On the UN-Even Canadians Are Recognizing the Failed Body

LOL now I get ya! John Kerry and Breyer. LOL Deep and convicted thinkers both. Now we are on the same page. Thanks.
 
"Jean Chrétien decided Canada would not join without UN approval. Whether the invasion was right or wrong, the result of Mr. Chrétien's decision left Canada hostage to the French veto on the Security Council."

Amen to doing away with the UN. The part of the article with which I disagree is highlighted above. Chretien did not leave Canada "hostage to the French veto". Everyone knows that the phrase "get UN support" is diplomat code for "let's not do a damn thing". Chretien knew that and used it so that the certainty of UN inaction would obviate the need for him to make the decision himself. So he neatly took the coward's way out. He witheld support without having to lift a finger to say so.
 
I agree with you Merlin. I also think one cannot get past the beneficiaries of the Oil-for-Food program. Russia, Germany, and France are at the forefront, though individuals such as Kofi's son didn't fare badly.
 
Originally posted by Kathianne
LOL now I get ya! John Kerry and Breyer. LOL Deep and convicted thinkers both. Now we are on the same page. Thanks.


And Thank you. I enjoy chatting with you.
 
There are reasons that thinking people find the UN a bad choice for 'peacekeeping' and other hard labor tasks. I used to believe they had a humanitarian purpose, but with the Oil for Food fiasco, my mind has changed. Here are a few reasons the UN has to go:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9450605%5E2703,00.html



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UN chief's career clouded
By Per Ahlmark
03may04

NO other organisation is regarded with such respect as the United Nations. This is perhaps natural, for the UN embodies some of humanity's noblest dreams.

But, as the current scandal surrounding the UN's administration of the Iraq oil-for-food program demonstrates, and as the world remembers the Rwanda genocide that began 10 years ago, respect for the UN should be viewed as something of a superstition, with Secretary-General Kofi Annan as its false prophet.
Not since Dag Hammarskjold has a UN leader been as acclaimed as Annan. Up to a point, this is understandable. Annan usually maintains an unruffled, dignified demeanour. He has charm and – many say – charisma. But a leader ought to be judged by his or her actions when important matters are at stake. Annan's failures in such situations are almost invariably glossed over.

Between 1993 and 1996, Annan was assistant secretary-general for UN peacekeeping operations and then undersecretary-general.

One of the two great disasters for which he bears a large share of the blame is the Serbian slaughter of 7000 people in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, perhaps the worst massacre in post-war Europe.

In 1993, Bosnia's Muslims were promised that UN forces would protect them. This commitment was a precondition of their consent to disarm. The UN declared Srebrenica a "safe haven" to be "protected" by 600 Dutch UN troops.

In July 1995, Serb forces attacked. The UN did not honour its pledge. Annan's staff released evasive, confused statements. Oblivious, apparently, to the dreadfulness of the situation, they failed to sound the alarm properly and did nothing to intervene.

The Dutch fired not a single shot. NATO air power could have halted the Serbs, but Annan did not ask for NATO intervention.

Ratko Mladic, the Serb commander and war criminal, deported the women and children under the eyes of the UN, while capturing and murdering the men and adolescent boys.

No one should be surprised by the UN's inaction, because only the year before it had demonstrated utter incompetence in facing the fastest genocide in history – the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in just 100 days. UN forces in Rwanda in 1994 were Annan's responsibility before and during the crisis.

Annan was alerted four months before Hutu activists began their mass killings by a fax message from Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general commanding UN forces in Rwanda. Dallaire described in detail how the Hutus were planning "anti-Tutsi extermination". He identified his source "a Hutu" and reported that arms were ready for the impending ethnic cleansing.

Dallaire requested permission to evacuate his informant and to seize the arms cache. Annan rejected both demands, proposing that Dallaire make the informant's identity known to Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, even though the informant had expressly named the president's closest entourage as the authors of the genocide blueprint.

Annan maintained his extreme passiveness even after the airplane crash that killed Habyarimana, which signalled the genocide's start, helped by the indifference of the great powers.

One might think Annan far too compromised to become secretary-general but the UN doesn't work that way. Instead of being forced to resign after Rwanda and Srebrenica, he was promoted to the post.

That is the culture of the UN: believe the best of barbarians, do nothing to provoke controversy among superiors, and let others be the butt of criticism afterwards. Even subsequent revelations about Annan's responsibility for the disasters in Rwanda and Bosnia did not affect his standing. On the contrary, he was unanimously re-elected and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The media sometimes ratchets up admiration for Annan by pointing out that his wife, Nane Annan, is Swedish and a close relative of Raoul Wallenberg. We are meant to infer that, on top of all his talents, Annan shares the ideals embodied during the last days of World War II by the foremost Swede of modern times.

But Wallenberg's name should make us even more dismayed about Annan's record. In Hungary, Wallenberg exploited every contact, resorting to shady tricks, bribes and other stratagems to save as many people as possible from the Holocaust. He never allowed himself to be duped by Hitler's cronies.

