His last fifteen months on the job demonstrate his ability and willingness to defend American interests against our fiercest antagonists.

What this fight is about is the amount of authority the competing interests in Washington are willing to give the United Nations. John Bolton’s skepticism of the UN is well documented and well deserved. But for liberals who have more faith in Kofi Annan that in George Bush, this mindset is troubling. Increasingly, the Political Left in America puts more faith in the United Nations than in their own government. They believe that the UN Charter is a higher authority than the United States Constitution.

Among Bolton’s many critics is Steve Clemons, a senior fellow and director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. Writing in the Huffington Post, Clemons says, “Why are we to believe that John Bolton, who has now had a lot of time on the clock, is any good at all at getting what America wants done at the UN? He has had no successes.”

But what Clemons and his liberal colleagues want is not what America wants—and they are trying to tag John Bolton with the failures of the United Nations.

The Washington Note, a liberal blog posted “Bolton’s Blunders” as “evidence” of his failure to protect U.S. interests at the UN. Let’s take a closer look.

The Note cites as diplomatic failure Bolton’s decision to delete references to the Millennium Development Goals in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document at the last General Assembly meeting in New York. What is left unsaid is that the Millennium Development Goals are nothing more than a UN-imposed tax on the American economy which would amount to $80 billion annually. The UN has been trying to fully implement this tax since the Nixon administration and globalists like Jimmy Carter fully endorse it.

UN lovers in America fault John Bolton for trying to keep human rights abusers off the newly created UN Human Rights Council. They complain that he offended UN diplomats for not taking part in their charade of concern for people around the world who are oppressed by dictatorial regimes. As predicted, the new UN body has spent much of its time criticizing U.S. policy in the war on terror.

There is universal agreement that the United Nations is in desperate need of management reform. While Kofi Annan and the UN pay lip service to such ideas, they drag their feet to prevent themselves from having to be more accountable to countries like the United States which fund the bulk of UN operations. Growing disgusted with the lack of change in the corrupt management at Turtle Bay, Mr. Bolton tried to increase his leverage over the process by suggesting that the U.S. might withhold funding if minimal changes were not made. But to Kofi’s defenders at the Note, this only “helped further the impression at the U.N. that Ambassador Bolton and the U.S. were more focused on cost-cutting than building a strong and effective institution capable of responding to the problems facing all nations.”

But therein is the problem for liberals. They are trading in their faith in the United States for a hopelessly corrupt institution which is not capable of responding to—let along solving—international problems. John Bolton understood this before he took his post and still recognizes that fact today. During hearings last week, Bolton was asked by Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) if his opinion of the United Nations has changed. “Not really,” Bolton said candidly.

Power to shape world events is a zero-sum game. And liberals who seek to derail Mr. Bolton’s nomination should be asked whether they want a strong United States or a strong United Nations. To vote against the confirmation of John Bolton is to choose the corrupt Kofi Annan over the President of the United States. The vote is coming and the question to senators is, “whose side are you on?”

Thomas P. Kilgannon is the President of Freedom Alliance and the author of Diplomatic Divorce: Why America Should End Its Love Affair With the United Nations.

To view this article online click here.

United Nations still useless
2006 08 02

During the recent Israeli-Lebanon conflict the United Nations has once again exhibited its utter impotence, uselessness, worthlessness, and inability to do anything constructive in the world peace arena.

For years it has been obvious that the only purpose of the U.N. is to allow otherwise unknown insignificant politicians from otherwise unknown and insignificant countries a chance to put on a suit and tie, get an expense account, go to New York and pontificate on matters about which they know nothing. The present secretary-general is not an exception to this observation.

Of course the United States foots most of the bill for most of this nonsense.
Why? 

To view this article online click here.

UNSC gives Tehran Aug 31 deadline
2006 08 01

By Masood Haider

UNITED NATIONS, July 31: The United Nations Security Council on Monday passed a watered down resolution which urged Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment by Aug 31 or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

Iran immediately rejected the resolution saying it would only make more difficult negotiations concerning a package of incentives offered in June for it to suspend enrichment.

“All along it has been the persistence of some to draw arbitrary red lines and deadlines that has closed the door to any compromise,” said Iran’s UN Ambassador Javad Zarif. “This tendency has single-handedly blocked success and in most cases killed proposals in their infancy.

“This approach will not lead to any productive outcome and in fact it can only exacerbate the situation,” he said.

On Russian and Chinese demands, the text was toned down from earlier drafts, which would have made the threat of sanctions immediate. The draft now essentially requires the council to hold more discussions before it considers sanctions.

The draft passed by a vote of 14-1. Qatar, which represents Arab states on the council, cast the lone dissenting vote.

Explaining his ‘no’ vote, Qatar’s UN Ambassador Nassir Al Nasser said that while the demands of the six nations were legitimate the resolution would only exacerbate tensions in the region and Iran should be given more time to respond.

“We do not agree with the tabling of this resolution at a time when our region is in flames,” Al Nasser said. “We see no harm in waiting for a few days to exhaust all possible means and in order to identify the real intentions of Iran.”

Drafted by Britain, France and Germany with US backing, the resolution follows a July 12 agreement by the foreign ministers of the four countries plus Russia and China to refer Tehran to the Security Council for not responding to the incentives package.

The ministers asked that council members to adopt a resolution making Iran’s suspension of enrichment activities mandatory. The resolution includes that demand and calls on all states ‘to exercise vigilance’ in preventing the transfer of all goods that could be used for Iran’s enrichment and ballistic missile programmes.

After the resolution was adopted, Mr Zarif told the council that it had no legal legitimacy to demand Iran suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing. He repeated Iran’s claim that it had every right to pursue nuclear technology and that it did not want to develop nuclear weapons.

US Ambassador John Bolton said: “We hope this resolution will demonstrate to Iran that the best way to end its international isolation is to simply give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

“We look forward to Iran’s full, unconditional and immediate compliance with this resolution. We hope that Iran makes the strategic decision that the pursuit of WMD programs makes it less and not more secure,” said Mr Bolton.

Tehran said last week it would reply to the western incentives package on Aug 22, but the council decided to go ahead with a resolution and not wait for Iran’s response.

The resolution would call on the International Atomic Energy Agency to report back by Aug 31 on Iran’s compliance with its demands. If Iran did not comply, the council would move to adopt political and economic sanctions, the resolution said.

To view this article online click here.