No doubt the two UN officials who have been found guilty of "a dereliction of duty" and "a lethargy that is bordering on gross negligence" for failing to protect the UN building in Baghdad from the devastating attack that killed the UN's special representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 22 other people last August, are trembling in their shoes at the possible punishment awaiting them.
What will happen to Paul Aghadjanian of Jordan and and Pa Momodou Sinyan of Gambia? Will they no longer be allowed to fly first class? Will they have to work to fifty-six, before claiming their full pension, instead of the normal UN age of fifty-five? Will they forfeit the fat expense accounts which are such a jolly staple of UN existence? Probably not. Look at the fate of Tun Mayat, of Burma, the UN security chief. He was "fired", according to UN-speak. In reality, he has been retired, and will keep his pension. Look at the fate of Ramiro Lopes da Silva, who was responsible for security on site at the UN base. He is to be reassigned "elsewhere" within the UN, this time with no security duties. Which is just as well, all things considered.
So the multibillion dollar farce of the UN rumbles on, grins all over its army of well-fed faces, as if the world weren't being confronted by the most complex and disparate threat it has known since the organisation was founded 60 years ago.
The very day that the UN gently cuffed the hands of its delinquent officials and threatened to make them stand in the corner for fully 10 minutes if anyone else ever died because of their grotesque ineptitude, major Islamicist terrorist attacks in London, Tashkent, the Middle East and the Philippines were prevented.
On just one day: and there are countless days of this conflict ahead, probably thousands of them, if the UN continues to be the crowd of Useless Noddies which it showed itself to be over Iraq.
There, the Noddies assumed that because they worked for the UN, no one would attack their building. Which merely proves that they have been sleep-walking through the world since September 11th, 2001. For no one is safe from these people: no one.
Meanwhile, the UN is refurbishing its headquarters - cost, $25 million - as it works out how to spend its budget of well over $3 billion over the next two years. Perhaps the UN might spend a few of those dollars on some anti-terrorist training for its officials. In Baghdad, the Noddies were so complacent that the windows of the UN headquarters hadn't even been coated with blast-resistant film. And this, not in Knock or Fatima, but in a city where violent explosions are as endemic as traffic lights in other cities. Did the UN officials think that even routine Iraqi blasts are smart, and know how to avoid UN buildings?
No matter; plenty of time to think about precisely what they were thinking of in the course of the many years of pensioned retirement that lie ahead.
Not that the UN's problems begin and end with its huge bureaucracy. If I remember correctly, last year Libya chaired the human rights committee, and Syria was probably running the committee for universal democracy. Those who argued against US intervention in Iraq declared that the UN was the way to evict Saddam and his disgusting sons from power. The UN. Ha. As well try to demolish the Berlin Wall by throwing rice pudding at it.
And though the Weapons of Mass Destruction have turned out to be a lie - and one that I naively accepted - we know that France would have blocked UN authorisation of US military action even if Saddam had nuclear weapons, poison gas and anthrax. Chirac's words: a veto, "no matter the circumstances". Thus: wretched at the top; wretched at the bottom. That's the UN for you.
Yes, I know, I know, many people - perhaps most of us - in Ireland think this global nastiness will go away if we just ignore it, just as they thought that the Hussein dynasty in Iraq would go away, merely if we crossed our fingers, closed our eyes, and murmured enough pieties often enough. It won't. This is the long haul. It began about 10 years ago, and it has got steadily worse ever since. A word in your ear: it's going to get far, far worse.
What about all the Islamicist youth that will be alienated by allied action against Islamicists? Good question. Here's another question. Is there any way of conducting house-raids that won't alienate someone or other? There isn't. And though it is insane to make unnecessary enemies, it is equally insane to allow your enemy time and space to plan and execute his terrorist attacks lest intervention alienate his maiden aunt.
This war is, in its own dislocated, distorted, hall-of-mirrors way, a reflection of 1939-45: two sets of values, fighting to the death.
Except, of course, ultimately the allies were able to talk to Admiral Dönitz and accept unconditional surrender; there is no talking to the foes we face, for whom suicidal martyrdom is the greatest honour that they can aspire to.
Yes, we. Ireland. We are the embodiment of what Islamicists hate most: we are the offshore European island which is the trading base for US industry. We have chosen, democratically, to be that.
We are closer friends to the US than most of Europe. We all have family in the US, and when, because of American homeland security measures, the Islamicists can't strike at the US, they will look at surrogate targets to assault. Not the US, but us.