Most reports written by members of internal investigations, it is fair to say, are to an extent political documents with considerable jockeying among its authors about what is or is not included. Everything has implications.
The second Volcker Committee Interim Report is no exception in this regard. A rather large portion of it was taken up with the testimony of Kojo Annan’s business partner Pierre Mouselli, first revealed here. Most of the Franco-Lebanese businessman’s statements were presented as credible – indeed they were corroborated – yet at the same time Mouselli was characterized in the report as “unstable.”
Now I doubt that Mouselli is a saint or anything near it. Saints survive in the business climate of modern Nigeria for about ten minutes. But the sources of the businessman’s characterization cited in the report are indeed curious – two former Iraqi ambassadors to Nigeria under Saddam. In other words, Baathists! That’s kind of like Nuremburg investigators taking Himmler’s testimony at face value without cross examination.
But then this entire investigation appears to have been curious in the extreme.
What follows is information that comes from only one source – Mouselli’s attorney Adrian Gonzales-Maltes. So bear that in mind when you evaluate it, though I have no reason so far to disbelieve Mr. Gonzales-Maltes. Indeed, several things he has told me have already been validated by the report itself. (Also worth noting is the irony that the lawyer, like all parts of this investigation, is being paid out of the Iraqi Oil-for-Food fund.)
The committee took the better part of a year to locate Pierre Mouselli, although Kojo’s former business partner was not in hiding and well-known in Lagos where his brother is known as the Nigerian Donald Trump. He apparently readily agreed to talk with them, once they provided him with a lawyer. The interviews ensued in Paris where Mouselli now resides. He is not likely to return to Nigeria. The reasons for that will be clear in the next paragraphs.
The committee properly asked for documentation for his statements, but the “unstable” Mouselli could only provide a few (notably the visa to Iraq that I referred to in my earlier post). Many of his other documents, including his all-important contract with Cotecna, were with Mouselli’s lawyer in Lagos. And, according to Mouselli, the lawyer would not part with them.
The committee investigators were perplexed and immediately a phone call was put through to the lawyer in Nigeria. But that lawyer still refused to give up the relevant documents. In front of the three attorneys from the Volcker committee, Gonzalez-Maltes and Mouselli, the Nigerian lawyer explained his reluctance, or should I say fear, about producing Mouselli’s file this way over the phone: “I would be, as you Americans say, collateral damage.”
To this day, the documents remain with the lawyer in Lagos.
I know this sounds like a detective story and I am a detective story writer. But this is the way the discussion was reported to me. But it should be clear that in Nigeria people do not want to get involved in a situation that may run afoul of the Secretary General. Although a Ghanaian by birth, he is a national hero there as well. And for good… and perhaps now sad… reasons.
To my knowledge the committee has never gone to Nigeria, or anywhere in the developing world, to pursue its investigation. They have restricted themselves to the more comfortable venues of New York, Paris, London and Geneva. But the heart of Africa and the Middle East is where the information on Oil-for-Food can be found.
So coming around to my introductory paragraph, there is also some reason to believe that there was a degree of dissension within the committee. Although several memos were discussed in its interim report – including the controversial one about mysterious “machinery” being put in place – omitted from the report, despite discussion of it between lawyers on both sides, was an even more mysterious memo. That memo asks if, during Kojo’s business dealings, his “main mentor” had been contacted. The identity of the “main mentor” is not specified. I have not seen this memo. But I would like to.
I would conclude by writing that, despite the foregoing, I do not believe that Kofi Annan is necessarily an evil man, or even a bad one. He is just the product of a system that overwhelmed him, one that he is particularly poorly placed to reform.
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36 Comments
1. Luther McLeod:Very good job, Roger. Man, what you could do with the power of subpoena. Perhaps Volcker should bring you on as an assistant or better yet let you restart the investigation. Also, classy concluding paragraph.
Mar 30, 2005 - 3:46 pm 2. Baron Bodissey:Roger, you are perhaps too generous in your assessment. Mr. Annan could avoid being evil, but still be quite venal. The amount of money floating around for the taking must have been particularly tempting, especially when he was, in effect, taking care of his own family by cutting Kojo in. After all, the whole process was going to feed the poor and destitute in Iraq; what was the harm of taking a little off the top? There would be plenty left for the widows and orphans…
No, he does not have to be evil to do that. But that kind of man is still far from good. Similar behavior in a civilized country can get an executive 50 or 60 years in the slammer.
