Just because Bush Cheney'd the UN is not a good reason to respond in kind. The UN should step in and clean up after the US in Iraq. Of course, in doing so they should remove as much power as possible from the US. No oil law. No US military presence in the Gulf. Failure should have consequences. More constraints on the American Empire would be a good consequence.

It should be real interesting to watch the Hard-Right swing this one around. For a group of people who disdain the UN so much that they would love to see it suicide bombed, and love their Dear Leader so much that their minds can actually bend reality- well let's just say that if Bush hands the Glorious War over to the UN, we might get to see some heads twist off. In realtime. So fascinating.

Digby...

You need to work a little on your style...I was reading along and suddenly found myself saying..."what the hell???" Then I read the last paragraph. Although I should know what to expect, I long ago stopped trusting ANYONE to deliver the message I am expecting from them. So go on...throw some bread crumbs out so my blood doesn't start boiling before I realized you haven't jumped ship and paddled over to the dark side.

Maybe I'm a little too tightly wound about these things. Or maybe I'm suffering from Camille Paglia syndrome. But these days, who isn't?

Thanking you in advance for ratcheting up your smartass quotient for those of us who are constantly in the crouching tiger position, in spite of our arthritis.

Why shouldn't we rail about bill clinton lying? He lied, got caught, and got impeached.

Similarly bush lies like a dog. We're still waiting for impeachment.

Yes, the price of bushes lies is far higher. Furthermore, he doesn't have the courtesy to lie well or believably. Regardless, should we let one person off the hook because another is even worse?

Seriously, if g w bush is your standard for bad behavior then you've a serious problem.

If you have to use the scroll wheel more than twice to read a post, it's too long.

Ma'am, I can only hope that your use of "cheney" as a substitute for the F-word catches on. I love it. Sort of like the German tribe whose name is still used after all these centuries as synonymous with mindless destruction.

Has the US paid its outstanding UN dues?

That's an issue that got some attention for a time, and then just kind of disappeared (like term limits and the peace dividend -- just vanished; although I'm sure term limits will return to the GOP talking points if they get swept out in 2008).

Still, it seems pretty crass of Bush/Cheney/Rove to expect the UN to do anything after what they've done to Iraq and the Middle East as a whole, more so if we're still a big scofflaw on the UN dues. The UN should ask for its dues before it even dipped a toe in the Persian Gulf.

Ok nonaligned bloc dominated by the Arab states, you can officially sit on your fat asses and do nothing for the next 40 years as a salve to your bruised egos.

As if that's a bad thing.

At the start of the War to Liberate Iraq (didn't Hitler use similar language when he grabbed Czechoslovakia and Poland?),

Bush and company announced that the U.N. belonged to the dustbin when it refused to rubberstamp Bush's war of conquest. Bush labeled France, Germany and other countries as old fuddy-duddies when they declined the honor of being part of the Coalition of the Willing. Now, at this late date, Bush wants the U.N. to clean up the royal mess that the USA created!? It would be very appropriate if the U.N. told us that we, the entire USA, are totally financially and morally repsonsible for rebuilding Iraq no matter how long it takes and that failure to fully rebuild this country would result in war crimes charges for all levels of the American government.

My only quibble is the presumption that telling Bush to fuck himself constitutes a repudiation of "the U.S." It's time to consistently articulate the fact that Bush represents nothing more than the disease of Republicanism, and is no more a legitimate representative of the United States than Marshal Petain was of France. He isn't "our" president, he is the leader of a cult of racist, authoritarian religious fanatics, and the measure of any real American's patriotism is the degree to which he'd like to spit in his goddamn face.

No one can. No one can get us out of this quagmire. We dug our own grave, and now we have to lie in it. Not pleasant, but reality.

Alas, some of the responses to this article have been amazingly dumb. If you don't have the attention span to read more than 2 paragraphs, you should probably not be too proud to admit that.

Realname - the idea that the UN is dominated by Arab states is so dumb it can't be put into words.

the Bush cabal thinks the UN and the rest of "old Europe" should clean up their cheney ups?

Get the cheney out of here!

A) You just did. So I guess you need to check back with the voices in your head.

b) The nonaligned nations are dominated by 68 largely or predominately Muslim states. They generally vote as a bloc. 68 on its own is about a third. Add to that peripheral countries that lean in their direction, politically, yeah you get domination. I'm sorry your innumeracy tripped you up.

c) Syria and Sudan are in charge of human rights, for example. Just one example. Maybe Salon can get a seat in that august body of human-righters too?

Is so damn fine in the first place. I'm trying to recall a single operation that's a success....help me out here. Oh yes, they screamed at the Taleban for demolishing those ancient Hindu statues a few years back. Good job, good job.