September 05, 2003

SMOG OF WAR

It’s another UN-US standoff:

A diplomatic confrontation between American authorities and almost the rest of the world has intensified as senior officials at the United Nations insisted on their right to smoke in the organisation's headquarters.

Casting aside petty differences and forging new allegiances, UN ambassadors pledged to ignore New York's smoking ban, imposed on the city's workplaces, including bars and restaurants, five months ago and which extended to the UN this week.

The UN on Iraq: do nothing. The UN on smoking: hey, we’ve gotta mobilise!

Posted by Tim Blair at September 5, 2003 04:25 AM
Comments

"I didn't get a harrumph outta that guy!..."
-- Blazing Saddles

Posted by: mojo at September 5, 2003 at 04:41 AM

Can we get a UN resolution on this? That'll teach those New York politicians. They'll be capitulating in no time.

Posted by: Geoff Matthews at September 5, 2003 at 07:53 AM

Um...... gotta go with the UN on this one.....

;-)

Posted by: Andrew X at September 5, 2003 at 09:52 AM

You can't smoke in a BAR??? Americans are mad I tells ya.

Posted by: Jake D at September 5, 2003 at 10:50 AM

But Tim the UN didn't "do nothing" on Iraq. They backed GB the elder's Gulf War I, they backed and imposed economic sanctions, they kept inspecting and came up with more WMD's than your lot have ever found but then the security council refused to go along with your partners-in-oppression and their wholesale trashing of a country.

And now your buddies want the "irelevant" UN to bail them out of their unholy mess - why? just so you can blame them for the whole thing in the first place?

So you see your journalistic skills are way lax on this matter. You really need to get up to speed if you want to keep my attention, Timbo, you bloghead.

Posted by: Miranda Divide at September 5, 2003 at 11:54 AM

Does this mean the NYPD can raid the building? God, I hope the blue hats put up a fight.

Posted by: Bill McCabe at September 5, 2003 at 11:58 AM

Isn't the logic of the left amazing?

1) The US invades Iraq, removes a brutal dictatorship, and starts administering the country. The left complains: US wants complete control of Iraq, to meld it for its own purposes and to steal its oil.

2) The US asks other countries and the UN to help administer and rebuild the country. The left complains: US wants UN to clean up its mess.

make up your tiny minds will ya?

Posted by: Tom at September 5, 2003 at 12:07 PM

Miranda, he said "do nothing", not "did nothing".

Posted by: scott h. at September 5, 2003 at 12:22 PM

In view of the fed. government having signed on to the kangaroo court the ICC, the U.N. officials might oblige thos living in the Albania of the south, Victoria, and prosecute the Vic. government over its nannying smoking `laws'. Next, every effort should be made to entice saud officials for a `study trip' during which they should be encouraged to puff merrily away in restaurants and casinos and other places in defiance of the fascist-communisto spivs in Spring St.

Posted by: d at September 5, 2003 at 12:32 PM

Wow, Tim, "Miranda" is threatening to leave this site if you continue to bore "her." Cool, the plan is working...

Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 5, 2003 at 12:34 PM

I'll give you five bucks if you can bore Miranda Delusional to death, actual death...please.

In fact lets start a movement to bore all leftys to death. I could start reciting those "daily thoughts" you get on desk calenders.

To start: "Silence is arguement carried out by other mean" - Ernesto "Che" Guevara. It makes absolutely no real sense but there you go.

Posted by: Jake D at September 5, 2003 at 12:51 PM

If NYC is really interested in stopping the UN from smoking, have Mayor Bloomberg get President Bush to announce he supports the UN position and insists they be allowed to smoke.

The UN'ers will quit smoking so fast....

Posted by: timks at September 5, 2003 at 12:52 PM

The UN is irrelevant, right?

Posted by: Fork at September 5, 2003 at 02:43 PM

The UN building in New York isn't subject to the laws of the city, the state, or the U.S. It's technically not part of the United States - which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. It's a sad day when the only places I light up indoors are my apartment and the goddamn U.N.

Posted by: Jonas Cord at September 5, 2003 at 03:00 PM

Smoking stunts your resolutions.

Posted by: pooh at September 5, 2003 at 03:33 PM

They have to allow it because their good friend Castro might turn up.

If you can't get him to stop executing dissidents, try telling him not to smoke.

Posted by: ilibcc at September 5, 2003 at 03:40 PM

From the same people who ransacked their own cafeteria some months back when the hired help went on strike.

