With Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Regiment, U.S. Marines, in Afghanistan

This piece in today's Wall Street Journal shows why troop numbers are so important in modern anti-insurgency conflicts: "Stalemate: A single company of U.S. Marines is slugging it out with the Taliban in Afghanistan’s toughest ghost town. The battle shows how limited troop numbers have hurt the war—and why the U.S. is changing its strategy."

The report is from the town of Zad, in Helmand Province:

The inability of the Marines to dominate the area is an extreme example of how limited troop numbers, especially in the country’s strategically vital south, have hampered the U.S. ability to eradicate the Taliban threat. The U.S. and NATO-led coalition has easily defeated the Taliban in battle, but struggled to prevent insurgents returning to towns and villages across the country.

As part of President Barack Obama’s Afghan “surge,” the military has ordered 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total to around 60,000. The beefed-up force is a central element of the military’s new counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan, which aims to replicate the successes of the Bush surge in Iraq, in particular the way it was able to both “clear” important areas of insurgents and “hold” the territory long enough for the government to solidify its position.

The strategic shift gelled earlier this month when Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked for the resignation of Gen. David McKiernan, the Pentagon’s top general in Afghanistan, in a bid to further instill counterinsurgency tactics throughout the war. The successor, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is a former Green Beret who recently commanded the military’s secretive special operations forces in Iraq.

Still, the new approach won’t bring enough troops to put overwhelming force into every hotspot, suggesting that Now Zad and other pockets won’t see relief any time soon. Afghanistan’s terrain, replete with inaccessible valleys and remote villages, exacerbates the shortfall.

“We’re still only at half of what we had in Iraq,” says Col. Greg Julian, the military’s chief spokesman in Afghanistan. “In counterinsurgency doctrine, it should really be a 10-to-one ratio of population [to troops], and we’re nowhere near that.”

Soon after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, charities from the United Nations and European Union installed clean-water wells and a mother-child health clinic in Now Zad. But by 2007, fighting between insurgents and small British and Gurkha contingents prompted the estimated 10,000 to 30,000 residents to flee. An Estonian force joined the British before a company of U.S. Marines arrived last year. None was big enough to clear the town of insurgents.

The Marines here now, Lima Co. of 3rd Battalion, 8th Regiment, number fewer than 300 men and are currently training their replacements. Being a sideshow to the main effort has meant a daily routine of dangerous patrols through a no man’s land littered with land mines, all the while accepting the fact that at best they’ll go home next month with a tie.

Matthew Nolen, a 27-year-old Navy corpsman from Memphis, Tenn., insists that each man on his patrols carry two Velcro tourniquets. The assumption is that if a Marine steps on a mine, he’ll likely lose both legs at once, and the corpsman will have two arterial bleeds to stem. Some infantrymen wear tourniquets loose around their ankles, like bracelets, so they can get at them quickly.

“It’s not for me,” said Sgt. Roy Taylor, a 23-year-old squad leader from New Orleans. “It’s for the guy next to me.”

For more on Lima Company, see Steve Moyer, "Combat Camera: US Marines Operate in Now Zad, Afghanistan."

Pelosi Galore!

God, this is too good!

Via The Politico, Nancy Pelosi as Pussy Galore!

Taylor Marsh is not pleased (and she's "hyperventilating"):

At the end it says “Democrats Galore.” Imposed with a naked woman behind the tag line. Get it? Subtle it is not. But check out the video at around :40 seconds; a split screen that says it all. “Pussy Galore” is shown with “Starring Nancy Pelosi the Speaker” over “Pussy’s” image.

But hey, it’s good to have a sense of humor about these things right? And who doesn’t love the Bond films, especially those Sean Connery classics?

The RNC, however, is not celebrating the women in these classic movies, even by 1960’s standards. Nor are they empowering women through utilizing one of the the cunning female villains who parade around in them by equating her with Speaker Pelosi. I shouldn’t have to spell it out any further, though if the RNC doesn’t have women in their leadership ranks or men who get this stuff and know bad taste when they see it, the Rush, Newt and Cheney Party (as they were aptly called on “Hardball” yesterday) is truly nothing more than a frat boy institution. No offense to fraternities meant.

