United Nations

[Merowig]

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The U.N. scandal

They say that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Some is certainly needed on the smelly Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, but so far, the mainstream media has not delivered this outrage to the public. That job was left to Fox News, which broadcast a report on Sunday night.
There are two ongoing investigations of the scandal - one by the United Nations, which administered the program, and another by Congress. Unfortunately, neither promises to get very far. We are skeptical of the U.N.'s ability to investigate itself, and Congress does not have subpoena power to call the appropriate people onto the carpet.
...
Some of that happened. But what has become increasingly clear is that the program became corrupt, and that a lot of people - Iraqi officials, including Saddam, U.N. officials, and businessmen (and maybe even politicians) in France, Germany, Russia and China - made billions off the program.
...

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UN lehnen Aufnahme Taiwans ab
Taiwanesische Präsident spricht von erzwungener "politische Apartheid" seitens der UN
New York - Die Vereinten Nationen haben einen neuerlichen Antrag Taiwans auf Aufnahme in die Weltorganisation abermals zurückgewiesen. In der Vollversammlung gab es am Mittwochabend (Ortszeit) keinen Widerspruch gegen den Vorschlag des amtierenden Präsidenten Jean Ping aus Gabun, das Anliegen Taipehs nicht auf die Tagesordnung zu setzen. Taiwan bemüht sich schon seit zwölf Jahren um einen UN-Beitritt, ist bisher jedoch stets am politischen Einfluss Chinas gescheitert. Der taiwanesische Präsident Chen Shui Bian warf den Vereinten Nationen vor, seinem Land eine "politische Apartheid" aufzuzwingen. (APA/AP)

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A DECAYING BODY

The U.N.? Who Cares?
Kofi Annan & Co. might as well move to Brussels or Geneva.

BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
Thursday, September 23, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
(...)
In response to such international lawlessness, our global watchdog, the United Nations, had been largely silent. It abdicates its responsibility of ostracizing those states that harbor such mass murderers, much less organizes a multilateral posse to bring them to justice. And yet under this apparent state of siege, President Bush in his recent address to the U.N. offered not blood and iron--other than an obligatory "the proper response is not to retreat but to prevail"--but Wilsonian idealism, concrete help for the dispossessed, and candor about past sins. The president wished to convey a new multilateralist creed that would have made a John Kerry or Madeleine Albright proud, without the Churchillian "victory at any cost" rhetoric. Good luck.
(...)
The Taliban and Saddam Hussein were once the United Nations' twin embarrassments, rogue regimes that thumbed their noses at weak U.N. protestations, slaughtered their own, invaded their neighbors, and turned their outlands into terrorist sanctuaries. Now they are gone, despite either U.N. indifference or veritable opposition to their removal. The United States sought not dictators in their place, but consensual government where it had never existed.

What was the response to Mr. Bush's new multifaceted vision? He was met with stony silence, followed by about seven seconds of embarrassed applause, capped off by smug sneers in the global media. Why so?
First, the U.N. is not the idealistic postwar organization of our collective Unicef and Unesco nostalgia, the old perpetual force for good that we once associated with hunger relief and peacekeeping. Its membership is instead rife with tyrannies, theocracies and Stalinist regimes. Many of them, like Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, have served on the U.N.'s 53-member Commission on Human Rights. The Libyan lunocracy--infamous for its dirty war with Chad and cash bounties to mass murderers--chaired the 2003 session. For Mr. Bush to talk to such folk about the need to spread liberty means removing from power, or indeed jailing, many of the oppressors sitting in his audience.
Second, urging democratic reforms in Palestine, as Mr. Bush also outlined, is antithetical to the very stuff of the U.N., an embarrassing reminder that nearly half of its resolutions in the past half-century have been aimed at punishing tiny democratic Israel at the behest of its larger,more populous--and dictatorial--Arab neighbors. The contemporary U.N., then, has become not only hypocritical, but also a bully that hectors Israel about the West Bank while it gives a pass to a nuclear, billion-person China after swallowing Tibet; wants nothing to do with the two present dangers to world peace, a nuclear North Korea and soon to follow theocratic Iran; and idles while thousands die in the Sudan.
Third, the present secretary-general, Kofi Annan, is himself a symbol of all that is wrong with the U.N. A multibillion dollar oil-for-food fraud, replete with kickbacks (perhaps involving a company that his own son worked for), grew unchecked on his watch, as a sordid array of Baathist killers, international hustlers and even terrorists milked the national petroleum treasure of Iraq while its own people went hungry. In response, Mr. Annan stonewalls, counting on exemption from the New York press on grounds of his unimpeachable liberal credentials. Meanwhile, he prefers to denigrate the toppling of Saddam Hussein as "illegal," but neither advocates reinstitution of a "legal" Saddam nor offers any concrete help to Iraqis crafting consensual society. Like the U.N. membership itself, he enjoys the freedom, affluence and security of a New York, but never stops to ask why that is so or how it might be extended to others less fortunate.
(...)
Deeds, not rhetoric, are all that matter, as the once unthinkable is now the possible. There is no intrinsic reason why the U.N. should be based in New York rather than in its more logical utopian home in Brussels or Geneva. There is no law chiseled in stone that says any fascist or dictatorial state deserves authorized membership by virtue of its hijacking of a government. There is no logic to why a France is on the Security Council, but a Japan or India is not. And there is no reason why a group of democratic nations, unapologetic about their values and resolute to protect freedom, cannot act collectively for the common good, entirely indifferent to Syria's censure or a Chinese veto.
So Americans' once gushy support for the U.N. during its adolescence is gone. By the 1970s we accepted at best that it had devolved into a neutral organization in its approach to the West, and by the 1980s sighed that it was now unabashedly hostile to freedom. But in our odyssey from encouragement, to skepticism, and then to hostility, we have now reached the final stage--of indifference. Americans do not get riled easily, so the U.N. will go out with a whimper rather than a bang. Indeed, millions have already shrugged, tuned out, and turned the channel on it.

