Pimp My UN Ride

Insufferable Twits 30 Comments

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan took a few well publicized swipes at the Bush administration in his farewell speech[1], December 12, 2006;

[S]tates need to play by the rules towards each other, as well as towards their own citizens. That can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not inconvenience. It is doing the right thing. No state can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others. When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose – for broadly shared aims – in accordance with broadly accepted norms.
No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little – and the international community is among them. This we must change.
The US has given the world an example of a democracy in which everyone, including the most powerful, is subject to legal restraint. Its current moment of world supremacy gives it a priceless opportunity to entrench the same principles at the global level. As Harry Truman said, “We all have to recognize, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch;

Members of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in southern Sudan are facing allegations of raping and abusing children as young as 12, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
The abuse allegedly began two years ago when the UN mission in southern Sudan (UNMIS) moved in to help rebuild the region after a 23-year civil war.
Peacekeeping and civilian staff based in Juba are regularly picking up young children in their UN vehicles and forcing them to have sex
The UN has up to 10,000 military personnel in the region, of all nationalities and the allegations involve peacekeepers, military police and civilian staff.
The first indications of sexual exploitation emerged within months of the UN force’s arrival and The Daily Telegraph has seen a draft of an internal report compiled by the UN children’s agency Unicef in July 2005 detailing the problem.
But the UN has not publicly acknowledged that there is a problem and when contacted repeatedly by this newspaper UN headquarters refused to comment.

Read the whole thing. Then, send a copy to your local NDP or Liberal member of parliament. That way, next time they stand up in the House of Commons and natter on about our obligations under the UN, they’ll know that you’ll know that they know what you know.
h/t Greg Staples
Related- Claudia Rosset has the speech Kofi should have given.
Footnote:
[1] In researching this post, I came across the same exerpts of the Annan speech quoted at CNN – almost. For reasons unexplained or disclosed, CNN has changed the sequence of his comments. I’ve placed the two versions side by side, here.
Related update – “If we’re lucky, [newly-inducted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon] will presage a period of modesty from the United Nations that, given its own track record of corruption and incompetence, is long overdue.”

30 Replies to “Pimp My UN Ride”

  1. Kate have I ever complimented you on the comedic brilliance of SDA’s item headers?
    “Pimp my UN Ride” is another satirical gem….keep ’em comming. 😉

  2. Spin, spin, spin. Spinning out of control.
    And do they wonder why Fox’s “No Spin Zone” is such a successful motto…?
    Watching CTV briefly the other day, and on came the advertisement for a Sunday news program. The ad blairs:
    “Holding government accountable!”
    Where in the Constitution does it state that? I thought that was the job of the elected members of the Official Opposition, not CTV and other MSM with an agenda.
    They don’t yet realize that credibility goes out the window as the spin increases, and more and more of us are becoming conscious of it.

