Dave Mustaine And Megadeth Tear UN A New One

"Everyone agrees" the UN is a corrupt abettor of tyranny and genocide. So why don't we have more stories about this?

In a mere five minutes and thirty-seven seconds United Abominations' title track encapsulates a litany of complaints against this "blot on the face of humanity," as Mustaine sneeringly calls it, from its practical indifference to ethnic cleansing and state-sponsored terrorism to the "mire of hypocrisy, bribes, kickbacks and corruption" it mucks around in. "The U.N. is where our so-called allies undermine us, and we pay 22 percent of the tab to host our enemies here at home," Mustaine intones during what is almost certainly the only song this year to name check Kofi Annan's son Kojo ("Held hostage by Oil-For-Food/Yet their own plates are full off the fat of their lands/There's no blood on their hands, right Kojo?") thunders along.

"I have a feeling a couple years from now, people are going to be saying, 'Who the f--k is Kojo?'" Mustaine laughed in a recent telephone interview from Amsterdam amidst the hustle and bustle of the United Abominations world tour. "But you know what? I bet some of the kids who bought this record looked his name up after reading the lyrics and know a whole lot more about the Oil-for-Food scandal than they did before."

Not everyone is amused by Mustaine's battering of the blue helmets. "I just wonder which abomination he considers worse: Eradicating polio or ending obstetric fistula?" Mark Leon Goldberg sniffs on UN Dispatch. "Or is it the campaign to reduce childhood mortality rates by two-thirds that gets the aging rocker's blood boiling? I suppose he can take his pick."

...

It's the lack of outrage that has Mustaine outraged. "Why doesn't Michael Moore do an expose on the UN?" he asked, adding, "When I see Syria on the Security Council [in 2002-2003], am I supposed to feel secure? It's mad....They just rely on UNICEF, this one good thing they're doing, to cover up all the stuff that they're not doing, to put them beyond dissent. I'm not impressed. How long are they going to sit by and watch Hezbollah fire Katyusha rockets into Israel from Lebanon? That's a question I'd like answered."

Speaking of Israel, on another track, "Amerikhastan," Mustaine envisions a dystopian future wherein a "legion of bankrupt souls with a lust for revenge" brings civilization to its knees. "You must ignore the focus groups," he advises in his melodic howl. "You must send in the Mossad/Turn off the BBC and CNN/And don't look back."

I'm always amused at how the UN takes credit for humanitarian aid for which they are merely a conduit. The UN isn't paying for that aid. The US, Britain, Australia, and a few other rich countries are. We could all do this same thing on our own, or in combination with others as part of a non-UN collective; and we'd be doing it more efficiently, too, and with more actual aid reaching the needy and less of it pocketed by effete career UN bandits.

In those functions in which the UN is uniquely qualified to act as the supposed voice of the world -- chastening tyrants and killers and rogue regimes, coordinating and championing interventions against them -- it fails.

The only thing it's good at is spending other people's money, and it's not even good at that.

Syria Invades Lebanon... encroaching three kilometers over Lebanon's border.

When I returned I was surprised to find no mention of this whatsoever anywhere else in the media. I assumed the story had to be false. How could Syria invade three kilometers into any region of Lebanon without triggering a diplomatic and media storm?

So I asked Michael Young, opinion page editor at Beirut’s Daily Star, if the story was bogus.

“It is true,” he said, “but the problem is that the 3 kilometers are in isolated areas, so that it isn't making headlines. However, the UN will be discussing border issues this week, I think, and that will be brought up. The Syrians are ratcheting up the pressure, but with the attack against UN troops in the south, they are, as one UN official put it, playing with fire.”

Indeed. Invade a country, attack UN troops, and the UN will soon be "discussing border issues." If that's not "playing with fire," I don't know what is.

posted by Ace at 02:48 PM

| Access Comments