Lesenswert :daumen:


Wisst ihr was auf meiner Wunschliste fuer den Weihnachtsmann relativ weit oben steht? Das der Sauhaufen 30 neue staendige Mitglieder aufnimmt in den Sicherheitsrat- Indien und Pakistan, Israel, Griechenland, Iran und die Tuerkei, Deutschland und Italien/Polen, Japan und beide Koreas, Indonesien und Australien, Spanien und Marokko, Aethiopien und Eritrea, Peru und Ecuador, Kongo und Ruanda usw - und das die alle ein Vetorecht kriegen :evil:

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U.N. At War With U.S.

The greatest threat to the United States is not Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, or any of the thousands of terrorists throughout the world.
The No. 1 Enemy of the United States is the United Nations.
Why?
Because the United Nations is now dictating foreign policy for the United States.
(...)
Just look at the make-up of the United Nations, which is headquartered in the United States and heavily financed by the United States. The majority of the United Nations’ member-states are countries that believe in socialism, Marxism and Communism.
(...)
You don’t see America’s population shrinking from U.S. citizens seeking to live in France, Germany, China and other socialist/communist regimes.
No, people are coming to America, not leaving America.
I think it’s time the United Nations should be leaving America and setting up shop in one of their favored socialist or communist societies.
Why not locate the United Nations in Paris, or Berlin, or Beijing, or Havana – the dysfunctional “leaders” of socialism and communism?
The United States Congress should give the United Nations one year to find another “home” for their socialist/communist propaganda machine – a machine as fine-tuned as Hitler’s or Castro’s.
(...)

:evil:

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United Nations Part 10; The Devil's Parlor

By Dennis L. Siluk
Sept. 23, 2004

Well, somehow I think this article is going to be less substance and more attitude; I listened to John Kerry on the David Letterman Show [9/20/04], and if he didn't sound like a fairy, I'm not sure what [and so I've heard rumor to that affect anyhow]. He looked like Bucky-the-beaver. One difference between him and Goerge W. Bush is he can lie better. This guy has just not anything, I mean nothing that brings out any will in me to vote his way.
(...)
And I listened to Bush at the General Assemble at the United Nations speak [9/21/04]; and I was disappointed. The reason being, he gave too much credit to the UN and NATO for helping in Iraq. What are they doing? The UN has 20% of what they should have there for the coming elections, and complain they can't hold elections in January; thus, they create the problem, and then complain to the US, throw it at the US, as they had intended to in the first place saying they created the problems;
(...)
Let's get it straight Mr. Bush, how can I support you when you're giving credit where credit is not due. I was actually stunned to hear you credit these tax eating monsters.
(...)
And Kofi Annan, he spoke of course at the UN today, and all day long. He said the PLO is killing Israelites, and Israelites are destroying Palestine homes. He got that one right, I was shocked. I thought after I heard that, maybe there is hope for this guy. He said then, "All have a duty to restore...respect...No one above the law." That means you also Mr. Annan; he neglected that, and left out the prestigious United Nations, as if it was steady and within its own law, far from the truth; liar, liar, and so forth. He is worse than Kerry and Bush.
(...)
Incidentally, I think it's been going on since l994, this North Korea thing on nuclear weapons. It has been almost [98.5%] proven, North Korea has eight [8] nukes. Instead of begging these jerks to stop, and having them blackmail us, just give Japan and Taiwan all the nukes they can handle, and watch China get involved: you see when the equation changes, so does the attitude.
(...)

:rofl: :daumen: