The Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby argues that Kofi Annan remaining in office as Secretary General of the United Nations is the better way to reform that moribund organization:
Oil-for-food may be the greatest international rip-off of modern times, it may have strengthened one of the world’s bloodiest dictators, but if history is any guide, the scandal headlines will fade from view long before the secretary general does. By week’s end, in fact, dozens of governments, including all the permanent members of the Security Council save the United States, had publicly rallied to Annan’s support. Scandal or no scandal, he will almost certainly serve out the remaining two years of his term.
Which is just as well. Annan is merely a symptom of the UN’s sickness, not the cause of it. His resignation would do nothing to reform the UN into the engine of peace and liberty its founders envisioned. Better that Annan remain in place as a symbol of UN fecklessness and failure, and a spur to those who can envision something better.
Jacoby promises to discuss how that might happen in a future column, but I will repeat what I have recommended on here. The bottom line for any UN reform is the bottom line. A United Nations without complete financial transparency (on line for all the citizens of the world) will never have a hope of fulfilling its function, no matter what promises are made in its charter or elsewhere. Otherwise it will remain what it is, a money laundry for crackpot dictators and their “coalition of the willing.”
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27 Comments
1. Pixy Misa:I think the best way to reform the U.N. would be to knock the headquarters building into the East River. Well, for starters.
Dec 5, 2004 - 3:37 am 2. David Thomson:The main thing is that the United Nations is longer beloved by the American public. That is all that really matters. We are, by default and not pernicious intentions, the center of the universe. Only the United States is willing to do anything, particularly militarily. How many Democratic and liberal Republican politicians are willing to argue on behalf of Kofi Annan? Is there even one? If you answer this question with a negative response—then you are objectively saying that the UN is now an impotent organization. Who cares what they do? A discrete power shift has already taken place.
“A United Nations without complete financial transparency (on line for all the citizens of the world) will never have a hope of fulfilling its function…”
This is indeed a nonnegotiable goal. The Bush administration should make it a high priority. We must sure to persuade it to do so.
Dec 5, 2004 - 3:43 am 3. Brian:I think the best way to reform the U.N. would be to knock the headquarters building into the East River.
I’d sell it to Trump and let Ivana do up the lobby in pink marble. No mercy!
Dec 5, 2004 - 5:44 am 4. Seppo:Roger,
Jeff Jacoby’s Globe column today was one take on the matter, but Tom Oliphant’s astonishing column was a completely different matter altogether.
Oliphant reflexively defended Kofi Annan, after all, there is no incontrovertible evidence of his personal wrongdoing, Carl Levin says so, etc. He attacked Norm Coleman for being insufficiently bipartisan, and made snide remarks about how GW Bush should be more careful about making family connection charges re: Kojo, since GW is from a long-time family feeding at the trough.
Never a word about the grave harm done to the victims of Mideast terror and the prolonged Saddam regime, the damage to the UN’s legitimacy and its implications for future world peace, none of the traditional liberal concerns. Just a cheap partisan attack and reflexive closing of the ranks around a scoundrel. Maybe Bill Clinton would make a great Secretary-General after all… at least, Tom Oliphant would not have to change his thinking or rewrite his old columns.
Dec 5, 2004 - 5:50 am 5. maria horvath:I keep reading, including in Jeff Jacoby’s piece here, that this is the greatest financial of “modern times.”
Shouldn’t that be of “all time”?
Dec 5, 2004 - 6:07 am 6. PeterUK:At one time those in the position of Annan would have resigned as a point of honour because irrespective of culpability the debacle occured on their watch.Nowadays they have to be prised out the job like barnacles off the bottom of a boat.
Jacoby does not seem to understand political symbolism, if the theft $23,000,000,000 can fade from the public consciousness without leaving a ripple then the UN has become the organisation that Stalin wished it to be.This is also announcing that absolutely anything is fair game.
If this were a public company, either market forces or the stockholders would have brough it down,the Revenue Service would be all over it,receivers brought in and forensic accountant would be in every nook and cranny.The MSM would be calling for the trial of all the executives and every political connection gone through like a flea comb on a dog.ENRON bad UNRON good.
Dec 5, 2004 - 7:02 am 7. DanM:I find it very disturbing as a conservative Catholic (I usually cringe right before the Pope makes a statement or speech about worldly matters) that the Pope and learned Catholic priests see the truth before the majority of the World. It seems that the Catholic hierarchy is becoming engaged. Can it be true?
