The UN, which purports to be the only agency that can restore democracy to war-torn areas, is abandoning its efforts in Afghanistan after the death of a French aid worker:

The U.N. refugee agency began pulling foreign staff out of large swaths of southern and eastern Afghanistan (news - web sites) on Tuesday in the wake of the killing of a French worker, a decision that could affect tens of thousands of Afghan returnees. ... The withdrawal of international staff follows a series of attacks on the United Nations in recent days, including the drive-by killing of Bettina Goislard, a 29-year-old UNHCR worker, as she traveled through a bazaar in a clearly marked U.N. vehicle in the city of Ghazni, 60 miles southwest of the capital.

That same day saw a bomb attack on a U.N. vehicle in eastern Paktia province. And on Nov. 11, a car bomb exploded outside U.N. offices in Kandahar, injuring two people.

So, while Kofi Annan and the French continue to berate the Americans for not turning over Iraq to UN control, the UN continues itscraven tradition by evacuating when any violence at all breaks out. We've seen the pattern before: in Srebrenca, in Rwanda, the UN stood around while people committed genocide around them, and then left without firing a shot to stop it. They've pulled out of Iraq after two bombings, blaming American forces for a lack of security, when in fact the UN refused American security, claiming that it would affect their neutrality. The UN instead had retained the security forces they had prior to the war -- which were Saddam's IIS intelligence minders. In effect, the UN had hired its former Ba'athist jailers as security. They left pointing fingers at the Americans, and refused to accept their own report on UN security blunders. But the point is they left, and they're not planning on returning. It appears they're on their way out of Afghanistan now, too.

And for a grim laugh, here's what the UN had to say Monday before the withdrawal was announced:

U.N. spokesman David Singh had said the killing would never force the world body to quit Afghanistan. "The United Nations is here to stay in every part of the country," he said in Kabul, the capital, on Monday, before the withdrawal announcement by UNHCR.

I guess he hadn't gotten the memo yet.

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