The Bush administration says that Kofi Annan should not resign. Why would they say this? I have a few ideas but they are just that, suppositions and opinion. Until the Iraq elections are a done deal, we need the UN to lend credibility to the process. (I can't believe I just used UN and credibility in the same sentence.) The administration has never suggested that Kofi resign or get canned and I would be surprised if they did in a public way. Norm Coleman (R) and Carl Levin (D) are doing that job and sending the message quite well. What I see probably happening is a movement within the Legislature to cut off funding of the UN until there is a serious house cleaning and a more transparent use of funds. Whoever replaces John Danforth will be walking the back hallways and doing what is necessary to form another coalition, a coalition of the fed up. Boutros Ghali was shown the door by the same method. Also the next SecGen is supposed to come from Asia. That could be a problem.
The UN and most of it's subsidiaries are so corrupt that I'm not sure it can be repaired. Even UNICEF has turned into a joke. The Diplomad has an excellent post about this sacred cow and I highly recommend that you read the whole thing.
For us older Diplomads that word still conjures up memories from the 1950s/60s .
. . Collecting coins in elementary school and on Halloween "trick-or-treat"
expeditions, being assured by kindly fourth and fifth grade teachers that our
pennies, nickels and dimes would help young altruistic UNICEF workers save
starving and sick children in exotic places such as Africa, Brazil and India . .
. . Ah, yes, UNICEF . . .Snap out of it! We're sorry to say this, but it ain't
your daddy's UNICEF anymore!
Let
us explain.
Paul Weyrich, who heads the conservative Free Congress Foundation, writes in his Web commentary, "The U.N. now is dominated by nations of the Third World whose values are so distant from our own that they won't even object to the genocide occurring in the Sudan."
Cal Thomas has an opinion on what we should do...Get out. I don't see this happening even though it does bring more visions of sugar plums than staying in. As I have posted before, the UN is dirty to the core. It cannot or will not deal with corruption in its organization, it allows blatant sexual harrassment by the "suits" and rape and pillage by its "blue Helmet peace keepers". It ignores genocide, nuclear proliferation and can't even come up with a definition of what terrorism is. Kofi and his minions would rather fiddle while the world burns.
When anything is done in the world in the way of humanitarian aid or defense, it is always the democratic countries that do it. Usually led by the US but with much help from our real friends such as the UK, Australia, and now Italy, Poland and even Japan. Many other countries have adopted a more caring attitude about the world and they are all democracies. The UN debates and gives lip service while shedding crocodile tears and wringing their collective hands.
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