Kofi and U.N. 'Ideals'

Rwanda, Darfur, Iraq and Oil for Food.

Thursday, December 14, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Sixty years ago, at
the invitation of President Harry Truman, Winston Churchill delivered
his historic Iron Curtain address in Fulton, Missouri, to warn
Americans of the menace they faced in the Soviet Union. On Monday, U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan gave his valedictory speech at the Truman
Library in Independence to instruct Americans about the principles of
global leadership and their need for the United Nations. The comparison
says a lot about Mr. Annan's legacy and the current state of the U.N.

America, Mr. Annan said, "has
historically been at the vanguard of the global human rights
movements. When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objects,
its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused." That was a
slap at the Bush Administration, which must be wondering what it got
from Mr. Annan after coming to his political rescue last year amid Paul
Volcker's Oil for Food revelations. But leaving aside this foray into
U.S. politics, how have Mr. Annan and the U.N. met their own "ideals
and objects"?

When Mr. Annan was named Secretary
General 10 years ago, he did so as the U.S.-backed candidate of reform.
Jesse Helms, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
told Mr. Annan that "if you choose to be an agent of real and
deep-seated change, you will find many supporters--and even
allies--here in the U.S. Congress."

Senator Helms's expectations were
not met. Seven years later--thanks to U.S. military action that Mr.
Annan did everything in his power to prevent--we learned that he had
presided over the greatest bribery scheme in history, known as Oil for
Food. We learned that Benon Sevan, Mr. Annan's trusted confidant in
charge of administering the program, had himself been a beneficiary of
Iraqi kickbacks to the tune of $160,000. We learned that Mr. Annan's
chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, had ordered potentially incriminating
documents to be destroyed. We learned that Mr. Annan and his deputy,
Louise Frechette, were both aware of the kickback scheme but failed to
report it to the Security Council, as their fiduciary duties required.
However, we haven't yet learned whether the senior Annan illegally
helped his son Kojo obtain a discounted Mercedes, an issue on which the
Secretary General has stonewalled reporters.

The UN is a waste of time and money.

They have been useless since 1953.

Kick them out of this country and stop funding that useless organization.

Let them set up shop in Africa, or the Middle East.

powered by performancing firefox