Mar 30, 2005 - 3:48 pm 3. Dishman:With the amount of money involved in OFP and the presence of an actively corrupt party (Saddam), it’s hard to imagine that the corruption wouldn’t try to draw him in.
“Ethics are what you do when you think nobody’s looking.” (I probably botched the wording of the quote)
The UN is inherently full of shadows and hidden places. Saddam sought to create more. Kofi just didn’t have the strength of ethics to remain untainted by them. It’s a common enough human failure, but one which the job of UNSG does not allow for.
The only way Kofi can be qualified to be UNSG is if the ethical requirements are lowered. A necessary step in this would be far more transparency to bring light (and eyes) to all the hidden places.
Mar 30, 2005 - 4:02 pm 4. mezzrow:Thanks for the additional information, Roger. It’s been said before, and it’ll be said again.
Faster.
Please.
Saving the UN from itself is going to be a long slow slog, and it can only be done by riding the wave of reform we see breaking out at present. Last time we went through this process, we required the tragedy of WWII to give birth to that which has the same relevance to the world today that the League of Nations had in 1939.
Amazing to me that as recently as the 90’s I failed to see the UN for the corrupt, risible folly that it was and is. Imagine a doctor who kills rather than cures, simply through venality, incompetence and habit. Just because it’s never been any better. There’s your UN.
We all know that this isn’t about Kofi Annan, it’s really about the whole darn thing – the world and how it gets along. People need to know and understand the truth about this.
Please.
Faster.
The bulldog-like tenacity is appreciated and necessary, Roger. Good man.
Mar 30, 2005 - 4:16 pm 5. Daybrother:Thank you Roger,
I am frustrated by the vague and the hidden in this report (of the little I have read) and I fear that the outcome will be….nothing. At the least I would hope for the same popular negativity shown the UN as toward the US government after Nixon got through with it. If there could be a shift in the blind acceptance of the UN and its “good works” to a suspicious and healthy scrutiny: One tiny step forward.
Mar 30, 2005 - 4:21 pm 6. Rick Ballard:“People need to know and understand the truth about this.”
Mezzrow,
Which truth? Who shall tell it?
There are a great many people either unwilling or unable to face the depth of corruption that exists by inherent design within the UN. There are even more people willing to believe that the NYT or WaPo are worthy of trust – despite just as much evidence to the contrary as currently exists concerning the UN.
We are speaking of very powerful illusion here. David Copperfield couldn’t touch it. The MSM is part of the illusion and has a vested interest in maintaining it. Try and remember the last time that the NYT or the WaPo or any of the alphabets took a position that resulted in any type of policy change. They no longer set opinion, they simply react (usually poorly) to the tide sweeping past them.
I am sure you have a story concerning the scales dropping from your eyes and perhaps the best way of achieving the “faster” that you wish for is to tell your story in a manner simmiliar to that of Terrye or Joseph (AKA) Samuel or a number of other commenters here. I believe that personal stories of change have a much greater impact than do the truckloads of ridicule and scorn that some of us are quite capable of dumping on those institutions which we believe to be inherently flawed and unworthy of continued existence.
Mar 30, 2005 - 4:41 pm 7. Mike_Nargizian:So they interviewed the lawyer in Nigeria or in Paris… not clear from your report.
And he wouldn’t give up any doc’s bcs his client or the brother and their connections would have him ‘taken care of’?
It isn’t about whether or not Koffi is “evil”.
He’s a corrupt, left wing, arrogant and weak bureaucrat. He’s ill suited for CEO duty of any kind. And its not surprising that he’s the head of the UN anyway……. his type are the ones that rise through bureacratic NGO type of structures, not CEO types.
Even if you could get a worthy head appointed and approved by Germany/France/China and Russia it won’t matter.
The UN is a corrupt, entrenched, hateful bureacracy.
I mean at Davos these reps cooed and cafawed with admiration hanging on every word of a brutal Mullah, representing a repressive Theocratic Police State posing an a “Moderate” (In English translation only)…..