That a woman, let alone Speaker of the House, should never be hinted to in any public way through the use of “Pussy” insinuations should be obvious. That this is being used by a once major political party in the 21st century is stunning.

Well, it's not like they're attacking her as an evil lesbian or anything!

Fist Bumps for World Peace!

It had to be one of the strangest Naval Academy commencement ceremonies ever. Former GOP presidential candidate John McCain and his wife Cindy were in attendance for their son's graduation:

Obama spoke before a graduating class of 1,036 that included John Sidney McCain IV - son of Obama's rival in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and fourth in a line of McCain Naval Academy graduates. About 30,000 attended the ceremony in Annapolis, Md.

"President Obama fist-bumps with a graduate at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium during the graduation ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy" (Source).

"President Barack Obama fistbumps a graduating Midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Md., Friday, May 22, 2009" (Source).

And here's Obama comments on American "straying" from our values:

"When America strays from our values, it not only undermines the rule of law, it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops."

But hey, if fist bumps are good enough for Hugo Chavez, they're good enough for our naval midshipmen!

Open Your Hearts and Minds to Abortion!

There's some buzz this morning on Barack Obama's recent statement that the U.S. should "reduce the number of women seeking abortions" but not the number of actual abortions!

Check the links at Memeorandum for more. But since the debate on torture's also the rage this weekend, check out the tortured logic of this pro-choicer's letter to the editor at the Los Angeles Times:

Whether members of the pro-life movement realize it or not, they now have a president who actually wants to do something about the number of abortions performed in America. However, if they fail to moderate their self-righteous, self- defeating tactics and continue to try to impose their will on those who disagree with them, without discussion or compromise, they will get exactly what they got from eight years of the pro-life-friendly Bush administration -- nothing.

Wake up: President Obama wants to reduce and, to the extent that it is possible, end abortions in America. But it is you who protest so vehemently and yet accomplish so little.

Obama is right; open your hearts and your minds if justice for the unborn is what you really seek.

Eugene Sison

San Dimas

I guess that's the pro-choice version of "Obey Obama!"

Do You Know Your Enemy?

Thirty years ago Green Day would have been hip, but if you'd seen the The Sex Pistols, you'd have been there, done that. Get PISSED DESTROY! and all that, you know?

Still, give it up for the these guys anyway. They've made punk more popular than ever. I saw them last week on SNL, and yesterday on GMA's summer concert series. Strange how anarchy plays with the masses? Here's Green Day's, "Know Your Enemy":

Green Day - New Music - More Music Videos

The 75 Movies Every Man Should See

Via Glenn Reynolds, check Esquire's feature, "The 75 Movies Every Man Should See."

Here's this on one of my favorites, Runaway Train:

Existential action flicks are tough tricks to pull. Turns out the secret is two escaped cons and a girl on a runaway train in Alaska, chased by an evil warden in a helicopter. Easy.

Here's the existential finale:

Eric “Mancow” Muller: The Biggest Pussy

You know, I watched the video, and I've got to say: If you're going to talk tough, you should be tough. And Eric "Mancow" Muller is not so tough.

The lefties love him, though. He's more popular than Rock Hudson at a West Hollywood coming out party.

But let's be clear. It's easy to see why Muller would gladly agree to have water poured over his face? He wouldn't be permanently maimed. He'd still have all of his fingernails, not to mention his fingers. No one would be gouging his eyes, nor slicing off his tongue. His arms would not be pressed into a wood-shredder.

And here's this, from John Hawkins:

Waterboarding is hardly torture. It does not maim, cause permanent physical damage,or result in death. It merely simulates the sensation of drowning and having no control over your ability to end the encounter for very brief periods of time. Khalid Sheik Mohammed was subjected to this interrogation technique and was able to resist much longer than would have been expected from an individual who had not been trained to resist waterboarding. This is an indication that our enemies are being prepared for the possibility of being captured.

Britney Spears Bikini Pics!

It's a slow traffic day, so let's heat things up around here with some Britney Spears bikini shots! Via John Hawkins and Conservative Grapevine, check out the whole slideshow, "Britney Spears Bikini Pictures are ... Hot":

Beats waterboarding any day!

I'll just make this a preview of Full Metal Saturday by linking to my blogging allies: Ann Althouse, The Blog Prof, Dana at CSPT, Dan Collins, Dan Riehl, Glenn Reynolds, Jimmie Bise, Little Miss Attila, Moe Lane, Monique Stuart, No Sheeples Here!, Private Pigg, The Rhetorican, R.S. McCain, Saber Point, Suzanna Logan, TrogloPundit, and William Jacobson.

I'll have more hot neocon blogging tomorrow!

California Gay Marriage Ruling Due Tuesday

From the Los Angeles Times, "California Supreme Court to Rule on Proposition 8 Tuesday":

The California Supreme Court announced today that it will rule Tuesday on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that resurrected a ban on same-sex marriage.

The ruling, which will be posted at 10 a.m., will also determine whether an estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages will continue to be recognized by the state.

The Court is expected to uphold the intitiative. It's the gay radical backlash that's going to be interesting:

Image: Day of Decision:

LGBT people and our allies anxiously await the California Supreme Court decision either affirming or rejecting the hateful anti-gay Proposition 8 ... If we organize every sizeable city to have a "Day of Decision" action, that, in and of itself, will send a powerful message that our community will not sit idly by if the hateful Propostion 8 is allowed to stand."

Hmm ... That sounds familiar. Show trials anyone?

Check back Tuesday. As always, I'll have full coverage ...

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UPDATE: This is story is now a thread at Memeorandum, "State High Court to Rule Tuesday on Prop. 8."

America Owes Germany No Apology for Dresden

There's some discussion online today that's one more reminder why I really dislike the Obama administration. From Pamela Geller, "Obama to Apologize to Germany for WWII." President Obama will visit Dresden during a June European tour that coincides with the D-Day anniversary. The location is significant to any student of World War II. In February 1945, Allied bombers launched Europe's most devasting incendiary air raids on the city. The resulting firestorm killed an estimated 25,000–35,000 people. The Dresden campaign is a key example of "total war" doctrine in an unconditional conflict, and Americans have no reason to apologize.

Pamela cites this passage from Free Republic:

The symbolic significance of a visit to Dresden by the American president — especially one undertaken in connection with a D-Day commemoration in France — may be missed by some Americans, but it is absolutely unmistakable for the German public. For Germans, Dresden is the symbol bar none of German suffering at the hands of the Allies. The city was heavily bombed by British and American air forces in February 1945, toward the end of the war. According to the most recent estimates of professional historians, anywhere from 18,000 to at most 25,000 persons died in the attacks. These numbers come from a historical commission established by the city of Dresden itself. But far higher numbers — ranging into the hundreds of thousands — have long circulated in Germany and beyond. The bombing of Dresden is commonly described as a “war crime” in German discussions.

It's always a cruel oddity to see German nationals criticizing the Western Allies for "war crimes." But be sure to see the remainder of Pamela's essay. She posts photographs from America's military cemeteries in Europe. And she adds, "The total number of Americans buried at the cemeteries above is 104,366 -- a mere fraction of those who died liberating Europe -- and yet an American president who confuses arrogance with leadership feels the need to apologize in Europe for the country he obviously holds in contempt."

Pictured: The Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium:

The approach drive at Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium leads to the memorial, a stone structure bearing on its façade a massive American eagle and other sculptures. Within are the chapel, three large wall maps composed of inlaid marbles, marble panels depicting combat and supply activities and other ornamental features. Along the outside of the memorial, 462 names are inscribed on the granite Tablets of the Missing. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified. The façade on the far (north) end that overlooks the burial area bears the insignia, in mosaic, of the major U.S. units that operated in northwest Europe in World War II.

The 90-acre cemetery contains the graves of 5,329 of our military dead, many of whom died in the 1944 Ardennes winter offensive (Battle of the Bulge).

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Obama Sucks at Transcending Our Ideological Divisions

Carol at No Sheeples Here! points us to some anti-Obama grumbling at Daily Kos, "Obama Now Officially Sucks."

That post takes issue with the Obama administration's refusal to rekindle Valerie Plame's lawsuit against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage. But Carol's Photoshop applies to the Daily Kos program all around. For example, note the pushback from Meteor Blades against Obama's speech yesterday, "Moving Forward REQUIRES Looking Back":

... Guantánamo is more than a symbol. It's representative of a whole system which says it's appropriate to permit indeterminate detention without trials and/or trials that allow inadmissible evidence to be used to convict special categories of special people. So far, we have yet to hear either the President or more than a few others in the Democratic Party challenge that system at its core.

And here's Joan McCarter at Daily Kos fudging the vengeance rationale:

The election was not an end to the debate. We are not re-fighting any debate because the debate is ongoing, however much we would like to move on. The very fact that President Obama had to schedule this speech today to pre-empt Dick Cheney is proof of that. Anger is not the primary fuel for those of us who want to see accountability for what the previous administration did in our names. The fuel is a commitment to justice.

Joan's right: This is debate will not end. But not for the reasons leftists think. For all of their tough talk and faux moral outrage, leftists do not really believe we are at war. And Barack Obama not only exacerbates and prolongs the debate, he weakens America's security to boot. As Christian Brose notes:

The debate over "enhanced" interrogation, the rule of law, and national security will never end. But I fear the tragedy is just beginning. Before 9/11, America's counter-terrorism policies suffered from excessive caution and risk-aversion. After 9/11, that pendulum swung too far in the other direction, toward what Cheney once called "the dark side." Now that pendulum is swinging right back toward the other extreme again -- not because Obama wants it to, or believes it should, or mandated that it must in his policies, but because of unnecessary actions he took without adequate "foresight," and the manner in which he took them. The professionals entrusted to keep America safe now work in fear of taking the risks that their jobs entail. And the people they're charged with protecting still don't have the facts to reach a political consensus on this issue (and likely never will, even if Cheney were to get his way).

And here's Andrew McCarthy, via Memeorandum:

President Obama’s speech is the September 10th mindset trying to come to grips with September 11th reality. It is excruciating to watch as the brute facts of life under a jihadist threat, which the president is now accountable for confronting, compel him forever to climb out of holes dug by his high-minded campaign rhetoric — the reversals on military detention, commission trials, prisoner-abuse photos, and the like.

The need to castigate his predecessor, even as he substantially adopts the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policy, is especially unbecoming in a president who purports to transcend our ideological divisions.

So, yes, May 21, 2009, is an important date in our ongoing divisions over national security.

May 21st will go down in the history of this administration national security policies as establishing the line of demarcation between those (the Republicans) who would genuinely secure the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and those (the Democrats) who make allies with them.

See also, Arthur Herman, "The Gitmo Myth and the Torture Canard."

Secretary Gates Hails Zachary Boyd's "Psychological Warfare"

Specialist Zachary Boyd of Fort Worth, Texas, made the cover of the New York Times on May 12:

I saw it first at GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD. Now it turns out that Boyd's pink "I Love New York" boxers have garnered the attention of the Secretary of Defense, "Gates Hails Soldier Snapped in Pink Boxer Shorts":

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday praised an Army soldier in eastern Afghanistan who drew media attention this month after rushing to defend his post from attack while wearing pink boxer shorts and flip-flops, Reuters reported.

Gates said in prepared remarks that he wants to meet the soldier and shake his hand the next time he visits Afghanistan.

"Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage," Gates said in a speech to be delivered in New York.

"I can only wonder about the impact on the Taliban. Just imagine seeing that: a guy in pink boxers and flip-flops has you in his cross-hairs. What an incredible innovation in psychological warfare," he said.

More at the link.

IBD Editorial: Cheney Would Have KO'd Obama in First Round - UPDATED!!

I watched Dick Cheney's AIE speech this afternoon. The video is here.

But don't miss the Cheney/Obama comparisons at Memeorandum. Andrew "Hissy Fit" Sullivan calls Cheney's speech "despicable and disgraceful." And that's likely to be the extent of the left's atttacks on the former Vice President. We'll naturally see a few "dark side" slurs thrown in here and there. See Firedoglake, for example, "Dick Cheney: Nothing is More Consistent with American Values than Torture."

I like IBD's ringside analogy much better, in any case:

President Obama and former Vice President Cheney verbally sparred over how best to fight terrorism in the post-9/11 world. If it had been a real fight, it would have been stopped in the first round.

See also, Astute Bloggers, "Dick vs. Dickhead"; Cold Fury, "No Wonder They Hate Him So Insanely"; Dan Collins, "Dick Cheney’s Gravitas"; Flopping Aces, "Dueling Transcripts: Obama’s Continuing Campaign vs. Cheney, the Voice of Reason"; Jim Treacher, "Cheney + Haiku = Cheneyku"; Neptunus Lex, "Obama v. Cheney"; Robert Stacy McCain, "Cheney Tortures Pelosi"; Pundette, "Cheney Wins"; William Jacobson, "Obama Supports Indefinite Detention Without Trial"; The Rhetorican, "A Sort of Backtracking"; Shadow Gov't, "Fear, Facts, and the Terror Debate"; and Wizbang, "The Left is Coming Unglued ..."

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UPDATE: Toby Hardin adopts the "pugilistic metaphor" in, "The 10 Punches Dick Cheney Landed on Barack Obama's Jaw," via Memeorandum.

Albuquerque Mom Suffocates Son, Has Second Thoughts, Performs CPR, Changes Mind, Suffocates Him Again, Buries Him in Playground Sand

A poster-mom for the death penalty?

"Albuquerque mother charged with killing 3-year-old son and burying him in the playground sand":

A mother playing with her children at a park spotted a little black sneaker sticking out of the sand underneath the playground equipment. Figuring a youngster had lost his shoe, she bent down to pick it up. It was strangely heavy.

She had made a ghastly discovery: a dead little boy, buried in the sand.

For nearly a week, who the toddler was, how he died, and who put him there were a chilling mystery until Thursday, when a drawing of the youngster circulated by police led to the arrest of a young mother on murder charges.

Albuquerque police said Tiffany Toribio, 23, confessed to suffocating her 3-year-old son, Tyruss "Ty" Toribio, as he slept on the climbing gym — a crime so cold-blooded that neighbors struggled to comprehend it, and even veteran officers became choked up ....

The police chief said Toribio told detectives that she suffocated her son in Alvarado Park before dawn on May 13 by putting her hand over his mouth and nose. She said she had second thoughts and performed CPR on the boy, resuscitating him, but reconsidered and smothered him again. Investigators said she then buried him under the climbing gym's hanging bridge, where the body was found two days later.

I'm betting the woman is a registered Democrat and voted for Barack Obama.

The beautiful boy's photo is here.

Dick Cheney at American Enterprise Institute

Here's Dick Cheney's lecture at the American Enterprise Institute today. His speech is simply riveting. His continued clarity on the exigencies of our national security is unparalleled. His understanding of our enemies is sage and statesmanlike. His indictment of the Democratic Party's counter-terror policies ... devastating. The text of the speech is here. Do yourself a favor: Take the time to absorb this presentation completely:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pete Hegseth, William Kristol, and Mitt Romney compare Cheney's speech to President Obama's address on national security at the National Archives this morning.

