You can bet that one of these stories will be buried today. I don't know if they can pull off supressing the Kosovo one, so expect the Kerry radio address to fade rather swiftly into obscurity.

Except, of course, among your readers.

By the way, just checked Kerry's website for the full transcript. Couldn't find it, or any mention of it.

There is a picture of him holding a baby though.

NY Times online Headline: BUSH KNEW!!!!!

CNN and most other sites feature Hamas' quest for leadership and denunciation of Israel.

More action in Iraq, too.

Both these stories are already obscurred by major media. CNN minor headline says something about police killed in Kosovo.

Nobody but Newsmax with Kerry's radio address.

It's Blogs or nothing.

When will reporters call Kerry out on this "multilateral" line? There are dozens of nations in Iraq, and America is the second largest contributer of resources. The largest coalition partner is Iraq.

If Kerry means "France" he should just say it. If not reporters should ask the question.

My heart goes out to the families of the American soldiers murdered by their presumed comrade.

I understand why forces from EU nations would be participating in Kosovo. It's unclear to me why any other nations including the U. S. should be.

Combine the Kosovo experience with the Oil-for-Food scandal (and the resistance of certain UNSC members to an independent investigation)and it is difficult to understand how anyone can take Kerry's "strategy" seriously -- except, of course, for the fact that the Bush Administration seems to be following Kerry's UN strategy itself.....

Am I the only one noticing specifically that this was at least one Muslim representative of the Religion of Peace shooting at, and killing, American WOMEN?

I don't know that it *was* about Iraq, as much as it was about shutting up lippy American women, and putting them in their place: a coffin.

Thankfully, the ladies were able to shoot back. Something they are not able to do either in the Middle East or in the European Union.

Gotta love this from the NYT this morning:

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"It's quite nice when you've been generally dissed about your
irrelevancy and then suddenly have people coming on bended knee and saying
we need you to come back."
EDWARD MORTIMER, a senior aide to United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan.

Oh growl! What a load of two hump camel dung!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4771823/

The Kerry UN Lovefest continues. Complete with video! :-o

I've got go cook a fine Sunday Brunch now. Time to break out the waffle iron! ;-)

A bit of a stretch, don't you think, bringing Kerry into this? His radio address calls for a U.N. civilian mission in Iraq, and for NATO forces led by an American commander. And you treat this as ridiculous in the context of an "unprecedented" fight between members of the U.N. force stuck in Kosovo.

Maybe Kerry's proposal truly is ridiculous, but at least attack it on the merits. Your comparison falls pretty short here.

Kerry has no plan except for empty UN platitudes. This report just points out how stupid it would be to have Arab troops "supporting" our troops. Morale would go down, and cooperative efforts between units would be hurt. Every historical example of a small unified force vs. a large unsteady force proves that the small unified force is far more effective. More US troops would die if Kerry implemented his plan. Is that a stretch?

But he's calling for NATO troops, not UN troops, right?

Kerry's "U.N. mission to help rebuild Iraq"

Typical fantasy from the most liberal Senator in the U.S. Senate. The bad guys have already driven out the U.N. by car-bombing them. Why does anyone believe Kerry could coax the U.N. to return to Iraq?

The orginal U.N. presence screwed up their own security measures because of U.N. arrogance and incompetence. Why does anyone believe Kerry could make the U.N. perform any better?

Only someone not paying attention could believe the so-called Iraq policy of Kerry has any merit.

I have a serious question. I have asked it several times in various forums. I have never gotten a satisfactory answer. Can anyone name one thing the UN has ever accomplished?

The easy answer to "Can anyone name one thing the UN has ever accomplished?" used to be that the World Health Organization, which is associated with the U.N., eradicated small pox.

They are trying for something similar with polio but now must contend with interesting interpretationis of their activity in various interesting parts of Africa.

Maybe the real question should be, "Name one thing the UN has accomplished that couldn't have been done cheaper and faster without it." I mean, couldn't we have joined WHO without it being part of the UN?

Ken - the U.N. accomplished Rwanda. Accomplished it about 800,000 times. They also just barely let us help Korea but only because the Russians weren't there to vote against.

To be fair, they have helped things out here and again in various parts of the world. Typically, as Colin and AST suggest, at a cost greater than otherwise.

As to Ryan, the part about U.N. being a civilian outfit in Iraq is beside the point when what Kerry and Kofi want is to put Iraq under U.N. sovereignty for the duration. As Kerry famously said (and never retracted), "I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations."

The administrative guides (or fails to) the military (see Lyndon Johnson, Viet Nam). Giving U.N. power over the military via the administrative is a sure a disaster whether the troops are NATO or Blue Helmets as it was in Rwanda.

NATO, which thankfully, is getting more Eastern European countries to participate is also less driven by us than by some of our "third way" gallic and bavarian allies. In order to get any help out of NATO, as was experienced during the 9-month rush to war, means to compromise the mission at the mercy of French arrogance. Kerry knows this, but doesn't care. It's more important to score political points and to fight Republicans than it is to fight the enemy and help Iraqis.

