An interesting interview of Kyoto's architect
Claudia Rosett has an excellent interview of Maurice Strong in the current
Wall Street Journal:
The U.N.'s Man of Mystery
Is the godfather of the Kyoto treaty a public servant or a profiteer?
"I don't trust you, and I also question your integrity." Thus did Maurice Strong offer me a seat on his living room sofa.
Often described as an "international man of mystery," Mr. Strong during his long, globe-trotting career has been one of the most influential architects of the opaque cross-border bureaucracy that is today's United Nations. He is probably best known as godfather of the U.N.'s 1997 Kyoto treaty, and as a former U.N. top adviser who in that same year received a check for almost $1 million, bankrolled by the U.N.-sanctioned regime of Saddam Hussein. (Mr. Strong told me that at the time he did not know the money came from Baghdad.)
Ismael RoldanIn his most recent stint at the U.N., from 1997-2005, Mr. Strong served as an Under-Secretary-General and special adviser to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He was point man on matters ranging from U.N. reform to environmentalism to North Korea. By some accounts, including his own, he has been a benevolent toiler in the multilateral trenches, a friend of Mikhail Gorbachev and Al Gore, networking to save the planet.
By other accounts, he's a self-dealing and self-declared socialist who has parlayed his talents into a push for collectivist global government. These days he is living in China, where he says his ties go back "40 years."
Curious to see what other corruption he is involved in -- Oil for Food perhaps?
Mr. Strong no longer has any official ties to the U.N., however. In 2005, at the height of the investigations into the U.N.'s corrupt Oil-for-Food relief program for Iraq, news emerged of the six-figure check from Iraq. Evidence procured by federal investigators and the U.N.-authorized inquiry of Paul Volcker showed that Mr. Strong in 1997, while working for Mr. Annan, had endorsed a check for $988,885, made out to "Mr. M. Strong," issued by a Jordanian bank. This check was hand-delivered to Mr. Strong by a South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, who in 2006 was convicted in New York federal court of conspiring to bribe U.N. officials to rig Oil-for-Food in favor of Saddam.
Mr. Strong was never accused of any wrongdoing. Asked by investigators about the check, he initially denied he'd ever handled it.
Scume like these need to be toppled from power. What is Mr. Strong?
Oh yes -- from the article:
he's a self-dealing and self-declared socialist who has parlayed his talents into a push for collectivist global government.
And these people want to gain power in the USA?
Posted by DaveH at October 14, 2008 8:41 PM