Posted by: wallace at September 5, 2003 at 03:52 PM

Yeah, sort of ironic.

But nowhere near as ironic as the US now asking for the UN to get involved in Iraq...what gives?

Posted by: BongoMan at September 5, 2003 at 04:03 PM

Like I said, the UN is irrelevant, right?

Posted by: Fork at September 5, 2003 at 05:26 PM

I believe the US is just trying to cleave away some of those nations who are sitting on the fence but still wanting UN cover. The dumbass French are going to scuttle this resolution and the US is going to say, "see we tried to get the UN involved by giving a little, and the dumbass French are being, well, French." Already the Russians are showing signs of breaking away from the French in regards to Iraq. That dumbass Frenchman Chirac is being played, to the detriment of the UN, and the dumbass doesn't even know it. What a dumbass.

Posted by: Imam Pshyco Muhammed at September 5, 2003 at 06:22 PM

How is that bloke who occasionally writes op-ed for The Guardian going these days? What's his name? Perle or something?

Posted by: Fork at September 5, 2003 at 06:30 PM

With the UN on this one. NYC smoking ban is the bad nanny state at its absolute worst. IN the capital of the free world none the less.

Posted by: Tom at September 5, 2003 at 08:07 PM

"But nowhere near as ironic as the US now asking for the UN to get involved in Iraq...what gives?"

Bongo, several things are coming together here. First and foremost, the US doesn't have enough military for all it's commitments. I have worked around military for nearly 20 years: Bill Clinton GUTTED the US military during his term. Don't believe me? Look up Clinton's own "Reinventing Government" initiative. It shrank the number of Federal employees all right; but when you break down the numbers, ALL that loss was in the military; the number of NON-military employees actually went up by 10-15 percent.

Second, we have too many of those scarce troops in places like Bosnia. Pull those people out and let the Euros handle it; it's their continent.

Third, Bush is dealing with a country that isn't united enough to admit we are at war and accept the necessary measures to deal with it... and Bush, blast him, won't use his political capital to push hard for those measures, like increasing the size of the military. In this regard, it's not altogether good that the Bush administration has kept terrorists from hitting us here again; if we had had a series of attacks, like the series of defeats we sufferred at our start of WWII, it would have concentrated our minds wonderfully.

Posted by: SDN at September 5, 2003 at 10:43 PM

What a disaster for the free world - gutting the military. All armaments should be dismantled immediately. The filthy arms trade should be made to do community service for the term of their natural lives. The only nation ever to drop a nuclear device on real people and that has produced enough arms to blow us all up a thousand times over, and that has under Dubya by design and indifference triggered a further acceleration of arms production now porclaims they dont have the military capacity to "finish the job" in Iraq?

What nation has dedicated its productive capacity to death more than the US of A? What nation has invested more in the business and commerce of the organised dewstruction of humans than America. What world's richest country has the worst public education system in the OECD?

....er, America?


Posted by: Miranda Divide at September 5, 2003 at 11:11 PM

"The only nation ever to drop a nuclear device on real people and that has produced enough arms to blow us all up a thousand times over..."

Miranda, maybe you ought to think twice before pissing us off!

Posted by: Retread at September 5, 2003 at 11:52 PM

What nation has dedicated its productive capacity to death more than the US of A?

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea for starters - it spends a quarter to a third of its GDP on armed forces compared to 3% of GDP for the USA (though America has a heck of a lot more GDP than the DPRK).

What nation has invested more in the business and commerce of the organised dewstruction of humans than America.

Dewstruction? Is that a zionist plot, or a side-effect of global warming?

Posted by: Andjam at September 6, 2003 at 01:16 AM

What world's richest country has the worst public education system in the OECD?

I believe the correct answer to that question would be Earth.

Posted by: amy at September 6, 2003 at 02:38 AM

"Dewstruction? Is that a zionist plot, or a side-effect of global warming?"

I thought it was how Elmer Fudd says "destruction"...

Posted by: MDV at September 6, 2003 at 02:57 AM

What nation has dedicated its productive capacity to death more than the US of A? What nation has invested more in the business and commerce of the organised dewstruction of humans than America.

Rantin' Divide,

And to think we manage all this without breaking a sweat or breathing hard. Thus, the jealousy of others.

Cordially...

Posted by: Rick at September 6, 2003 at 08:34 AM