Somedays I Just Wish I Could Stay In Bed

I don't really know what to do with this. But when the same argument pops up in two separate articles, it's probably going somewhere.

"The United Nations is an enabling institution. It enables John Kerry to babble mindlessly about the situation in Iraq. It enables President Bush to assure Americans that our troops will not remain in Iraq forever. The United Nations also enables terrorists in the Middle East to kill with impunity."
- Ben Shapiro, "The United Nations International Terrorism Organization."

"The United Nations and Red Cross have been providing cover for terrorists -- literally. And American taxpayers are footing some of the bill."
- Michelle Malkin, "The ambulances-for-terrorists scandal."

Both articles reference an incident last month in which "Arab Terrorists" (according to Ms. Malkin and Mr. Shapiro) used an ambulance in a raid on this Israeli Military. Young Ben also references an incident a number of years ago in which members of Hezbollah used UN Uniforms to lure Israeli soldiers into a trap. According to Ben there is some possibility that the Indian UN Peacekeepers were bribed into letting Hezbollah use their stuff.

In both articles the point is the same; the United Nations is a bad organization and we shouldn't support it.

The problem is that it is hard to judge the veracity of these reports and it's hard to gauge the involvement of United Nations forces in this. My personal inclination would be to suspect that the United Nations are victims in this scenario, although obviously not to the extent of the Israelis. I seriously doubt that some UN Ambulance Driver threw the keys to some terrorist and said "Just make sure you fill it up before bringing it back."

I also notice there's one player missing in both of these accounts. I mean we have the innocent Israeli Civilians. We have the brave Israeli Soldiers. We have the evil Palestinian terrorists (and lest anybody get any contrary ideas, Palestinian terrorists are pretty evil). But we don't have innocent or even innocent but a bit grimy Palestinian civilians. They don't come into the picture. And I can see why they wouldn't, since both young Ben and Ms. Malkin are asking for a cessation of medical aid to the Palestinians.

At any rate, I wish I were still in bed. And stories like these don't inspire me to change my mind.