This is a place where Yasser Arafat is beloved as if he is a worldwide Ghandiesque hero…. Where Cuba and Sudan are embraced and hold so much power that to even discuss citations against them at the “Human Rights Commission” evokes fist fights and neutered statements.
And finally a place that embraces a Nazi hate fest against Israel twice at Durban, and where even NGO’s and “Human Rights” organizations, Human Rights Watch among them, DO NOT SAY A WORD.
The US won’t pull out, and that’s the only thing that would change the place and its tone only but not intent.
This is the state of the world today which the UN is just representing……. only all too well.
Mike
Mar 30, 2005 - 5:09 pm 8. Terrye:Roger:
Kofi probably just looked the other way because that is how things are done.
The amazing thing about corruption is how seductive it is.
My Dad told me a tale once about something he did when he was very young and poor. He said he and my mom stopped at a gas station to get some gas and a coke. He said the old man running the place was almost blind and gave him way too much change. Daddy said they were so broke he took the money. Later he felt so bad he went back to give the money to the man and the place was closed down. When my father was dying of cancer years later he recalled this and told me a good man makes things right when it matters. I wonder if Kofi is wishing now that he had made things right years ago.
But it seems to me that the only hope for change at the UN lies in trapsparent book keeping and reform of the security council.
Even then it maybe beyond redemption.
Mar 30, 2005 - 5:17 pm 9. Mike_Nargizian:Terrye,
Its real easy to talk about or do the right thing when its easy, anyone can do that…
Its doing the right thing when people are counting on you when its crucial.
Who do you want in a foxhole with you? an overused cleatieu? You think anyone would choose Koffi Annan? You might pick Kato Kaelin before him.
Mar 30, 2005 - 5:47 pm 10. mezzrow:Rick B. -
“I am sure you have a story concerning the scales dropping from your eyes and perhaps the best way of achieving the “faster” that you wish for is to tell your story in a manner simmiliar to that of Terrye or Joseph (AKA) Samuel or a number of other commenters here.”
Indeed. Once I get started, I’ll likely never finish, and there’s much to think about to consider what to leave out – not what to include. Let me just start with the background, and stop there.
I grew up a working-class white kid in a mid-sized city in the southern U.S. I summered in Alabama, and grew up taking the virtual apartheid of the South in the 50’s as a matter of course, though my closest relatives didn’t really express the virulent hatred for blacks that I was aware existed around me. My sympathy from an early age was entirely for those who were oppressed by this, and this shaped the way I saw the world around me.
My first presidential vote was for George McGovern. I was convinced that Richard Nixon was Satan in a blue suit, and that “the man” was the reason for poverty, racism, and all things bad. Right from the heart of the boomer generation, I went on to vote Democratic in all ways until my first vote cast for a Republican in the Presidential election of 2004.
In many ways I see the world upside down, since 9/11 – but even earlier, watching the broadcasts of “Newsnight” from the Beeb in the 90’s on public TV, I saw that the people in control of this show (and indeed of the much of the European media at large) defined their position as simply oppositional to the U.S. – no matter where we could move, they could oppose. I quickly got a bellyful of Jeremy Paxman – if I’d been able to crawl through the screen and slap the sneer off his face, I’d have done it. I could sense that if we opposed Hitler today, they would sooner line up behind the Fuhrer than take up the US position.
I had no use for the Republican party as an institution then, mainly because of the Clintonian brouhaha (why not kerfuffle? overused… – ed.) and really don’t have much more than that now. However, the scales have fallen from my eyes as concerns the left. Useful idiots, indeed.
Basically, I concluded two things:
1. The feckless bastards on the left were going to get me, and more important, my loved ones killed if things didn’t change.
2. The media, and the media of our “allies” in Europe would applaud as it happened. I didn’t have the phrase then, but I was just another “little Eichmann” as far as they were concerned.
3. Being unable to conceive a more complete incarnation of robotic evil than the Islamist murderers we came to know all too well, I became more and more appalled and unbelieving as we were told that it was all our fault and that “the chickens were coming home to roost.” With a straight face. As revealed truth.
Then one day i “got it” – we were all as juden… Even fat Baptist crackers like me. It would not turn back around from this inversion of good until we pushed back and changed the world, or we would simply be disappered. If not, no one would speak of our world or our lives in truth when the murderers were done, and the glory that is the American republic would be a lost myth. Why? Because the historians would put our lives down the memory hole, for they would agree that we were indeed little Eichmanns.
