United Nations

The authors of group blog The Diplomad has been very critical of the United Nations in the past, but right now I figure they’d volunteer to drive the bulldozers if we kicked them out of New York and wanted to turn the complex into a parking lot for our SUV’s.

What got them so upset? The UN’s response to the tsunami disaster in Asia.

They got to grumbling a little bit when the UN started to claim that the US wasn’t doing enough. But then the authors, who have a man on the ground in one of the ravaged countries, started to wonder when the United Nations was actually going to show up.

But they really started to get up a head of steam when the United Nations started to take credit for the work that the American military was doing.

There’s lots more there, such as the tale of a UN team that arrived in one of the tsunami ravaged countries, set up shop in a 5 star hotel and demanded that the hotel staff provide 24 hour catering.

I can’t do justice to it. Just click on this link and keep scrolling down.

So I’m reading Instapundit, and the good professor has a link to this LA Times op-ed. The author, Max Boot, points out that the scandals at the United Nations haven’t received the same attention from big media that they should. He also points out that the UN is corrupt, inept and impossible to reform.

But Boot also says that leaving the UN is “unrealistic”, and that the institution is useful for a variety of skullduggery. He doesn’t go so far as to say that the UN actually makes any progress in it’s stated purpose, which is to promote peace and lessen human misery. (Nor does he adequately explain why it’s “unrealistic” to want to leave an organization that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. Oh, well. Maybe in the next op-ed.)

Then I see this news item. It would appear that the White House, reacting to calls from a few US politicians for the UN Secretary General to resign, has issued a statement of support for Kofi Annan. The United States Ambassador John Danforth has even said “We have worked with him very well in the past. We anticipate working with him very well in the future.”

One could take this on it’s face value. The Executive Branch doesn’t want to see Annan leave because he’s done some good in the past. (I can’t seem to think of anything so stellar as to wash away the stain of the Congo sex-slave reports or the Oil for Food corruption. But I’m sure that something will come to me.)

Or you could, like myself, be a wary and suspicious type who thinks that this is just a clever ploy. The first step in leaving the UN would be to so thoroughly discredit them that a majority of the American people would gladly see it wither and die from lack of US support. This would be very difficult if those who support the UN could say that things were about to improve since a new hand was at the helm. With Kofi still in they can’t whitewash anything.

It’ll take awhile to find out how it’s going to pan out. Come back in 10 years and we’ll see.