  5. I think that what we are seeing is a number of important economic and political ‘blocs’ vying for global power in this age. Some of these blocs are natural, ie, self-organized and governed by direct representation. Some are artifacts, created by men and governed only by themselves and without representation to an electorate.
    The first one, a democracy, is the US, which is a global power by virtue of its economic, intellectual and social developments. These all stem from itself, from its own actions and their importance is obvious in that they spread over the globe. For example – medical innovations, technological and industrial developments, etc.
    Then – there are THREE artificial blocs, that are attempting to seize global power. None of them are democratic, none are acountable to an electorate, none produce or provide technological goods and innovations.
    One of them is the European Union, which acts as a superstructure of rules and regulations, sitting on the economic produce of its member-states. As a superstructure it is unaccountable; however, its power is limited by its direct ties to the economic robustness of its member states. They are expanding their domain by increasing the membership role of member states.
    Another is the Islamic States, which are also acting as a superstructure by virtue of their Islamic rules and regulations. These states are also, politically, as tribal dictatorships, unaccountable, unelected. These states also, like the EU, rest within the economic robustness of their member states. Their economic robustness is linked to one economy: oil. A major problem for them is that their superstructure,Islamism, is non-innovative. They rely on the US and the EU for technology. However, they can purchase this technology with their oil.
    They are attempting to expand their power by Islamic fascism which is moving the superstructure of rules and regulations into the world.
    And then, there’s the UN – yet another unelected, unaccountable political body. Economically, it rests on its member states- which include all states of the world. It operates as a superstructure of rules and regulations. Its agenda is also global power – attempting to set up its rules and regulations – which are, again, established without the will of any electorate, as supreme over all the rules and regulations of any member state. The rules and regulations of member states, are accountable to their electorate. The UN wishes to ignore these and set up their own rules as dominant in the world.
    So- we have one global power whose economic and intellectual output are directly linked to the actions of their population and accountable to that population.
    And we have three global powers who are focused soley on establishing the domination of their superstructural rules and regulations. Ignoring the electorate.
    The superstructural trio are close allies: the European Union, the Islamic states, the UN. That’s because they all focus only on the superstructure as The Dominator.
    The US is fighting, as it did in 1776, to retain power with the people. The Trio is contemptuous of the people and considers that they must be ruled by Their Superior Wisdom.

  6. The CNN version of the speech, to me, conveys a slightly different tone. I find it subtly more accusatory of the US. A significant difference is the CNN’s omission of the sentence “In short, human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity.” It appears that CNN has spun the spin.

  9. The UNers raping and pimping their way around the world – how many years has this been going on now? I wonder how all the leftie UN, UN, UN!!! types excuse this behaviour? Or do they just conveniently ignore the beastiality, the raping and the pimping of young children and hot goats?

  10. A partial list of past UN rape incidents:
    noonshadow.blogspot.com/2005/04/blue-helmets-and-purple-helmets-v3.html

  11. The actions of a few idiots who are abusing their positions as UN peacekeepers is unrelated to our obligations under the UN. For example, I believe we are obliged to help stabilize Afghanistan, and the fact that peacekeepers in the Sudan are raping kids does not void that obligation. The UN is a seriously flawed institution, but I think an international intitution like the UN is necessary and we need to work to make it more effective rather than disregard it because of its flaws.

  12. here’s the truth about the UN . . .
    3w.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_kinsman/20070101.html
    eremy Kinsman: Diplomatically Speaking
    Time for Canada to fix the UN
    January 1, 2007
    New Year’s means resolutions to turn over a new leaf, perhaps even to get closer to our true beliefs.
    Canada’s international belief system is centred on the ideals of the United Nations. Most countries turn to the UN only when it suits their interests. But over the years Canada has made a better, more effective, UN a national interest in itself.
    As for resolutions, they pour forth in a cascade at the UN General Assembly, and are meant to address most of the world’s perceived ills and good intentions. But entrenched disagreements over causes and responsibilities often means that little happens of consequence.
    Today, the reputation of the UN is at an all-time low. This is depressing news for Canada’s true believers.
    If a person is in stress, a psychiatrist will often make the analogy to a badly leaking roof: You have three choices — fix the roof; put a pail under the leak and live with it; or move house.
    For years now, conservative Americans have been saying the U.S. should abandon the UN and go its own way with its own coalitions of like-minded nations. That would be moving the house.
    Most other members of the UN have practised denial, the bucket technique.
    But Canada has been a believer in fixing the UN. Our New Year’s resolution therefore should be to stay true to our core beliefs, though the UN will be no easy fix.
    Our divided world
    Critics speak of “The UN” as if it were some kind of autonomous supranational organisation. It isn’t really: It is simply the reflection of our divided world.
    It didn’t start out that way, mind you. The phrase “United Nations” was first coined by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt not long after the U.S. entered the Second World War. It was meant to describe the alliance against Germany, Italy, and Japan.
    The allies also looked forward to the subsequent peace, to be organized around principles of democracy, peace and international cooperation.
    But these “universal” ideals of human rights were far from universally accepted. Even though the colonies of the European empires were shortly to become independent states, their citizens would come to be very shortchanged when it came to democratic governance.
    Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was consolidating its own prison-empire. Within a few years, an Iron Curtain separated East and West, and the UN Security Council became a stage for sterile exchanges in Cold War propaganda.
    In this environment, the poorer countries of the South drew up a mostly stale agenda for economic redress from the rich North.
    Wars went on without reference to the UN, except for the accidental authorization of a UN “police force” for Korea during a Soviet boycott; or peacekeeping assignments when great power interests favoured a truce, as in the Middle East or Cyprus.
    After the second secretary general, Dag Hammarskjold morphed from a sedate central banker into an international moral protagonist, the five veto-wielding powers opted for bland passive operators who wouldn’t make waves. One had been a Nazi.
    Post-Cold War
    But the end of the Cold War ushered in a sudden change in atmosphere. In 1991, the Security Council worked the way it was meant to and authorized the massive international effort to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
    Member states also felt able to take a risk on a more outspoken secretary general, the Egyptian intellectual Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
    But the honeymoon ended. The new Bill Clinton administration, burned by the loss of marines on a UN humanitarian mission in Somalia, leaned away from the UN amidst a domestic political climate that was jarred by talk of a “new international order.”
    With an again ineffective Security Council, some awful tragedies occurred — UN peacekeepers had to stand passively by during the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda, and the execution of 6,000 Bosnians in Europe itself.
    Boutros-Ghali was indeed so outspoken, he was denied a second term by the U.S. in 1996 in favour of the more soothing secretariat lifer, Kofi Annan.
    But Annan turned out differently than expected, and for a time turned the UN’s reputation around.
    He told the truth as he saw it, and scolded African leaders for pretending human rights were just an exercise in Western ideology.
    In 1999, he urged the UN to authorize international humanitarian intervention to protect civilians inside the borders of sovereign states so as to avoid future Rwandas. In 2000, that became Canada’s signature UN initiative.
    Kofi’s legacy
    Annan was advancing a concept that had been dear to Canadian policy thinking: That security, development and human rights are inextricably linked. “Human security” became the new buzzword, as sustainable development had been in previous decades.
    With this new policy tool, Annan saved East Timor. He helped save the Kosovars. For a time, using personal diplomacy, he even seemed to avert a war in Iraq. He won the Nobel Peace Prize.
    Despite this, though, many countries still remained opposed to weakening the rights of sovereign states to run their affairs as they saw fit, without interfering Westernizers and their troublesome theories about democracy.
    And because of this opposition, Annan knew the UN had come, as he put it, to “a fork in the road.” His 2003 blueprint In Larger Freedom was the most sweeping reform proposal ever put to the UN.
    Much of it was killed by the mostly undemocratic spoilers among the member states — chiefly Cuba, Algeria, Sudan, Pakistan and their followers.
    They felt encouraged because the most important member of the UN, the United States, had itself become an adversary of the institution, particularly when the George W. Bush Republicans came to power.
    Burned by the Security Council’s refusal to authorize the invasion of Iraq, U.S. conservatives and the media pursued the UN for scandal, most notoriously within the oil-for-food scheme that had been overseen by the Security Council on behalf of sanctioned Iraq.
    A few senior UN officials profited to the tune of a couple of hundred of thousands of dollars from a program that disbursed over $34 billion. Member states had tolerated the skimming of money to Saddam and the diversion of oil to Jordan, and competed for privileged contracts. But the damage to the UN’s image was immense.
    We are all victims
    The oil-for-food scandal was not the only scandal to scar the UN’s reputation in recent years, but dwelling on these critiques can overlook so much that has been worthwhile in the UN story.
    Every day, through its programs and agencies, the United Nations feeds hundreds of millions who would otherwise go without. It administers standards for human commerce and activity in almost every aspect of international life. UN agencies inspect for nuclear weapons, organize elections (including in Iraq), research health, and administer entire territories.
    Adversaries styled Annan a hopeless manager. They pointed to the “permanent UN,” the 8,000-strong secretariat, as a culture of careerist risk-averse cronies. And much was made of Kofi Annan’s tolerance of his feckless son Kojo’s exploitation of the Annan name for some two-bit retainers with sly Swiss contractors.
    In fact, as Ambassador to the UN’s food agencies in Rome, I saw that Kofi Annan brought new coherence to a complex UN system. But the secretary general was never a politician consumed by personal ambition and vanity. He was naïve, perhaps; and he had a horror of confrontation. He also lacked a politician’s instinctual defence mechanisms: He was not well-grounded in the reality of attack politics, which depressed him.
    Kofi Annan is gone now. It is Asia’s turn at the helm. The UN’s veto-wielding Big Five have turned to an unknown but seemingly totally bland Korean, Ban Ki-moon.
    In my view, Annan leaves as a victim, which makes victims of us all because an effective United Nations is more necessary today than ever.
    The time for reform may be right. Even the Bush administration has learned the harsh lesson that military action alone is inadequate to solving security problems, and there appears to be a greater American willingness to reach out to others.
    But the campaign to restore the UN’s credibility then should flow from the members with the credentials and influence to make a difference — not in rhetoric but in the application of concrete examples. This is legacy content for Canada, which has shouldered much of the UN burden, peacekeeping and otherwise over the years.
    There will be resistance from the spoilers who distrust the West. And unless there is a change of mind, there will likely be derision from the organs of the right, such as the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.
    But in our resolution, Canadians should wear these labels as badges of honour. Happy 2007.

  14. I think an international intitution like the UN is necessary
    Necessary for what? The majority of non-democratic countries override the democratic when it’s all inclusive as has been happening at the UN. What’s the point of that?
    The US did a better job doing tsunami relief while the UN arrived and had endless useless organizational meetings on site:
    “Whatever one feels about it, the United States manages to function. The U.N. apparatus doesn’t. Indeed, the U.S. does the U.N.’s job better than the U.N. does. The part of the tsunami aid operation that worked was the first few days, when America, Australia and a handful of other nations improvised instant and effective emergency relief operations that did things like, you know, save lives, rescue people, restore water supply, etc.”
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050515-094300-9107r.htm
    NATO would be better disciplined peacekeepers than the undisciplined rapist slobs recruited from the third world. Did the UN bring any of the Usual Suspect thugs in the world to justice? Idi Amin? Pol Pot? Saddam? Did it stop NK from nuclear arming? Save one life in Ruwanda? Darfur?
    Oil for Food scandal? Sexual harassment allegations at the UN headquarters? Please point me to the positive accomplishments of the UN in the past 30 years?

  15. … I think an international intitution like the UN is necessary and we need to work to make it more effective rather than disregard it because of its flaws.
    I think it’s time to recognize that many of the nations around the world are run by despots and gangsters whose goals are diametrically opposed to ours. It’s time for Canada to stop lowering itself to their level, to stop kowtowing to thugs who have formed blocs, and instead proclaim our inherent superiority. Canada should get out of the U.N.

  16. The UN can be said to be doing more harm than good.
    The Axis of evil uses the UN as a shield against accountability to those nations they threaten and to the people they tyrannize and brutalize.
    The UN often facilitates evil, in my opinion.
    It’s plainly insane to continue to support the UN!

  17. cherenkov – I don’t agree with your conclusion that the UN is necessary.
    Fred- I presume you are being totally sarcastic about Kinsman’s article as ‘the truth’. It’s actually, I think, a satire. A satire worthy of a Monty Python sketch about ‘the Stupid Canadian’.
    Kinsman’s) conclusion that the UN can be fixed is pure nonsense. Indeed, Kinsman writes a typical leftist ignorant view of the UN – with his rhetoric of ‘European colonies’, of ‘North/South wealth/poverty’, his astonishing statement that ‘UN peacekeepers HAD to stand by passively’ in Rwanda. HAD to stand by???
    How about Kinsmans statement that “Annan was advancing a concept that had been dear to Canadian policy thinking: That security, development and human rights are inextricably linked.”
    Human rights are ‘dear to Canadians’??? My god, Harper dared to speak of human rights to China, and the Canadian MSM and the Liberals exploded in rage. How dare he harm our Canadian economy by speaking of ‘human rights’ to the Chinese.
    Kinsman seems to have conveniently forgotten this recent episode of Canadian commitment to human rights.
    Kinsman – typical left – chastizes the US for calling the UN to account for its Oil-for-Fraud, and, like Chretien and his ‘what’s a few million’, trivializes the vastness of the fraud to a ‘few hundred thousand’…
    The UN feeds millions? Big deal – I’d bet we could feed millions far more efficiently and with vastly greater results, if we didn’t have to pay all those legions of well-paid, pensioned UN bureaucrats to carry out those tasks. If we paid local people to do it – the locals would get the money.
    Kofi Annan – ‘naive’ and without personal ambition? My god, Kinsman requires long term care.
    Oh- and how about ‘Canada, which has shouldered much of the UN burden, peacekeeping and otherwise, over the years”. What pompous insufferable ignorant arrogance. Hey, boy, it’s the US that primarily supports the UN.
    Typical CBC junk.
    I’m of the ‘move house’ opinion.
    The UN is NOT a mirror-image of our ‘divided world’. It is, in itself, a structure – not a mechanical object (a mirror). It is that structure with its realities of operations, connective rules and regulations, that is its basic flaw.
    The UN structure is the first basic flaw. The flaw enables corruption – just like leaving a peach, all nice and yummy and idealistic, out in the hot sun, will corrupt that peach into fungus in a few days.
    The flaw in the UN is its structure. First flaw is that it is unaccountable. There are no ‘checks and balances held by the people’; it is set up as a body of appointed representatives. Not elected. Therefore, immediately, it falls into the corruption of patronage. Second, since these appointments are unaccountable – decisions are beyond the purview of the people. We’ve set up a Regime Over Us – and that regime is akin to a hereditary monarch. Not a constitutional monarch. A Sun-King. That is the structure of the UN and it cannot be reformed.
    Second problem with the structure is the insertion of relativism, where all member states are viewed as ethically, morally, politically equal. So- we can get representatives, appointed, of dictatorships, making decisions about democratic states. Incredible. That’s like putting a judge in the Chambers with no rule of law.
    The UN is beyond redemption. Importantly, no body politic should, ever, have the right to make decisions about a population without the permission of that population. That is the most basic basic ‘human right’ that the UN violates. Until and unless that structure is repaired, the UN will operate as it does now – a corrupt haven for incompetent and criminal bureaucrats.

  18. It is useful to have an international body like the UN to give legitimacy to military operations. If we do away with this concept then we will build isolationism and increase unilateral actions by all countries which will lead to chaos. At least if we go through the UN then some degree of international cooperation is forced and we give the apperance of unity against a rebel nation or group. Every man for himself is not a good way to go in the international forum.

  19. Importantly, no body politic should, ever, have the right to make decisions about a population without the permission of that population.
    Amen to that, ET, and the best reason why US refuses to subjugate its laws to the International Law Commission.
    What is desperately needed to replace the hubris and corruption of the UN is a league of like minded, democratic and economically viable countries that can act in unison in sanctioning effectively the bad, provide aid without waste and corruption and mediate without the obstruction of member rogue regimes. Not everyone deserves a place at the table.

