Kofi Terror Speech: Talk, Not Action

Kofi said most of the right words in Madrid, in his closing address at the Conference on Terror and Appeasement ... that was what Soros and many European and UN dignitaries have turned it into .. but there's no proof in his pudding.

He laid out five "D's" for fighting terror:

• Dissuade disaffected groups from choosing terrorism as a tactic to achieve their goals
• Deny terrorists the means to carry out their attacks
• Deter states from supporting terrorists
• Develop state capacity to prevent terrorism
• Defend human rights in the struggle against terrorism

One could easily give the US an "A" for each of these, but that was not the tone of this decidedly anti-American conference. And how about the UN's grade?

Its delay, appeasement and inspection actions, its endless debates on whether or not an act is terror or a state supports terror does not dissuade disaffected groups, it empowers them.

Its poorly monitored care programs throughout the world give dispots the funds they need to fuel terror, so they're not denying means.

We know what states support terror, and we know how the UN honors them with committee chairs and other symbols of authority and respect, so how exactly are they deterring these states from pursuing terror?

The response to Hariri's death from the UN is just one more indication of its inability to develop state capacity to deter terrorism. Slow, late and unempowered.

And that fifth point, human rights, is all about the Patriot Act and the mercurial infringment it allegedly puts on human rights, not the life-ending, virgin-raping, child-orphaning, hand-and-head-chopping infringements on human rights that should be the focus of attention.

Counter the UN's performance with the President's. He's been doing some serious dissuading, he's been attacking their funding and munitions supplies, he's taken out nations that support terrorism and struck fear in others, he's created two democracies that replaced terrorist regimes and he has liberated millions, giving them a new dawn of human rights.

Does Kofi reconize the debt the world owes America and his president? No. He mentions President Bush once, rather neutrally, without a hint of praise:

I hope Member States will now build on [electoral assistance] work, as President Bush suggested to the General Assembly last September, by supporting a fund to help countries establish or strengthen democracy.

Kofi has let yet another chance to do the right thing slip by, prefering the warm, slow-moving goo of polite diplomacy over the decisive action that's needed to counter the decisive actions of terrorists, terrorist organizations and terrorist states.