As the world falls into secular and laissez-faire politics, is this the Pope the nudge we need for a REAL reform of the U.N.?
Dec 5, 2004 - 8:04 am 8. Nomorelies:I for one am unimpressed with Kofi Annan’s calm demeanor nor his quaint accent. The U.S. has become a feckless, useless band of high hatters more interested in the next soiree than they are genocide and world wide terror. The entire group is useless. Perhaps someone like Colin Powell can light a fire under their lazy rear ends. Kofi Annan is a do- nothing person. The entire group is infected with the cancer of France and Jacque Chirac who sees it as a giant cookie jar waiting to be pilfered. The French must wake up and see just how corrupt he is and how damaged their society has become and oust him from office. Are there no decent French men and women left?
Dec 5, 2004 - 8:21 am 9. David Vance:Demolition rather than reformation is required here. The UN is incapable of much needed reform whilst it has a membership which is essentailly anti-democratic. vIt’s time the US stopped funding the UN -leave Kofi and the gang to finance their own cream.
Dec 5, 2004 - 8:37 am 10. richard mcenroe:Yep, keeping Kofi as SG is the best way to help reform the UN, just like letting me keep robbing liquor stores is the best way to reform the criminal justice system…(hypothetically, of course)
Dec 5, 2004 - 9:25 am 11. PeterUK:Of course it isn’t nepotism it is only his son.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/05/wkojo05.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/12/05/ixworld.html
Via Instapundit
Dec 5, 2004 - 9:40 am 12. Silicon valley Jim:I keep reading, including in Jeff Jacoby’s piece here, that this is the greatest financial of “modern times.”
Shouldn’t that be of “all time”?
I don’t know. I’m not arguing. I really don’t know. A publicly-held American corporation with $23 billion would be approximately 75th (sorry to disappoint CBS news fans by my failure to use the superscript) on a list of publicly-held American corporations ranked by revenue. My guess is that there are approximately the same number of organizations other than publicly-held American corporations that are at least that big. It’s about the annual revenues of Caterpillar or Honeywell.
Looked at another way, the 2003 GDP for the United States was about $11 trillion. The amount involved here is 2% of that, or approximately 0.5% of the world’s economic product, using the rule of thumb that the United States produces 25% of the world’s economic product.
Have there been other scandals that amounted to more than 0.5% of the world’s annual economic product? My instict is to say yes, but I really don’t know.
Dec 5, 2004 - 9:41 am 13. ricpic:PeterUK,
“ENRON bad UNRON good.”
Wow! If that doesn’t say it all…
Now, if someone from a major media outlet like FOX (hint hint), after stopping by this site would steal that phrase or slogan and disseminate it to their audience, I’m sure PeterUK would be willing to look the other way. :^)
Dec 5, 2004 - 11:00 am 14. PeterUK:ricpic,
I’d quite like to see it on a T shirt,preferably with Kofi wearing it.
Dec 5, 2004 - 11:39 am 15. Terrye:I watched the Beltway Boys last night and Mort Kondracke said Norm Coleman made a mistake calling for Annan’s resignation now. Kondracke does think the scandal is real but he seems to think the US needs to let the evidence speak for itself and see where that leads to rather than going after Annan upfront. He says that will only lead to the closing of ranks. Maybe he is right. Sometimes just laying out the evidence in a clear and compelling way can force people to either do the right thing or accept the fact that they are no better than the people in question.
What strikes me as strnage is the number of people who are willing to not only back Annan but call this a conspiracy designed to sully the reputations of good people. That might be satisfying to the anti American element but it does not deal with the fact that Americans by and large are losing faith in the UN and if the organization does not show a willingness to reform then they might find themselves in the position of being told not to let the door hit them in the ass on their way out.
Love us or hate us, they would have a difficult time being an effective and meaningful international organization if we cut them off and told them to set up shop in Belfast or Brussels or Paris or whatever.
Dec 5, 2004 - 11:49 am 16. holdfast:” Perhaps someone like Colin Powell can light a fire under their lazy rear ends.”
Powell just spent the last 4 years proving that he is not a man to light fires under posteriors. I like him, I think that, handed a functioning organization, he can be a good administrator. He was, since the late seventies, a very political kind of general; that’s fine, you need some of those and I generally agreed with the positions he took (up to but not including his advice to prematurally halt Gulf War Part I).