To hell with all that.
“Not this little black duck, nossiree.” – D. Duck
I guess that’s enough for now.
Mar 30, 2005 - 6:06 pm 11. mezzrow:uhhhh…
“Basically, I concluded two things:
1. The feckless bastards on the left were going to get me, and more important, my loved ones killed if things didn’t change.
2. The media, and the media of our “allies” in Europe would applaud as it happened. I didn’t have the phrase then, but I was just another “little Eichmann” as far as they were concerned.
3.”
Okay, so I can’t count.
“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition…”
Mar 30, 2005 - 6:13 pm 12. Katherine:Problem is, corruption always has been and still is a part of the ìdoing businessî throughout most of the world. For example, in ancient Rome the opprobrium was heaped not on a man who was bought, but the one who took money and later changed sides. If I am not mistaken, until very few years ago French companies could officially write off bribes. And I could bore you to no end with tales of corruption on all levels of life that currently take place in countries such as Poland.
So, it is a small wonder that our friend Kofi skimmed off some of the OFF money. I do not doubt he and the assorted kleptocrats at UN cannot quite understand what the fuss is all about. For them, the only explanation that makes sense is that Bush and his neocons are on a personal crusade against them. Alas, I doubt this is the case.
Mar 30, 2005 - 6:43 pm 13. Kevin P:Roger:
As the corporate CEO crooks of the ’90’s start their trips off to prison the MSM has rightly ridiculed their 3 monkey defense as absurd. They have correctly stated that the odds of them knowing nothing of the masssive coruption occuring under their noses was slim and they have further stated that they are guilty because they should have known. But they swallow the very same story from Kofi, in fact they are acting as defense attorneys rather then journalists.
They also are trying out the “Well, he didn’t have any oversight powers so there was no way that he could know” meme. But when the first rumours of fraud starting rising out of the rotting fish of Oil for Food Kofi didn’t say, “Well, I have no idea because I am out of the loop.” He defended the program, giving the impression that he had controll of the situation and knew what he was talking about.
I agree with Roger that it is possible that Kofi didn’t benifit from the graft of the program.But there is no way you can say that he is both innocent and competent.He is either a crook, a sucker or a asleep at the wheel administrator. All of those possibilties preclude him from correcting the spiraling reputation of the UN
Mar 30, 2005 - 6:44 pm 14. Katherine:Kevin,
Some of those crook CEOs provided considerable value at one time of the other. I am hard pressed to think of any value provided by the UN throughout their entire existence. And before somebody brings out elimination of smallpox, Iíd like to point out that some epidemiologists who then worked at CDC claimed that it was done ìdespite the WHO, not because of itî. Besides, if thatís all there is, I think we could have achieved it for far less money.
Mar 30, 2005 - 7:03 pm 15. WichitaBoy:I think Katherine is completely right.
We’re from the land of apples but Kofi is from the land of oranges (which is most of the world). Why there is even a problem with his behavior is incomprehensible for him and, indeed, for many critics right here in the US who are convinced this is nothing but another witch hunt. To expect him to “reform” the UN is prima facie absurd, for he doesn’t understand the concept. Most of the world has no understanding of what we are trying to get at.
And just what are we trying to get at? What is the UN to be? What would constitute the ideal UN? What is it for and what are the limits of its abilities? The starry-eyed view seems to be that it is a sort of government without politics, a place where white-haired benevolent old men selflessly solve the world’s problems without thought for themselves, the big NGO in the sky we all go to when we’re dead. The exact opposite of the evil BusHitler, in fact, who performs each and every act for the direct benefit of his cronies.
Primarily the UN is used by the Europeans and Canadians as a necessary counterweight to the United States, by the Chinese as a means of stifling all dissent even beyond their borders, by the tin pot dictators of the world as a means of increasing their power and prestige, and by the crafty and lucky from the world’s poorest countries as a source of loot. But why exactly does the United States continue in this charade?
Mar 30, 2005 - 7:41 pm 16. Rick Ballard:I dunno, Katherine, I think we’re stuck with the UN for the forseeable future. Between the paleolibs here who continue to put credence in the NYT and the neo-Kojevians in Europe who see the UN as the fitting end of history it’s gonna be like fighting a Dracula-Zombie without garlic, a silver bullet or a stake. At least Don Kofi put an all or nothing clause in his “reform” proposals. That should allow us to choose “nothing” with a warm smile.
