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11/21/2004: "Why the UN Cannot be Trusted"

This organization is as corrupt as they come. Rivaling the Clinton administration. They can barely be trusted to manage even their own internal voting without U.S. oversight. In reference to the article below, I would say that paying Palestinian homicide bombers $25,000.00 is definitely a link to terrorism. Hmm... Any of you liberals out there want to remove your condemnation of the war as not being part of the war on terror?

Mike

From the Chicago Tribune Nov 21, 2004. Editorial Page.

November 21, 2004

hotel rooms MilanKofi Annan and the UN scandal

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan can be generous with his opinions. He has pronounced the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein to be "illegal," and he warned before the recent assault on Fallujah that a military campaign and "increased insurgent violence" put Iraq's January election at risk.

Levoca Top-HotelbewertungenIf only the Iraqi people could hear the secretary general summon equivalent candor about their billions of dollars in oil money that Saddam Hussein looted while Annan's UN looked the other way--or corruptly assisted. Instead, Annan continues to block efforts by congressional probers to inspect internal documents that would establish the UN's level of complicity.

And so, for lack of that candor, the scandal known as Oil-for-Food continued last week to rise toward Annan's chin. On his watch, the UN's biggest-ever relief operation has become its biggest-ever embarrassment. Remember those $25,000 rewards that Hussein paid to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who had attacked Israeli citizens? The Associated Press now cites Jordanian bank records strongly indicating that Hussein used money stolen under Oil-for-Food to fund those terror bounties. The purported evidence even includes a canceled check delivered to one Palestinian family.

And those insurgents in Iraq? Now the heads of two U.S. congressional committees probing Oil-for-Food--Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.)--have suggested that Oil-for-Food money may be funding the killers who are preying on American troops.

For Annan and the UN, these are potentially devastating turns. Particularly given that the UN framed Oil-for-Food as a great humanitarian gesture. Hussein was permitted to sell some oil, under UN monitoring, and could use the proceeds to buy food and medicine for his people. Instead he parlayed the program into a vast scheme of kickbacks, bribes and extortions. He ripped off his own people to rebuild his military, construct palaces and purchase the fealty of diplomats, public officials, influential citizens and companies all over the globe.

Hussein's goal was to buy enough clout to end UN sanctions against Iraq. And he nearly got his way. His biggest secret payoffs allegedly went to powerful interests in Russia, France and China--nations that hold veto power in the UN Security Council. Those also happen to be three nations that were pushing to loosen trade sanctions on Iraq. And the same trio later helped keep the Security Council from enforcing its own resolutions against Hussein.

As early as 2000, the UN had indications Hussein was ripping off its program. Annan needs to disclose in detail why the UN didn't intervene as Hussein's thefts climbed to a suspected $21 billion. A spokesman for the International Relations Committee, chaired by Hyde, says, "If the UN continues to stonewall," Hyde's investigators "will find other ways."

That mission is imperative. As this page has noted, the abuse of UN sanctions gave Hussein money and time. He used the former to fund his outlaw regime, the latter to brutalize and murder his people by the tens of thousands.

The United Nations, which views itself as noble, owes the world an explanation of why it tolerated that abuse. And so does Kofi Annan.

Replies: 1 Comment

Another great article on the United Nations and why they are irrelevant. Sunday, November 28, 2004 UN's Annan makes losing bet on Kerry By Thomas Bray / The Detroit News One of the biggest losers in the Nov. 2 election was a man who couldn't cast a ballot but who tried to affect the outcome: Kofi Annan. In a transparent attempt to lend weight to John Kerry campaign's criticism of Bush administration policies in Iraq, the United Nations' secretary-general denounced the war several weeks before the election as "illegal." It was a direct slap to an incumbent president -- and all the more outrageous because no such judgment was pronounced on Bill Clinton's war in Kosovo, which also lacked UN sanction. Given the fact that Annan is now presiding over a monumental scandal involving the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq, he's poorly positioned to prate about legality. Of course, the problem with the United Nations goes far deeper than Annan's questionable leadership. Annan, who has spent virtually his entire career as a UN bureaucrat, last year appointed a group of elderly statesmen to assess possible reforms in a world much changed since 1945, when the United Nations came into existence. Their report is due in several months. But even that isn't likely to get at the more fundamental question of why the United Nations should be considered much more than an occasionally convenient place for diplomats to jaw about things. The United Nations and, before it, the ill-fated League of Nations were predicated on the belief that the chief threat to peace and human decency was nationalism. What was needed, it was thought, was a collective counterbalance to the nation-state, a trans-national agency that would uphold ideals of freedom, peace and prosperity against future Hitlers and Tojos. But this ignored harsh realities. Few of the 191 member states would recognize true freedom if they stumbled across it. Most are dictatorships or squalid, dysfunctional principalities and kleptocracies with little interest in real human rights. The all-important Security Council might include France, England and the United States, but also the Soviet Union, which was committed to imposing communism on as much of the world as possible. Just how absurd the United Nations has become is highlighted by Libya's recently serving as head of its Human Rights Commission -- and the U.S. seat on the commission was handed over to that garden spot of liberty, Syria. While nationalism certainly has a dark side, what reason is there to think a world government of some sort would be better? As the oil-for-food swindle makes abundantly clear, the politics of the UN is pretty much like politics everywhere: a mix of high hopes (feed the Iraqi people), low motives (award the lucrative contracts for oil to Saddam's French and Russian friends) and a self-interested bureaucracy (cover up the crime). The fact that the world is divided up into nation states has distinct benefits, not least that they allow for social, political and economic experimentation. As Cornell University political scientist Jeremy Rabkin has pointed out, national sovereignty offers the oppressed at least the possibility of refuge. When things get too bad in one country, people can at least try to flee to some other country. If the United Nations, by contrast, were sovereign, there would be nowhere else to go. Well, you say, nobody thinks the United Nations is going to become a world government anytime soon. But don't be too sure. The proposed international criminal court would give judges appointed by the United Nations the right to judge individual citizens of nation-states (unlike the so-called World Court in the Hague, which arbitrates differences among states). The UN-backed global warming treaty, meanwhile, in effect would put the world's energy supply in the hands of a bunch of bureaucrats. Annan lost his bet on Kerry, and the time is long past for a serious clipping of the UN's wings -- starting at the top.

mike said @ 11/28/2004 03:50 PM CST