The United Nations -- business as usual
Roger L. Simon points to a wonderful article by
Claudia Rosett:
The Unreality of U.N. Reform
What If “Later” Never Comes?
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.
Time to pull the plug -- although
some branches of the U.N. serve useful functions, the Security Council is useless and needs to be simply disbanded.
Posted by DaveH at June 14, 2006 5:58 PM