While Looking For A New UN Chief

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
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Personally, think the US can't get out soon enough, though it looks unlikely.

Notice the date:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005985

TURTLE BAY WATCH

Time for a Kofi Break
Annan's one virtue: He weakens the U.N.

BY GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS
Sunday, December 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

Things are going badly for Kofi Annan. The Oil for Food scandal has revealed U.N. behavior regarding Saddam Hussein's Iraq that ranges from criminally inept to outright corrupt. Rape and pedophilia by U.N. peacekeepers haven't gotten the kind of attention they'd get if American troops were involved, but the scandals have begun to take their toll. this was two years ago. :rolleyes:And the U.N.'s ability to serve its crowning purpose--the "never again" treatment of genocide that was vowed after the Holocaust, and re-vowed after Cambodia and Rwanda--is looking less and less credible in the wake of its response to ongoing genocide in Darfur. And finally, the U.N. has so far played no significant role in defusing the Ukrainian crisis.

Things have gotten bad enough that some wasn't enough are calling for Mr. Annan's resignation, amid talk of former Czech president Vaclav Havel as successor. ("Havel for Secretary General" bumper stickers are on the Web.) But however you assess Mr. Havel's chances of becoming secretary general, for Mr. Annan the comparison is devastating. Mr. Havel, after all, is a hero on behalf of freedom: a man who helped bring about the end of communist dominance in Eastern Europe, despite imprisonment and the threat of death--a man who could write that "evil must be confronted in its womb and, if it can't be done otherwise, then it has to be dealt with by the use of force." Mr. Annan, by contrast, is a trimmer and temporizer who has stood up for tyrants far more than he has stood up to them.

If the comparison is damning to Kofi, it's even more damning to the U.N. Mr. Havel once wrote Czech dictator Gustav Husak, "So far, you . . . have chosen . . . the path of inner decay for the sake of outward appearances . . . of deepening the spiritual and moral crisis of our society, and ceaselessly degrading human dignity, for the puny sake of protecting your own power." One might say the same of the U.N. bureaucracy.

And that, perhaps, is the only argument against bringing Mr. Havel to the U.N. (besides the obvious: He probably wouldn't take the job). The U.N. is losing what shreds of moral legitimacy remain, even among those who were once sympathetic, as the extent of its corruption becomes too obvious to ignore. There's talk of replacing--or, more diplomatically, supplementing--the U.N. with a Community of Democracies that would draw its support from legitimate governments, not thugs and kleptocrats. At the very least, it seems likely that the U.N. will soon come under enormous pressure to reform.

But here's a paradox: It's hard to imagine that Mr. Annan could parry the pressure. But a U.N. headed by Mr. Havel might derive enough reflected legitimacy to resist such changes. According to Mr. Annan's Web site, the secretary general is supposed to serve as a "symbol" of U.N. "ideals." It may well be that he's doing that more accurately than Vaclav Havel ever could.
 
I think that Havel would be a big improvement over Annan, as would be almost anyone. I remember reading that Clinton was interested in the job. I guess that has faded.
 
Interesting. Weakening the UN is one thing I wouldn't blame on Kofi. It's been pretty useless since Day One.

When I was in high school, the UN was considered sancrosanct. In college, I tried to work for, via sociology degree.

By 1980, I'd lost faith in the concept..
 
The applause that Chavez and Ahmadinejad received a couple of weeks ago in the General Assembly was something out of a horror movie. The zombies in the audience actually applauded those two monsters for more than twice as long as Bush. Creepy…very creepy. With sociopaths like that popular at the UN, perhaps it would be better if the headquarters moved to Caracas or Teheran. Then, at least the new Soviets would be comfortable, at home with their South American weapons customer, or with their terrorist Middle East nuke client. Lets see the Soviets pony up the 25 percent of the UN’s operating cost that the Americans currently provide.
 
When I was in high school, the UN was considered sancrosanct. In college, I tried to work for, via sociology degree.

By 1980, I'd lost faith in the concept..

I'll just use military successes as the basis of my statement.

Prior to and including WWII, the US NEVER lost a war. Not to terrorists (see "the Banana Wars") nor anyone else.

Enter the UN.

Korea = stalemate

Vietnam (the US WAS in Vietnam via the UN) = loss due to politics

Former Yugoslavia = ongoing clusterf*ck. The biggest criminal in that war died of old age.

Iraq = still trying to clean that one up too due to failed UN policy

Rwanda = willful blindness to genocide

Darfur = ditto

Iran = they'll have to nuke someone before the UN says "oh my"
 
I'll just use military successes as the basis of my statement.

Prior to and including WWII, the US NEVER lost a war. Not to terrorists (see "the Banana Wars") nor anyone else.

Enter the UN.

Korea = stalemate

Vietnam (the US WAS in Vietnam via the UN) = loss due to politics

Former Yugoslavia = ongoing clusterf*ck. The biggest criminal in that war died of old age.

Iraq = still trying to clean that one up too due to failed UN policy

Rwanda = willful blindness to genocide

Darfur = ditto

Iran = they'll have to nuke someone before the UN says "oh my"

I agree, which is only one of the reasons, there are many, that they US needs to remove itself from the UN along with it contributions.
 
I'll just use military successes as the basis of my statement.

Prior to and including WWII, the US NEVER lost a war. Not to terrorists (see "the Banana Wars") nor anyone else.

Enter the UN.

Korea = stalemate

Vietnam (the US WAS in Vietnam via the UN) = loss due to politics

Former Yugoslavia = ongoing clusterf*ck. The biggest criminal in that war died of old age.

Iraq = still trying to clean that one up too due to failed UN policy

Rwanda = willful blindness to genocide

Darfur = ditto

Iran = they'll have to nuke someone before the UN says "oh my"
I agree. Regarding Vietnam, however, I would be more specific and point to the leftist media as a significant, if not the the main, reason we lost in Vietnam. The same nihilistic media process is happening with the Iraq war. The anti-government, anti-military, media similarities between Vietnam and Iraq are clear.
 

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