Perhaps applying a checkbook tourniquet to the UN while initiating a League of Democracy in parallel is the most that can be hoped for. The Indian, Japanese, Australian, US core that Yama mentioned last night is rather interesting.
A set of firm principles backed with a ten year history of abiding by them should be a minimum basis for admittance. Simple measurable goals, term limits for service, a set of laws encompassing acts of mis and malfeasance by organization employees to be adopted by each member state with enforcement by a tribunal who’s responsibility is limited to organization employees and agents with incarceration provided by the country of origin. Weighting voting rights might be the area of greatest difficulty. The “one state, one vote” idiocy of the General Assembly is an invitation to mob rule.
I’m rather torn between a multistate organization and simple bilateral agreements.
Mar 30, 2005 - 7:44 pm 17. jedrury:Accepting what Roger writes about the geographical extent of the investigation
[apparently limited to Europe
and New York], the Volcker report is about as best as can be hoped for considering the limited arsenal and tools; i.e, compressed time frame, lack of subpoena power, enforcement restricted to powers of persuasion, and the bureaucratic inertia of an organization investigating itself. Unspoken is that Kojo clammed up – after one interview. The destruction of documents didn’t help either. Given these impediments, that Kofi comes away with a slightly bloody nose is not all that bad. We, bloggers, can rant and roar but the truth – or what passes as plausible truth – most probably came out. I differentiate two types of truth; trial truth and real truth. The Volcker report gave us trial truth.
Mar 30, 2005 - 7:47 pm 18. Rick Ballard:“But why exactly does the United States continue in this charade?”
1. I’m not sure that we really are – vide Norm Coleman’s remarks. I think the Senate is going to apply a checkbook tourniquet.
2. The idiot less than savants who constitute the chattering class are still capable of moving opinion polls in a manner that pols find worrisome. Plus the “neutral” polling companies are amazingly skilled at producing polls that reflect and support the views of the editorial boards of the MSM companies. They can’t steal elections at the moment but they sure haven’t stopped trying. I always have to remind myself that jellyfish have stiffer spines than the vast majority of the honorables sitting in our Parliament of Whores.
Mar 30, 2005 - 8:04 pm 19. Rick Ballard:WichitaBoy,
I forgot to note that I believe that Coleman has access to documents retrieved from the Iraqi Oil Ministry that will overshadow Volcker’s inquiry reports by orders of magnitude. The Iraqis were excellent record keepers.
Mar 30, 2005 - 8:07 pm 20. Skookumchuk:Rick:
Simple ad hoc bilateral or multilateral agreements. The rest is too unmanageable, unless we develop a truly European tolerance for corruption and the concomitant inability to question government finances, a la francaise.
Example of what could work: Some sort of disaster relief task force combining elements of the US, RN, Japanese and Australian navies, with a full cost accounting of where the money went after the operation. You could then compare and contrast this with the opacity of your typical UN project, for example.
Mar 30, 2005 - 8:08 pm 21. Luther McLeod:You are all so good to read.
I am 57, I just now happened to remember that when I was 7 or 8 or so, in elementary school, I was making crayon drawings of the citadel on the river. I remember as well (I think) being taught that this was the hope of the future, that finally mankind was going to rise above its basest instincts and make the world better for everyone. What happened? Well we all know what happened, we all know how things turned out. Not for the good. Ah, what we wouldn’t give for the good old days of idealism. But I don’t particularly fault Truman or Eisenhower or Steveson. Quite frankly I fault communism. I fault the believers of the socialist ideal, I fault the hypocrisy of the NY Times, feigning empathy for the ‘common’ man while living the good life. I fault those in the university’s and college’s who felt that ‘Marxist theory’s’ were a valid political response to the problems that were facing the world. That the enslaving and death of millions was a solution to the inequities of life. I fault those who have gone along to get along. I fault myself for given credence to many of these misguided ideas, for so long. The world was due for a change, this country was due for a change, and the UN is most certainly due for a change. Let us hope that the winds of change persist.