Nevertheless, the man is tired, his wife wants him home, and he was, at best, a mediocre Secratary of State.
His failures include going back to the UN for a 2nd resolution in 2003, gettting snookered by the French and making the US look like chumps, and failure to either convice the Turks to let the 4th ID through, or to at least predict that outcome in time to make alternate plans. It could be said that both these goals were impossible – perhaps so, but then such impossibility should have been projected, and appropriate steps taken. The state department component of the governance of Post-War Iraq is not something I’d want on my resume either.
As the first black Secratary of State, Powell was something of a sacred cow – the Dems pointed to him and said “see how wonerful he is – why can’t they (the Bushies) all be like that – and look how they ignore him) and the Republicans just kept their mouths shut, ’cause they didn’t need the hassle and controversy of insulting a black national hero.
Well, Powell wasn’t overall terrible, and he had some successes (Libya, first UN Resolution, Afghanistan War support) – in another time he might have been a really good S o S, but in these times he was at best mediocre.
Dec 5, 2004 - 12:10 pm 17. PeterUK:Did the MSM let the evidence speak for itself concerning the Watergate scandal or Enron?
To my mind it is a technique for kicking it down the road and hoping that it gets buried or goes away.
Where are all the fearless investigative journalists of the type that were all over George Bush’s service record? All we get is this mealy mouthed prevarication.
No the whitewash machine is at full throttle covering up a scam,the like of which has not been seen since the South Sea Bubble.
Peace at any price?
Dec 5, 2004 - 12:36 pm 18. TmjUtah:Terrye-
“I watched the Beltway Boys last night and Mort Kondracke said Norm Coleman made a mistake calling for Annan’s resignation now. Kondracke does think the scandal is real but he seems to think the US needs to let the evidence speak for itself and see where that leads to rather than going after Annan upfront.”
I second PeterUK’s senitments.
Claudia Rosset has been on the point to expose the UNSCUM scandal. She’s been mightly lonely out there, too. If this sort of situation involved a corporation or any conservative or republican political entity, the MSM would be beaming in play-by-play coverage to us as we slept via mind rays. If you just took known facts as they exist now and tossed them in a hat and pulled them out one after another you would have the outline for a “Godfather/The Firm/Odessa File” movie too explosive to be believed. The sticking point for media comes when it is incontrevertible that the villain at the heart of the plot is the utopic icon of liberal worldview, the U.N.
OFF isn’t an abberation. It’s business at usual for that club of thugs. The numbers are just too big to cover, even behind the wall of MSM.
Dec 5, 2004 - 1:13 pm 19. Terrye:Peter and Mr. Utah:
I know what you mean. I think Kondracke just thinks that the opposition is going to make this about Coleman rather than the scandal. Needless to say they are going to do whatever they have to in order to avoid the truth.
This is what is so annoying to me. It is not just a matter of a difference of opinion, it is a matter of getting the other guy to acknowledge reality. So far they have not. Whether it is the War on Terror or Saddam’s reign of terror or the food for oil theft they do not even see the same reality we do.
The whole missing wmd did not do anything to help the situation.
Dec 5, 2004 - 1:54 pm 20. jedrury:An aggressive US foreign policy would not function as well against an equally independent minded UN Secretary like Vaclav Havel or Bill Clinton(will those suggesting his name, please have a political reality check!).
The US should not want an aggressive counterweight to its own foreign policy.
Bill Kristol commented this morning that the state of electoral events in Ukraine and Iraq underscore the UN’s presence is not needed. The influence of other nations, working together, quite apart from the UN, are achieving elections and electoral reform despite it and its bloated unwieldy procedures.
Dec 5, 2004 - 1:59 pm 21. BeckyJ:I think another part of Kondracke’s reasoning stems from the fact that the US pushed hard to get rid of Boutros Boutros-Gahli and vetoed his second term in favor of Annan. THe closing ranks argument isn’t so far fetched. However, the French (in particular) are so entrenched in many of the scandals currently dogging the UN, and so determinedly anti-American, that I will be surprised if the Security Council, never mind the General Assembly, can ever come to some kind of agreement on reform.
I agree with Roger that the first and most important step is complete financial transparency. That might happen if the US agrees to withdraw all financial support until reforms are enacted.
The best part is, not only does the US not like the UN, but in most areas of the world where they claim to be helping they are seen as something of a pathetic joke. The primary supporters of the UN are those benefitting from the various scandals and the dictators who use it to justify their continued existence.
