Stardate 20010919.2322 (On Screen): French President Chirac says that he thinks the UN should spearhead the fight against terrorism. While I think that's a nice sentiment, I have serious misgivings about it. The organization of the UN Security Council is such that it is too prone to deadlock; this makes it primarily a talking-forum rather than a body of action. For all intents and purposes it can't do anything unless there is near unanimity, and for a struggle like this one that's not going to happen consistently enough when contentious issues arise. As to the UN General Assembly, as long as the US, India and Gambia have equal votes it should be clear that it isn't going to represent anything remotely like a representative decision making body.
This looks suspiciously like a rhetorical attempt to reign in the US by trying to convince the Bush Administration to forgo unilateral action. That's not acceptable. If the UN wishes to have its own war against terrorism, they're welcome to do so. In the mean time we've got our own and we plan on fighting it. (Possibly starting as soon as this coming Sunday.) (discussion in progress)