  21. cherenkov:
    I don’t agree with you. But, I am afraid that folks like yourself (probably the majority) have been scared into thinking this way.
    Having a body like the UN to improve the “appearance” of unity and to accentuate the idea that an action is legitimate is just plain wrong. The action that a country takes should be done simply because it is the right thing to do. Yes, countries in the end will always prefer to do whatever is in their own best interests first…and this is often contrary to what the “right thing” to do is…but that policy sure as Hell beats the idea of trying to create symbolic consensus.
    Many people criticize the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance from the early 1900’s and they argue that WWI was caused because a handful of nations on each side swearing a pact to ACT as one. The result, they say, was a war based on nothing but militarism – and many needlessly died. I give this argument some credit.
    But, the UN is the same idea…only it is many more nations swearing NOT TO ACT unless all agree. The result here is a bunch of unelected elitists using cronyism and back-room deals. And many more needlessly die (think Rwanda and Bosnia to name two).
    I know that Canadians “tolerate” us being in Afghanistan because the mission is UN-sanctioned. But, I wish that more Canadians would strongly support it (as opposed to “tolerating” it) simply because it is right and we know it is right.
    The UN obscures simply concepts such and right and wrong…by making all members (and their civilizations) “equal”…when I don’t think it is right to do that.
    WWII sucked…and it directly led to the creation of the UN…in the hopes that this new international body would prevent such attrocities as genocide from ever happeing again. A task in which it has failed many times.
    But, imagine if the UN had existed in 1939. Russia (a Security Council member with veto power) certainly would have blocked any attempt to go to war with Hitler (the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact). Think about your argument in that context. I don’t think anyone would argue that war against Nazi Germany was a MUST. And it was very costly in terms of human life.
    But how much worse would it have been and how much longer would it have taken to stop Hitler had we had a body like the benevolent UN to block real action (as long as one of the nations that profited from a pact with Hitler wanted it blocked)?
    We should do things because they are right. And if our concept of right clashes with another to the point of where war is the only way to settle it. Then yes, every nation for itself is the best way. Not the perfect way. Just one that beats the UN way.

  22. the local lieberal AND new democrap mps both have copies on the way.
    its free too, no need for a postage stamp. what are you waiting for people?

  23. Robert Fulford did an excellent job ripping apart Kofi and his Truman Library speech in his National Post column on Dec 12th. Highlights and links here.

  24. cherenkov – You’ve swallowed whole the simplistic Power Points of every hack lefty Poli Si professor. Who needed a UN type entity to give permission to Margaret Thatcher to take the Falklands back on a matter of principle? She acted unilaterally, good on her. Should Israel perish because UN permission to act against Iran’s threats fail to materialize as they will?
    The world is in chaos and behaves unilaterally in spite of the UN. That’s the whole point. It hasn’t done a damn thing to make a difference, in fact, in many cases it has made situations worse. And, who cares about appearances? A rather lame attitude when principles or survival are at stake.

  26. The UN needs to be disbanded. I agree with ET.
    Milton Fiedman asked an important question 45 years ago:
    “What can I and my compatriots do through government?” If we place “the UN” in the place of government, the answer to his question is “nothing.”
    The UN is a sclerotic construct, led by the obscure for the benefit of its manipulative members.

  27. Sec. Annan’s speech only reminded me of the final press conference of a fired coach after winning only 10% of the games. The subtext was that he just didn’t understand that he was expected to win and how unfair it was to hold him to that standard.

  29. No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little – and the international community is among them. This we must change.
    From Annan’s speech, from the page your link goes directly to.
    This one sentence in the entire bit ‘o crap, makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up, and the skin under it tingle like my toe is the tub and my finger is in the light socket. No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law… So glad to see you go, Mr. Orwell…

  30. We need to keep the UN. I find it hard to say that but only because it keeps us informed as to which countries and which despotic leader we need to keep in our (gun) sites. It may be expensive and the results of the diplomacy may be really frustrating but at least we can keep the idiot nations in a forum where they can be exposed and challenged.
    We would all like to have a different “world body” that is much more effective and all that but, guess what? We would still end up with the same nations doing the same thing. Lets just keep this completely disfunctional entity in place so the world can continue to see who the bad guys and the good guys are. The good nations will just have to continue doing what is necessary to neutralize the bad nations. “Right” does not have to explain itself. It just needs to keep doing what is necessary to maintain what is right, UN “notwithstanding”. Now there is a good Canadian word!

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