Here's this from Romney:

Barack Obama is having a hard time going from politician to president. His speech and his policies have one foot in campaign mode and another in presidential mode. He struggles to explain how he is keeping faith with the liberal advocates who promoted his campaign but in doing so, he breaks faith with the interests of the American people. When it comes to protecting the nation, we have a conflicted president. And his address today was more tortured than the enhanced interrogation techniques he decries.

More at Memeorandum.

California Seeks Federal Bailout

Today's banner headline at the Los Angeles Times reads, "State Braces for Brutal Cuts: Governor Sees a Voter Mandate for His Plan to Slash Billions."

That's dishonest, actually. Governor Schwarzenegger wasn't really planning to "slash billions." In exchange for getting Proposition 1A on the ballot, Schwarzenegger made a devil's bargain with the California Teachers Association. The deal would have allowed the union to raid $9.3 billion from the rainy-day account that Proposition 1A was going to set up!

The voters said hasta la vista, baby!

Now Schwarzenegger and State Treasurer Bill Lockyer are seeking a federal bailout, "California Wants U.S. Treasury to Backstop Loans":

First came the banks and insurance companies. Then the auto industry. Now, with California on the verge of financial collapse, state leaders are demanding an unprecedented federal rescue of their own.

They say they need the Obama administration to step in and back billions of dollars in emergency loans. If Washington fails to do so, the state could start running out of cash in July and then would have to stop paying huge amounts of its bills. That, in turn, could set off dangerous ripples throughout the economy, state officials say.

The argument is familiar. Just like AIG and General Motors, California says it is too big to fail.

That's what Schwarzenegger's Tuesday junket to Washington was really all about! Get those Geithner bailout funds flowing for California!

Moral hazard here we come! (Sung to "California, Here I Come".)

And don't forget what Megan McArdle wrote yesterday, "If Uncle Sugar bails out California, California will not fix its problems":

California will go bankrupt, muni and state debt will spike, the federal government will backstop humanitarian programs and very possibly all state and local debt, and eventually, California will figure out whether it wants higher taxes or lower spending. But we will not actually make the world a better place by enabling the lunatics in Sacramento to pretend they can have both.

The National Debt Road Trip

You'll get a kick out of this video, "The National Debt Road Trip." Democrats often attack the Bush administration for "turning a surplus into a deficit with tax cuts for the rich and a war for oil." But Barack Obama will "explode" the national debt three times faster George W. Bush:

And check this out, from the original blog post:

In 1994, we voted in a Congress that was remarkably fiscally conservative… so much so that they fought a protracted battle with President Clinton in 1995… trying desperately to get him to agree to a lower budget. The press ripped the Republican Congress (particularly Newt Gingrich) to shreds over it and they ended up conceeding the matter.

On the other side of things, Reagan tried to pass smaller budgets, but the House of Representitives was heavily Democratic and added to his proposed budget until he refused to sign… leading to another government shutdown.

Long story short, the budget is a combined effort of what the president proposes and what the Congress decides, so I thought it was only fair to mention both sides of the equation once the debt really started increasing drastically. This, of course, is only more damning to Bush and Obama, since both of them have (or had) a situation in which their party is in complete control of the government.

Today's Happy Abortion Story

Women who have abortions probably shouldn't write about them online. This morning's case in point is "Mayfly" at Feministing, "I had An Abortion. (And I don't Regret It!)":

I'm 21 years old, I don't have a steady job or a car or my own house, my boyfriend and I have only been together for 6 months, my health is crap, I'm a borderline alcoholic, yada yada yada. So really, bad time to have a baby. I am not a fan of adoption - I've heard far too many horror stories, and I couldn't send my baby out in the world to be raised by someone else who might not be a good parent. If anyone's going to fuck up my kids, it's going to be me!, and given my health and drinking, it would have been likely that I and/or my child would have been seriously damaged by the pregnancy.

So the choice was clear: abortion was the way to go ....

That's my happy abortion story. Does anyone else have one to share?

Reminds me of my earlier post, "Rationalizing Abortion: Paper, Plastic, or Death?"

