Why the UN Can Never Be Trusted in the Fight Against Terrorism

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Exerpts:

...even after Beslan and after Madrid and after 9/11, the U.N. still cannot bring itself to oppose terrorism unequivocally.

The reason for this failure is that the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which comprises 56 of the U.N.'s 191 members, defends terrorism as a right.

For eight years now, a U.N. committee has labored to draft a "comprehensive convention on international terrorism." It has been stalled since Day 1 on the issue of "defining" terrorism. But what is the mystery? At bottom everyone understands what terrorism is: the deliberate targeting of civilians. The Islamic Conference, however, has insisted that terrorism must be defined not by the nature of the act but by its purpose. In this view, any act done in the cause of "national liberation," no matter how bestial or how random or defenseless the victims, cannot be considered terrorism.

This boils down to saying that terrorism on behalf of bad causes is bad, but terrorism on behalf of good causes is good. Obviously, anyone who takes such a position is not against terrorism at all — but only against bad causes.

The U.S. is not alone in failing to get the Islamic states to reconsider their pro-terror stance. Following 9/11, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pushed to break the deadlock on the terrorism convention. He endorsed compromise language proscribing terrorism unambiguously while reaffirming the right of self-determination. But the Islamic Conference would not budge.

Far from giving ground on terrorism, the Islamic states have often gotten their way on the issue, with others giving in to them. As early as 1970, for instance, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution "reaffirm[ing] … the legitimacy of the struggle of the colonial peoples and peoples under alien domination to exercise their right to self-determination and independence by all the necessary means at their disposal."

Everyone understood that this final phrase was code for terrorism. Similar formulas have been adopted repeatedly in the years since. Originally, the Western European states joined the U.S. in voting against such motions. But in each of the last few years the U.N. Commission on Human Rights has adopted such a resolution with regard to the Palestinian struggle against Israel, with almost all the European members voting in favor.

Danforth may feel that the U.S. position was vindicated in the new Security Council resolution, but that is not what OIC representatives think. As Pakistan's envoy to the U.N., Munir Akram, put it: "We ought not, in our desire to confront terrorism, erode the principle of the legitimacy of national resistance that we have upheld for 50 years." Accordingly, he expressed satisfaction with the resolution: "It doesn't open any new doors."

This is all such incredible nonsense. I don't understand why our gov't officials continue to deal with the UN. As long as there are those who sit in influential seats of power who think that "terrorism is a right," there can be no hope of defeating terrorism.