Dec 5, 2004 - 2:15 pm 22. PeterUK:Terrye,
The Coalition of the Wailing is going to make this about anyone who puts their head above the parapet,it is their default position.
I agree there doesn’t even be an acknowledgement of the issue.
The money was the WMD,with resources like that Saddam Hussein could buy off the shelf from Dr Kahn and North Korea and be armed with nuclear missiles without a development programme and the additional costs.No doubt that other countries would do cash on delivery and no questions asked.
Iraq is still awash with funds that is used by the so called insurgents,money has always been the mainspring of war.
Dec 5, 2004 - 2:58 pm 23. Terrye:Peter:
Maybe I am just paranoid but I have wondered if the UN, or at least elements in it, helped Saddam move weapons and also helped feed the idea of weapons still being in Iraq. After all if it had been evident years ago that the weapons programs had been dealt with in the 90’s there would not have been a gravy train to jump on. We know Saddam got caught lying in 94, after that who knows what happened that nobody caught?
That is what I meant about the weapons, that mystery is part of this scandal, I think. And it all lends a surreal quality to the whole mess.
Dec 5, 2004 - 3:57 pm 24. PeterUK:Terrye,
Where ever there is power there is conspiracy and a vast organisation like the UN will be seething with intrigue,add the ingredient money and who knows what was going on?
The offence could be either commission or omission but with $23,000,000,000 going begging it is a certainty that somebody took a bribe to fabricate evidence,look the other way or lie.
Saddam Hussein is first and foremost a gangster, compare him with the Mafia and the political,judicial,union and media influence they bought.In his position what would anybody do?
It is impossible that the Oil For Food scam was simply about the money,large sums of money have a dynamic all of there own,things happen around them,look at the average salary of even the highest paid UN official and imagine what $10 million in a Swiss bank account would do.How much more could be bought for $23,000,000,000?
What price even the highest paid MSM journalist?
Dec 5, 2004 - 4:34 pm 25. Barrett:Terrye,
“What strikes me as strnage is the number of people who are willing to not only back Annan but call this a conspiracy designed to sully the reputations of good people.”
$23 billion is alot of cash and my guess is that there are many more people who are dirty that you may think. Part of Saddam’s strategy to stay in power and enrich hinself was to compromise as many people around him. Illicit gains is one tried and true tactic. The French, Russians, Chinese, Annan’s son, and many others will be tainted by the Oil-for-Food scandal before this is over. Kofi and the other major participants will never admit to what has happended because it would make them among the biggest, if not the biggest, crooks of all time. (If Kofi did not take money himself, then is is one of the worst managers ever.) If you were at risk because sunlight may be cast upon the Oil-for-Food program, you would probably endorse Kofi and hope the whole thing blows over because to many people has too much to lose.
In addition, graft is part of the culture in many places. I think that there are some who don’t know what the big fuss is all about. It was just business as usual despite the fact that this is most likely the biggest fraud of all time.
Roger is right on-the-money (pun intended). Financial transparency is one of the reforms required if the UN expects to be rehabilitated.
I absolutely agree with you regarding US financial support for the UN. The US should immediately cease all monetary support for the UN and make it as difficult for the UN as possible until we get the transparency we need on both what happened and what reforms need to be made going forward. The Sarbanes Oxley legislation should be applied to the UN. It is our tax dollars that are being sent to support this corruption.
Dec 5, 2004 - 9:05 pm 26. Abe of Lincoln:From Jacoby’s article (now on Townhall.com):
“ÔøΩÔøΩ Inside the United Nations, there is no difference between a dictatorship or a democracy: Each gets exactly one vote in the General Assembly. The reason the UN indulges vicious regimes like those in North Korea, Syria, and Cuba is that they are members in good standing, and most other governments lack the courage to cross them. The UN cannot be fixed unless that changes — and that isn’t going to change.”
Indeed. This is the crux of the problem with “reform” of the UN. While complete financial transparency is necessary, it is not sufficient. I think the best we can hope for is the withdrawl of the US (and all US funding, of course) and starting from scratch with just democracies.
Dec 5, 2004 - 9:30 pm 27. Ramrod:Mort Kondrake is the FoxNews bloviator in chief, ahead of O’Reilly. His mouth runs way ahead of his brain. BTW, do we want Kofi or Slick Willie in that spot?
Dec 6, 2004 - 9:49 pm