arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

We've had three significant bombings in Baghdad over the last 10 days. The bombing of the UN I think has got the most news coverage. I've noticed and felt a lot of sadness over it here in Baghdad. It makes me feel sad. But no more sad than the bombing of the Jordan Embassy or the Abu Graib prison. I get a creepy feeling though that when UN international staff get killed, it's more important to the world than when it's strictly Iraqi people.

The bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad has left me having to deal with some pretty strong feelings. I was totally opposed to the UN's involvement in Iraq after the invasion. They breached their own mandate and scuttled their purpose in the world by caving in to US pressure before and after the invasion ( haven't they read Richard Perle's cogent article, 'Thank God the UN Is Dead'?) and it doesn't surprise me in the least that they would be bombed here. I'm actually more surprised that it took so long. It's going to take me a long time to get over my resentment of the UN. We used to have international law, I thought, but now we don't. The US brushed it aside and the UN couldn't do anything to hold the US accountable. All those countries in the world that disagreed with dispensing with international law-- that know that pre-emptive war is wrong and that it is against the very core principle of the UN didn't do a thing to stop the US. Now it's just all words and ugly face-saving pronouncements to me. UN what? It's only the "foreign policy branch of the United States" as Madeleine Allbright so candidly admitted a while ago.

My main concern is that we have no effective international law. The UN represents that failure to me. The fact that the UN countries cannot stand up to US aggression makes the world a frightening and inhuman environment. The fact that the UN seems more interested in continuing to get a paycheck than in illuminating and championing the principles it is supposed to uphold makes me sick. The fact that the UN would come into Iraq for its own interests after enforcing 12 deadly years of brutal sanctions, evacuating Iraq without hesitation on the US timetable for invasion, sitting on the border with ample supplies but not helping when wounded Iraqis were having surgery and amputations without anesthetic during the invasion, shows a horrifying lack of sensitivity on their part.

That being said, it is sad, sad, sad that people have died in this blast--mostly Iraqis as usual, but it is the internationals that will be publicly mourned more than anyone else, as usual. The murdered Iraqis might be mentioned in the media if it serves US purposes to obscure the image of their own routine slaughter of Iraqi civilians or lay blame on some alleged perpetrator, but only for PR purposes as usual.

I just hope the UN leaves Iraq and goes into hiding to figure out what it stands for. If it stands for preventing the "scourge of war" as it is supposed to, then, it must do that. If not, stand up like an institution with a backbone and admit that it doesn't serve that purpose. Then, the UN can start over if it wants and come up with a true purpose and stick to it instead of just skulking around like a kicked dog looking for crumbs off the US plate.

We had at least one other bombing today but I don't know what happened. It was just down the street from here but I haven't heard it mentioned in the news. My friend at the hotel looked outside when we heard the blast and saw some smoke but who knows what happened. We always hear bombs around here.
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