To pretend that our NATO quasi-allies will do what's in our best interest - much less Iraq's (since Iraq can't punish them otherwise) is fantasy, bud. It's also recklessly endangering to our troops because they and their operations depend on the support of those who pledge it.

Witness the French (under NATO) unwillingness to go on particular missions during the Afghanistan campaign. They said they'd help. We counted on it. Sent troops into the field and they were abandoned during a firefight by French commanders who wouldn't give our troops critical air support because they disagreed with that part of the operation. With friends like that, well, they ARE the enemy. And Kerry is courting them.

Ryan,

Kerry may be calling for NATO troops...but the Spanish socialists want the UN or nothing. And Germany and France would not support NATO at all.

What Kerry is saying means nothing. It is just words....unless Germany and France would support a *Liberal* American president with everything he says and does in order to prove that the Left Wing, when working together in power, can get things done.

But don't count on that. Russia and France are conservative. They wouldn't help a liberal American president to succeed. Clinton was not helped. In fact, China armed Pakistan and Pakistan armed the Taliban during his term.

Jimmy Carter was walked all over by everyone.

I am a Democrat, but there is no valid reason to admire John Kerry for anything he has said so far in his sorry campaign.

>easy answer to "Can anyone name one thing the UN >has ever accomplished?" used to be that the >World Health Organization, which is associated >with the U.N., eradicated small pox.

There is strong anecdotal evidence that UN small pox vaccinnations using the same needle...and UN blood drives...spread HIV in Africa.

Thanks for tying these stories together. I read them separately at Drudge and immediately made the ironic timing of them. Besides Army, Germany, Florida...we have more in common.
"As you were, Soldier". Thanks, GH...JC2

Have you nticed Reuters's wording, which makes no distinction between the two sides? "Two Americans and a Jordanian have been shot dead". Wonder by who?

A couple more victims of Bush'e oil war reflects badly on Kerry how?

The so called "main stream press" is ignoring this. To them only deaths in Iraq count. Why aren't we the hell out of kosovo. Didn't President Clinton say the troops would be back in 6 months?

Red,

You begin with the erroneous assumption that war in Iraq was an "oil war." It wasn't. Bush never said it was about oil. Nor is there any evidence that the Coalition countries will somehow "steal" oil from Iraq. Although Bush may rightly be criticized for certain things (e.g., inadequate planning for the post war period), suggesting that Bush pursued this policy in Iraq for "oil" simply isn't one of them and only undermines your credibility.

Second, the two American prison guards shot dead were not victims of the war in Iraq. They were victims of the person who shot them, namely, a Jordanian policeman who was a co-participant in the UN peacekeeping force. This reflects badly on Kerry because it undermines his assumption that making the mission in Iraq even more of a multilateral effort will make things better. The incident in Kosovo shows that troops from Arab countries might be a direct threat to American forces rather than than a help. And as a previous entry explained, even troops from somewhat more friendly countries (such as France) might increase the danger faced by American troops.

Maybe we could get some of those brave Dutch U.N. troops who allowed the Bosnians to be slaughtered at Srebrenica to help us out in Iraq.

Just to be clear, I'm not endorsing Kerry's plan here. I'd have a hard time endorsing or not endorsing it, actually, considering how woefully short on specifics it is.

But it just seems to me to be a big stretch to use this incident in Kosovo as some sort of indictment on multilateral operations in general. The story says this outburst of violence is "unprecedented" in the five-year operation.

If we're going to argue that there's a bigger story to Iraq than the soldiers getting killed, then how can we cite a singular event like this in Kosovo as evidence of anything?

Ryan

Considering that during the Rwanda genocide the Canadian general in charge of the UN troops screamed for help in stopping the genocide, the French in particular and the rest of the UN in general refused his request; result, 800,000 killed.

In the last two months in the Kosovo area, there have been incidents of the Muslims burning down the ancient Orthodox churches and killing the Orthodox believers; result, UN has done nothing.

In Iraq the UN ran at the first firebombing and the Iraqis have told us repeatedly that they do not trust the UN; result, the liberals want to take a group that has been successful and put them under the control of a group that has been repeatedly unsuccessful and you really think that this makes sense???

On the earlier posting about the NATO troops vs the UN troops, by my reading the statement is unclear whether the UN involvement would be for troops as well as civilians or not. They are talking about US troops and the UN to help. Then they talk about NATO being used for training. I think what he is saying is that h is for US and UN troops under UN control and NATO to train Iraqi troops to take control later.

There have other "incidents" of multilateral action not working under UN direction; the race between Russian and American units to get to certain parts of Kosovo after the air war was over that was broadcast on Ted Koppel's TV program, anybody remember his little temper tantrum over the bullshit the Russians were trying to propagate? Another one is the aftermath of the Black Hawk downing in Somalia; we went in to arrest some of that warlords's advisers and thugs(what was his name? it escapes me at the moment) and the Pakistani's and other UN forces in country hemmed and hawed about going in and finally got off their butt and helped. Allowing the UN full authority over the rebuilding of Iraq would be a disaster; the infighting and sloth of decision making far surpasses the mistakes Bush and his advisors have made in dealing with the insurgents.