I’m still dizzy from this (posted by Rich yesterday afternoon). Let’s

say we substitute the words “bin Laden” of “al Qaeda’ or “Zarqawi” for

“Hezbollah” in Kofi Annan’s reported remarks. Do the sentences not

still work all the same? After all, they too have been expressing the

opinion that they don’t want “interference from outsiders.” They can

also be said, for certain, to be “a force in society.”

This is why the U.N. is dead: even with regard to the most abject evil –

groups and individuals who target civilians for gruesome murder as a

political strategy — Annan and his ilk are incapable of rendering an

informed moral judgment. If such judgments are beyond the capacity of

the “international community” — if theirs is a Nitzchean world in which

we should train ourselves to recognize only the quantum of power and

disregard quaint notions like whether that power is used for good or bad

purposes — why would we want to be part of that? Why would we ever

think inviting it to be a factor in addressing complex problems like

democratic reform in Iraq or the Palestinian/Israeli conflict would be

helpful?