Kofi: The Problem With The UN Is..The US

[Annie]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzU0NzE3YTZhNzNmNThmYzc4NDlhMGNmNGEwMTZhMGE=

June 12, 2006, 9:58 p.m.

The Unreality of U.N. Reform
What If “Later” Never Comes?

By Claudia Rosett

Not to be outdone by his own ruckus-raising deputy, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself is now instructing the U.S. on how to treat the corruption-plagued, unreformed and unrepentant U.N.

Writing in the June 12 Financial Times, Annan reminds us that the U.S. has been threatening to block U.N. spending unless the organization shows serious progress toward reform. So, declares Annan, “The U.N. faces a moment of truth.”

Passing the Buck to Us
But don’t get your hopes up. The rest of Annan’s article, like most of his record during his more than nine years as secretary-general, suggests that when it comes to U.N. failings he wouldn’t recognize the truth if it drove up in Kojo’s green Mercedes and offered him a ride. Noting that “A minor storm broke out last week when Mark Malloch Brown, my deputy, made a speech,” Annan goes on to reprise Malloch Brown’s argument that the U.N.’s failure to reform is not really the fault of the General Assembly, nor of the U.N. top management, and certainly it has nothing do with Kofi Annan.

Nope. The culprit according to Kofi and Malloch Brown is — you guessed it — the United States.

And why is that? Annan is of the opinion that in asking for reform as a condition for more cash, the U.S. and its handful of cohorts who bankroll most of the U.N. budget are antagonizing the “developing countries” who fill most of the seats. Annan assures us that these developing countries would actually love to reform the U.N., but they are stoutly resisting that impulse in “reaction” to U.S. efforts to “use the power of the purse.”

Presumably the U.S. could resolve this impasse by closing its purse entirely, and unfettering these sensitive developing nations, together with Annan and Malloch Brown, to reform the U.N. to their heart’s content. But that is not what Annan has in mind. Apparently, America’s power of the purse is quite acceptable if it entails forking out money with no reforms required. If the U.S. will only sign on to that program, says Annan, everyone — presumably including Annan himself — can “turn down their rhetoric” and “engage in serious negotiations” which will be used “as a basis for more fundamental change,” which will happen “later.”

For Kofi Annan, of course, there’s not a lot of “later” left. He is due to retire at the end of this year, and one might have hoped he’d choose to depart on a less oleaginous note. The most stunning legacy of his U.N. leadership to date is in fact the Iraq Oil-for-Food program, which under his administration, and despite $1.4 billion in funding meant to help him monitor its integrity, ballooned into the biggest swindle in the history of humanitarian aid and a major boon to the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. Last year, the general hope, and Annan’s promise, was that the exposure of Oil-for-Food corruption, and a host of other U.N. scandals — procurement graft, peacekeeper rape, auditing inadequacies, high-level conflicts of interest, nepotism, and so forth — would lead to genuine U.N. reform. The scandals are still with us. But there has been no major reform. What we instead have is Annan touting such innovations as a toothless ethics office, and a new U.N. Human Rights Council, which — much like the tyrant-packed old Human Rights Commission — already includes such repressive states as Cuba, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia....

 

[insein]

Your so right Kofi. We're the problem. Thanks for recognizing this. We'll be going now. BTW, you have until the end of the month to vacate the premises.

 

[Mr.Conley]

Do you have a link to the original article that this one comments on?

I would like to read it.

 

[007]

If we're the problem, then wouldn't it make sense to get the fucking UN OUT of America?

That crocked bastard needs a short ride to the nearest jail.

 

[Annie]

Do you have a link to the original article that this one comments on?

I would like to read it.

There is a link at the site.

 

[Mr.Conley]

Thanks