http://www.undispatch.com/…

Last summer, UN Dispatch learned that the heavy metal band Megadeth was recording an album titled “United Abominations,” which featured cover art depicting a 9-11 style attack on the UN building in New York. Naturally, we thought it distasteful in the least. But without hearing the album, we reserved final judgment. Until now.

Let’s point out what Mr. Goldberg got wrong shall we?

• “The track begins with a rambling, Limbaugh-esque monologue. The rant hits all the favorite themes of the fanatical right, and is accompanied by a crescendo of heavy guitar riffs that all but drowns out the last few sentences.” — A poor attempt to paint Dave as part of the ‘fanatical right’. The monologue is hardly rambling. It’s a short list of opinions/facts.
• “Blaming the UN for 9-11 is a new trope, even for conspiracy mongers–and rightly so.” — Nowhere in the monologue does Dave blame the UN for 9-11. It just states it’s location relative to Ground Zero to imply it’s inability to stop it.
• “The narrator then accuses the UN of ignoring sex crimes by peacekeepers. You can read the UN’s zero tolerance policy on sex crimes here. Essentially, the UN responds by sending peacekeepers home to face prosecution in domestic courts. The United Nations, I should stress, does not have the ability to conduct criminal prosecutions against peacekeepers, but depends on member states to do so.” – The article linked is from January 2007. This album was release after but was finished probably before the article published. The response to these horrible acts appeared but lip service in several of the articles I’ve read about it.
• “Finally, the narrator is correct to point out that the United States pays 22% of the operating expenses of the United Nations General Secretariat. He is incorrect, however, in asserting that this funds ‘hosting our enemies at home.’” — Yes we do. It’s our country the building is located in. Given we pay 22% of the bill for something shared by 192 members… several who are our enemies… we are paying to host our enemies.
• “‘The Locust King’ is drawn from the Book of Revelation, Chapter 9. Mustain’s decision to use apocalyptic literature found in Revelation is quite, uh, revealing. He seems to be sympathetic to a fundamentalist doctrine known as pre-millenialism, in which an anti-Christ is said to rule the world during a period of tribulation before the messiah (Christ) returns. Some modern day pre-millenialist sects believe that the United Nations (or the Secretary General), is either literally the anti-Christ, or is setting the geopolitical conditions in which the anti-Christ will rise. Mustaine seems to believe this lunacy as well.” — Dave is a born again Christian. I’m not sure if he believes in pre-millennialism. I’m not sure that millennialism is a requirement to believe the UN or something like it is the one world government referred to in the Bible. Regardless insulting him based on his religious beliefs is hardly a worthy defense. He (Dave) could simply be raising a similarity to it.
• “Mustaine seems to be ascribing pre-Iraq war intelligence failures to the UN. In fact, United Nations weapons inspectors cautioned against American claims that Saddam Hussein had an active weapons program.” — That’s wonderful… but I don’t recall the UN jumping up and down telling the world and the United States people and Congress that was absolutely the case. In fact plenty of our UN allies joined the fight. It’s difficult to figure out exactly what Dave is talking about in the referred verse. I believe it’s related to sticking it out instead of leaving Iraq believing it will only show weakness and invite more attacks. If so… Mark’s response makes little sense.
• “At this point, you can hear French spoken in the background. The only thing I could decifer was, “Nous besoin d’ordre mondial,” meaning, “We need global order.” This apparently upsets Mustaine, because he launches into a monster guitar solo!” — Well… yeah. When you have former French President Jacques Chirac saying things like ‘For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance, one that should find a place within the World Environmental Organisation which France and the European Union would like to see established.’ in a speech to the UN. For those of us who would prefer little or no government… a global one is not something we can agree with.
• The rest can all be lumped together as trying to defined the UN for what it does AFTER the fact. They didn’t actually sanction the invasion to stop ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia… but they help clean up. The US disposed of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the UN provide humanitarian relief and ‘promote good governance.’ The UN let Hussein violate resolution after resolution and when push came to shove they stood there… and Mark here wants to take credit for helping with the elections. Great, thanks. But they wouldn’t have been free to have the elections if not for our intervention (regardless of your stance on the war).
• ‘Iran funds Hamas, and attacked the US in the seventies’. Dave is saying Iran funds Hamas and Iran attacked the US. Not that Hamas attacked the US. It’s fine that Waldheim said he helped secure the release of 14 of the Iranian held hostages… but that’s not the whole truth. According to someone I know who was in the US Navy at the time… even though Reagan was not sworn into office yet… he effectively put the military on high alert and told the Iranians they would be releasing the hostages, period.
• ‘Facing War without end, looking into the future, there (grunt) was
  (grunt) no (grunt) more (grunt) UNNNNNNNN!’ Only in Mustaine’s dystopian fantasies. — Perhaps this guy should check out the past 70 years of American history. We’ve started unconstitutional wars and used treaties to override the constitution to provide support for the UN. We’ve delved head first into the clusterfuck that is the Middle East and now talk about keeping troops in the area for 25+ years. The UN isn’t explicitly helping out. They are letting the US take the brunt of the dirty work… all the while complaining about our actions but more than happy to take our money and our protection.

We shouldn’t need to have people complain about the ineffectiveness of the UN. We shouldn’t be in the UN. We shouldn’t be policing the world. But we are and while it’s hardly Megadeth’s best work the criticism on the UN’s ineffectual existence and waste of time and money is surely something to support. I’m hoping Mustaine releases his own response.

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