« Slow Day | Main | LA Times: Oregon In Play »
Evidently, the Italians feel the same way I do about German ambitions for a permanent UN Security Council seat. Germans expressed surprise that Italian FM Franco Frattini objected yesterday to the German initiative:
Germany and Italy locked horns yesterday after the government of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, opposed Berlin's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, accused Germany, supposedly one of the country's closest allies, of trying to divide Europe with its request for a seat by putting its national interests first.
"I will not accept competition based around national interests. That risks dividing Europe," he told the Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica.
Of course, that is one good point -- why does Germany deserve a veto on the UNSC when Italy doesn't? Joschka Fischer told Italy that they should also campaign for a permanent seat on the Security Council in response to that question. Since when did the UN declare open bidding on veto powers anyway?
This effort to expand both the rotating and permanent memberships on the UNSC will do nothing except increase the level of paralysis in global diplomacy, which is exactly the intent of states such as Germany and France, who supports its eastern neighbor's campaign. The statists in the UN support the notion of the organization's mission as not so much a forum for global peace or to expand freedom, but as a battlefield for diplomatic war against the Anglo-American alliance, a counterweight to US power.
If that is their intent, they may be sorely disappointed in the result. The UNSC has already lost tremendous credibility with the American people thanks to its weak performance over 12 years with Saddam Hussein. If the UN stacks the deck with a raft of new vetoes that guarantee the Security Council can never act, the Americans and its true allies will simply bypass the travesty in the future.
Sphere It View blog reactionsTrackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry is
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Tyrolean Tiff:
» Deport the United Nations from A Stitch in Haste
It is now 60 years since the end of World War II in Europe. We have, the one-worlders would argue, a single European nation. Fine, give it a single seat on the Security Council. [Read More]
Tracked on September 27, 2004 8:20 AM
captain*at*captainsquartersblog.com
My Other Blog!
E-Mail/Comment/Trackback Policy
Comment Moderation Policy - Please Read!
Skin The Site
Hugh Hewitt
Captain's Quarters
Fraters Libertas
Lileks
Power Line
SCSU Scholars
Shot In The Dark
Northern Alliance Radio Network
Northern Alliance Live Streaming!
Des Moines Register
International Herald Tribune
The Weekly Standard
Drudge Report
Reason
The New Republic
AP News (Yahoo! Headlines)
Washington Post
Guardian Unlimited (UK)
New York Times
Los Angeles Times
OpinionJournal
Pioneer Press
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
MS-NBC
Fox News
CNN
Design & Skinning by:
m2 web studios
blog advertising
- dave on Another National Health Care System Horror Story
- brooklyn on Hillary Not Hsu Happy
- rbj on Hillary Not Hsu Happy
- Robin S on Requiem For A Betrayed Hero
- Ken on Hillary Not Hsu Happy
- Robin S. on Requiem For A Betrayed Hero
- RBMN on Hillary Not Hsu Happy
- NoDonkey on Another National Health Care System Horror Story
- Robin Munn on Fred Thompson Interview Transcript
- filistro on When Exactly Did Art Die?