OK, Scott Ritter has never been one of my favorite people. You remember Scott Ritter – the former Senior UNSCOM Inspector who resigned in 1998 because no one was taking action against Iraq, and then trashed us because we were….

Let’s take a trip down Ritter Lane:

From a 1998 News Hour with Jim Lehrer Interview:

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What was happening in your investigations that made you feel you had to resign?

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Well, basically, is the investigations had come to a standstill were making no effective progress, and in order to make effective progress, we really needed the Security Council to step in in a meaningful fashion and seek to enforce its resolutions that we're not complying with.

And then, in 2002, in the Boston Globe:
While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq.

Well, he must have gotten tired of all of that self-contradiction, because it seems that our buddy Scott has got himself a new gig. From BlackFive comes the news that Scott is now an editorialist for – hold on to your hats – Al Jazeera. Surprising, maybe not. Nauseating, definitely. Scott’s up to his old tricks, trashing America. Yes, that’s right, Scott’s just full of rancid commentary. Full of something, to be sure.

But more than just evidence that Scott is a man with a serious anti-American chip on his shoulder, this latest bit of joy just reminds me what sort of people are hanging around in the U.N. From the blood money of the Oil-for-Food program, to U.N. Weather Agency, for crying out loud, everything the U.N. touches seems to sour (and when the New York Times is reporting that the U.N. is corrupt, be afraid…be very afraid)

The United Nations was supposed to be a way, according to the Preamble of its Charter:
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom…

I wonder when anyone at the U.N. last read that…

Labels: Iraq, My Two Cents, opinion, United Nations