Mar 30, 2005 - 9:01 pm 22. Kevin P:Roger:
As satisfying as the thought of bolting the UN sounds we can’t do it. Although not a threat milatarily the possibilities of economic combines selectively hurting us is something we can’t ignore. It would also become a huge propaganda tool for our enemies and the unlimited ability to cast us as the only nation of the world not committed to “the UN ideal” ,heh, could hurt us in the long run.
We keep the UN veto and use it as a hammer to keep the UN on a leash. We use the funding power we have to do the same. And we use the blogs to expose the sleaze that the traditional media covers up as effectivly as they hid Roosevelts wheelchair and JFK’s women.The UN either gets it’s act together or we spend 20 years showing the world how useless the organization is until the rest of the world joins us in leaving it to the dustbin of History with the League of Nations.
Mar 30, 2005 - 9:42 pm 23. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):I wonder what would happen if we PNG’d Kofi.
It would be fun to watch.
Mar 30, 2005 - 10:18 pm 24. David Thomson:I still believe that the UN has a legitimate role to play. The Bush administration will not try to push Kofi Annan out of the door. There is no sense in beating a dead horse. It is better to send John Bolton to the UN as our ìbad copî to play off the ìgood copî Condi Rice. This tag team may be the last chance to save this organization.
Mar 30, 2005 - 11:48 pm 25. yama-arashi:Rick,
“Perhaps applying a checkbook tourniquet to the UN while initiating a League of Democracy in parallel is the most that can be hoped for. The Indian, Japanese, Australian, US core that Yama mentioned last night is rather interesting.”
I believe in the tourniquet approach. Maybe the UN can handle the Olympics and Fifa. Stuff like that. And I think Ad hoc coalitions are a good way to go. I also think bilateral, trilateral, heck even multilateral arrangements have a place. But I am certainly against initiating a “League of Democracy” or some such thing. What’s the point? I don’t think these kinds of things can or should be institutionalized in that way. At best co-opt other institutions whenever possible. I certainly don’t think it helps to say out loud that there is a new core group!! More whispering, by all means. The big stick is a given.
It is mostly chance. The reason America and Japan are having a fine run now is because the underlings during the Reagan/Nakasone golden years are now the big shots in the Bush/Koizumi present. If America had elected Kerry or if the LDP in Japan was under a different leader, or if the opposition parties here had power, none of this would be happening. If fifteen or twenty years after this run the stars are able to line up again, I will be very happy. But in the meantime I am also quite sure most of the good that has been done will be undone by the next Clinton. The League of Nations, the UN, the so-called and soon coming “League of Democracy” are all things that tend to become the same thing in the end. Why go through the terrible process again. Keep this tower of Babel, keep it in New York where it is close, and deal with it like the necessary evil that it is. In my humble, and not very considered, opinion.
Mar 31, 2005 - 12:38 am 26. yama-arashi:P.S. When the stars don’t line up, like in the thirties and the nineties of the last century, it is a comedy of errors that eventually becomes great tragedy. I’m sorry but Chamberlain and Albright and Acheson and Nixon and all the rest make me laugh–no matter how much their naivete leads to things that make me cry. In the end the tragedy is dealt with and the whole thing begins again. The UN or Article Nine are part of the beginning again that occurred last century, I think. Enthusiasm for a “solution” like a League of Democracies, no matter how much I agree with the intent behind the thought, I think misses the larger point, which is that there are no magic solutions to the human condition, or the particular roles various actors have come to take in this drama, and facing this squarely means things like the UN become neither here nor there, all thngs being equal, and using them, while complaining about them, is perhaps the best option available. It is the decent, and moderate, thing to do.
Mar 31, 2005 - 1:25 am 27. Canucklehead:The value of the UN is to provide shelter and protection from the glare of the present old-eurocentric “international community” while a new replacement organ is being conceptualized and fostered (possibly the rumored Council of Democratic Nations). This is the only renewal that people will accept. We have seen the first results of the replacement organ in addressing the need of the tsunami victims. Once the new organization is up and running, the UN goes the way of the League of Nations. The value of having Kofi in place at the head of the UN is that there will be no renewal, and that will allow the UN to die when the time is right.
I’m sure diplomacy has changed in the internet-centric environment that we have entered. It seems clear that the press barons are no longer able to influence world events like previous times.