Hat Tip: Darleen Click.

Google Homepage Celebrates Major Fossil Find - UPDATED!!

The shot below is from The Guardian, "Fossil Ida: Extraordinary Find is 'Missing Link' in Human Evolution."

But if you did a Google search yesterday, you must have noticed the search engine's "Ida" logo. Dan Collins has the image here, plus this, "In the latest news, paleontologists examining the contents of the stomach have discovered material that they believe might be Charles Johnson’s spooge. Tests are ongoing." Charles Johnson weighs in here.

See also, "Scientists: 'Missing Link' Fossil Not Worth Media Hype," and "Celebrated Fossil Shown to World."

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UPDATE: Charles Johnson responds to this post: "Donald Douglas has been yipping at me like a crack-addled chihuahua for months ..."

Sexual-Harassment Cases at the U.N.

From the Wall Street Journal, "Sexual-Harassment Cases Plague U.N.," via Memeorandum:

The United Nations, which aspires to protect human rights around the world, is struggling to deal with an embarrassing string of sexual-harassment complaints within its own ranks.

Many U.N. workers who have made or faced accusations of sexual harassment say the current system for handling complaints is arbitrary, unfair and mired in bureaucracy. One employee's complaint that she was sexually harassed for years by her supervisor in Gaza, for example, was investigated by one of her boss's colleagues, who cleared him.

Cases can take years to adjudicate. Accusers have no access to investigative reports. Several women who complained of harassment say their employment contracts weren't renewed, and the men they accused retired or resigned, putting them out of reach of the U.N. justice system.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls sexual harassment a 'scourge.'
"No matter which way the cases go, they mishandle it," says George G. Irving, a former U.N. attorney who now represents clients on both sides of such cases.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged that the system is troubled. "I fully share your concerns regarding sexual harassment and sex discrimination," he wrote in February to Equality Now, a women's rights group that had complained to him. "This scourge remains a high priority issue for me."

On July 1, the U.N. plans to make changes to its internal justice system for handling all employee disputes, including harassment complaints.

Yasmeen Hassan, an Equality Now attorney and former U.N. employee who met with Mr. Ban in December to discuss the issue, says she has "no faith" that the new system will be better, in part because complainants apparently still won't have access to investigative reports to help them with appeals.

The Wall Street Journal examined the U.N.'s handling of five sexual-harassment cases, reviewing hundreds of pages of confidential U.N. documents and interviewing U.N. employees who brought the complaints, supervisors they accused, the lawyers involved and U.N. officials.

It is impossible to know whether sexual harassment is a bigger problem at the U.N., whose global staff numbers about 60,000, than at other large multinational organizations. Officials in the secretary-general's office say they don't know how many sexual-harassment cases are filed at the world body because each U.N. entity tracks cases separately, and confidentially. The secretariat, the U.N.'s main administrative body, says it handles between five and eight cases a year. But those figures include only cases referred to its human-resources department for possible disciplinary action, not complaints that have been dismissed.

Changes to Internal Justice Coming

The planned overhaul of the United Nation's internal justice system is set to take effect July 1. Its goal is to create a more independent and professional system for resolving disputes, including sexual-harassment claims ...

A spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund, or Unicef, said it has handled 15 complaints since 2004. Five alleged perpetrators in those cases have been dismissed, and two others were issued lifetime employment bans from Unicef because they resigned during investigations. Disciplinary proceedings are being initiated against another accused staffer.

In one important respect, the U.N. handles such problems differently than other large organizations, such as multinational corporations. Many U.N. managers have diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution or civil litigation. Except when the U.N. lifts immunity, its internal justice system is the only one workers can turn to.

Read the whole thing at the link.

The U.N. bureaucrats are basically above the law. No one is commenting on this at Memeorandum, but I'll update if I see anything good.

Remember all the big U.N. backers in 2003? The "Let Inspections Work" crowd? Die hard defenders or fair weather friends of the U.N.? We'll see ...