Perhaps no one's achievement should be judged by comparison with that of Wallenberg – a titan of strength, courage and perseverance.

Annan cannot plead he faced any risk to his safety, whereas Wallenberg in 1944 and 1945 was in constant peril. Nor can he excuse himself by saying no warnings were given, or that he lacked resources, or that he did not have the international position to intervene.

Annan had at his disposal all the instruments of power and opinion Wallenberg lacked. Yet, when thousands or hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to mortal threats he had the authority and duty to avert, alleviate, or at least announce, he failed.

Now, despite revelations about bribery in the UN's oil-for-food program for Iraq, the world is clamouring to entrust Annan with the future of more than 20 million Iraqis who survived Saddam Hussein dictatorship. That is because of who Annan is and what the UN has become: an institution in which no shortcoming, it seems, goes unrewarded.

Per Ahlmark is a former deputy prime minister of Sweden.



privacy © The Australian
 
Everywhere I go tonight, I'm running in the UN and scandal:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...2.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/05/02/ixportal.html

UN threatens authors of 'racy' exposé
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 02/05/2004)


The United Nations has threatened to fire two officials who wrote an expose of sleaze and corruption during its peacekeeping missions of the 1990s.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, is understood to have favoured an attempt to block publication of the memoir, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures, a True Story from Hell on Earth, due to be published next month.

Still reeling from the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, officials in the upper echelons of the UN are alarmed by the promised revelations of wild sex parties, petty corruption, and drug use - diversions that helped the peacekeepers to cope with alternating states of terror and boredom.

Other senior officials, however, have apparently argued that any attempt to gag the book's three co-authors - Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson, who are still on the UN payroll, and Kenneth Cain, who is now a writer - would prompt more negative publicity.

Under UN staff rules, writers have to submit manuscripts for scrutiny. Authors can be disciplined if their work is not approved but they insist on publication.

Last week, a UN spokesman admitted that the book had been judged not to be within the interests of the organisation. "We can't stop them publishing, but the rule means that the two who still work for us can be disciplined and dismissed," he said.

The co-authors, who met in Cambodia in 1993 and later worked in Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia and Somalia, claim that petty corruption over expense accounts and living allowances was rife.

Ms Postlewait was in her early thirties when she went on her first trip abroad for the UN, supervising elections in Cambodia. There, she soon worked out that she could save enough money from her expense account to set herself up nicely back in New York. In other frauds, UN staff were said to quote blackmarket currency exchange rates to pad out their expenses.

The authors also complain that they encountered "bureaucratic betrayal" on missions, as the UN allegedly struck cynical deals with corrupt local officials.

One senior UN official who defended the book said that he believed it belonged in the "contemporary tradition of gritty war reporting", and would do little damage to the reputation of UN peacekeepers.

Last week, none of the three authors was available for comment. Mr Thomson, the son of missionaries, is in Cambodia, where he has built a house, and Mr Cain, a law school graduate from Harvard, is in Vietnam. The UN spokesman said that Ms Postlewait was travelling, but did not know her whereabouts.

Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright
 
Originally posted by Merlin1047
"Jean Chrétien decided Canada would not join without UN approval. Whether the invasion was right or wrong, the result of Mr. Chrétien's decision left Canada hostage to the French veto on the Security Council."

Amen to doing away with the UN. The part of the article with which I disagree is highlighted above. Chretien did not leave Canada "hostage to the French veto". Everyone knows that the phrase "get UN support" is diplomat code for "let's not do a damn thing". Chretien knew that and used it so that the certainty of UN inaction would obviate the need for him to make the decision himself. So he neatly took the coward's way out. He witheld support without having to lift a finger to say so.

Hardly a coward's way out. Majority Canadian opinion wanted to stay out of Iraq. He did exactly what his consituents wanted. Most Canadians support the UN, not because we idolize it as summer master organization, but because it is the only currently forum to seek international concensus, which was and is deemed important to Canadians.

Frankly I think our PM's plan ain't half bad. Put it this way, at least a system like this would make sure everyone's cards are on the table. No flip-flopping.
 
The UN Security Council sought to bring Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton to the World Court in Brussels on war crimes charges. Whether or not you like either of those men, you have to admit that even suggesting such an action shows an alarming disregard for the rights of US citizens.
I don't like Clinton and I don't really feel anything one way or the other about Kissinger, but I do think it's crappy for them to try to do shit like that. Screw the UN.
 
"Hardly a coward's way out. Majority Canadian opinion wanted to stay out of Iraq. He did exactly what his consituents wanted"

Sorry Isaac, you can't refute my statement simply by saying it "ain't so".

I respect the fact that Canada is a sovereign nation. I appreciate the fact that we have Canadians as neighbors to our north. I accept the fact that we will not always agree and while I am disappointed at your refusal to support the United States in this case, I am not angry with you.

However, your PM DID in fact take the coward's way out. If he had any spine at all, he would have stood up and flatly stated that he felt we were wrong and that he could not support our actions.

We might get a little mad about that, but at least we would respect it.
 

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