People do not need professional diplomats like they once did. Look at the democratic revolutions popping out like new spring flowers. The world is embracing the thawing of relations between people at a blog/personal level. Dictators-diplomats can’t control that. They may be able to slow it up some, but the writing is on the wall (aka Iran, North Korea, China to name a few examples).
There is no inherent value in taking an issue to the UN. No intelligent leader will trust their nation’s issue to an out-moded model of conflict resolution.
Let’s see what replaces the UN. There will be no reformation. God has left the building. The Anti-Christ is still in charge.
Mar 31, 2005 - 8:44 am 28. Katherine:Rick,
In reality I donít see any reason for an organization like the UN, no matter whatís its structure. I think it is a romantic notion to believe that somehow sitting at the table and simply debating with your enemies will bring lasting political solutions. Negotiations, bilateral or multilateral are also old as hills. If it were all that was required for mutual peace and understanding then having an embassy with semi-competent stuff in every country would have been sufficient. The unfortunate lesson of the League of Nations should be already enough to realize the impotence of such organizations.
We tried to do it ìbetterî with the UN and all we got was tax burden for us and fat Swiss bank accounts for the UN bureaucrats, plus some occasional child-rape and massacre. And of course lots of satisfying rhetoric. The desire to create another multi-national organization, even such as Council of Democracies is nothing than a victory of collective wishful thinking over experience. I foresee all sorts of corruption and inefficiencies there. Think the US government.
Unfortunately, humans are not quite the rational players some economist think, so I am afraid that a UN-type of body is inevitable. So, I would try to set as high standard for admittance as possible, including transparent finances and exernal audit. Then we can sit back and make bets on how quickly the new stringent rules will relax.
Mar 31, 2005 - 8:50 am 29. ray_g:“Character is what you are in the dark.” Lord John Whorfin, from “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension”
Mar 31, 2005 - 9:33 am 30. Rick Ballard:Katherine, Skookumchuk, Yama-arashi,
I’m getting a warm fuzzy feeling from being considered an idealist. I’m sure it will pass quickly.
I have absolutely zero (that’s 0) hope for any international organization actually “solving” much of anything. I believe that setting up an organization that competes with the UN while being based upon proven principles rather than utopianism may provide an alternative method of advancing freedom throughout the world.
The four countries Yama named – India, Japan, Australia and the US all share the distinction of having had English common law imposed upon them for varying periods of time. They all made the same decision to retain certain core elements while modifying certain structural components to better deal with cultural realities that existed prior to the imposition. They are all “success” stories to the extent that the basic principles that were pronounced inherent within the US Declaration have been preserved.
Btw – I would leave “diplomacy” within the UN. The functions performed by the departments charged with dispersing “aid” are those best administered by a competitive organization.
Mar 31, 2005 - 9:57 am 31. Kyda Sylvester:When I was in high school, we occasionally would stop by the UN when it was in session (in those days the public could wander freely in the building’s public areas and there was a visitor’s gallery where you could watch and listen to debate in the General Assembly). Those were the heady days of U Thant and although I was a conservative even then, I nonetheless was filled with idealist notions about this great deliberative world body. Well, that was then and this is now.
Whatever good the UN has done through the years, whatever accomplishments it can claim, it long ago outlived its usefulness and it’s past time to pull the plug (forgive the allusion, but I have a very bitter taste in my mouth this sad morning). No, Kofi Annan is not evil, but at best he’s exceedingly incompetent, laughably self-aggrandizing and quite possibly corrupt (and he’s damn lucky that he’s not the CEO of a large US multi-national with ties to the Bush administration). I still think that he will not survive to the end of his term. And I hope that the demise of the UN itself follows in his departing wake. It was a noble experiment but also a failed one and now it’s time to start again from scratch.
Thank you again, Roger, for your yeoman’s work on this story.
Mar 31, 2005 - 12:46 pm 32. yama-arashi:Rick,
“The four countries Yama named – India, Japan, Australia and the US all share the distinction of having had English common law imposed upon them for varying periods of time.”
You keep mentioning that I mentioned these four countries and I am sure I did somewhere, most likely as a way to push the ad hoc coalition theme, but not in the way you seem to be implying I mentioned them. To the best of my hazy memory. In any case let the record show…
As far as you basic premise, stated in your last comment, regarding the imposition of English common law and adherence to the principles in the Declaration of Independence as being the overriding reasons for Japan’s success, I think that escapes the noble realm of idealism and enters pure unadulterated fantasy. You mistake, at least in Japan’s case, jewelry and make-up, for blood, bone and sinew, undergarments and clothing, i.e., the real causes of things we should applaud and support. I don’t buy your line of thinking and I think it lacks historical understanding and worse–imagination. To continue my pathetic use of metaphor, there is more than one way to skin a cat and all roads to good governance and decency don’t necessarily lead through Blackstone’s backyard and Jefferson’s meadow. I agree the two things you mentioned are good things, and thus there was never any need for them to be imposed. In time their adoption in some form within some context were a given here. Indeed, perhaps they are but feint echoes of things already pronounced and honored a long, long time ago.
Mar 31, 2005 - 6:13 pm 33. richard mcenroe:yama-arashi ó Yatta! Excellent imagery. Although I think Japan’s blood, bone and sinew have been exercised with their fullest vigor since the imposition of Western sensibilities over Japanese culture and tradition with the Restoration.
Mar 31, 2005 - 6:47 pm 34. Rick Ballard:Yama,
My apologies for lack of clarity. I fully acknowledge that you did not propose anything other than an ad hoc groupage for a specific situation. I believe that you read much more into my comment concerning the imposition of English common law than I had ever intended. I simply found it interesting that those four countries had each shared the imposition.
I would never consider English common law as causative. It is protective in nature and prevents the strong from unduly depriving the weak of the rights enumerated. I don’t believe that you will find anything in my comment that implies that Japan is an economic and social success because of the Declaration or because of English common law. The recognition of the inherent principles by the Japanese may very well predate the Declaration, although my admittedly limited knowledge of Imperial and Shogunate Japan predisposes me to think that Emperor and peasant may not have been equal before the law. If, in fact, a peasant could not be deprived of life, liberty or property except by due process then I am sadly deficient in my understanding.
Again, my apologies for lack of clarity. I shall be more careful in the future.
Mar 31, 2005 - 7:07 pm 35. yama-arashi:Richard,
Though continuing with this line of thinking is a fool’s journey, and I hate to keep disagreeing with Rick and now Richard, I am not a big fan of the Meiji Restoration, and I think the too easily said but difficult to explain (at least to me)–this oft turned phrase, or something like it, namely: “the imposition of Western sensibilities over Japanese culture and tradition,” is a corrupt understanding of what came before Meiji, and more importantly what came well, well before Meiji, and what has transpired since. I also don’t agree that the Restoration created the conditions for Japan’s “fullest vigor,” much to the contrary, I view it like the occupation and like the late twenties and early thirties as a corruption of something potentially much better, borne through a basic “Western” misunderstanding of Japan and for that matter a misunderstanding of Japan of itself; though Meiji does spell the beginning (not strictly speaking) of Japan being recognized, in various degrees and by various agendas, by the so-called “West.” But that is hardly the proper condition for judging the merits and power of a nation and culture through its long, long history. It seems a bit self-fulfilling, the West had eyes to finally see Japan, and Japan was judged at its best for having finally been seen. I’m one to believe, if no one hears a tree growing in the forest, it nevertheless still grew. Or was that one-hand clapping? Or, a tree falling? Promise to lay of the coffee and the metaphors from here on in. Thanks for your patience.
Rick,
Never any need to apology. I also think you were very clear. As was Richard. And more than likely correct, as was Richard. But I do think we are coming at things from very different angles. Which is interesting. However, it makes the next step all but impossible. Best to take a break and wait for a better opportunity to arise. It’ll save our good host, Roger, some bandwidth too.
Mar 31, 2005 - 7:37 pm 36. Rick Ballard:Yama,
I sincerely doubt that Roger would grudge you bandwidth (Lord knows I’ve used more than a fair share of it). You provide an opportunity to gain insight that’s not exactly thick on the ground over here and I appreciate your comments. Roger doesn’t extend posting privileges very often but Joe Katzman at Winds of Change does on a regular basis. Alternatively, it takes 10 minutes to set up a blog with Blogspot and should you choose to do so I can assure you of at least one faithful reader. I hope that you will give this some consideration.
Mar 31, 2005 - 8:15 pm