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Superman's product of the century (so far):
Fave UN watcher, Claudia Rosett takes on Kofi Annan's latest outpouring of 'reform' talk - and uncovers what should be front page news.
In her Opinion Journal piece this week she opens with:
The threat of the U.S. withholding cash from the United Nations has sent Kofi Annan into overdrive recently, with the secretary-general putting his name to yet another round of articles proclaiming such stuff as a fresh start and much progress and grand plans for reforming the U.N.--which he is particularly practiced at, having done it twice already, in 1997 and 2002.
And proceeds to track stale Kofi as he tiptoes through the mine fields of his own creation.
But with the UN, as we've already learned, all roads lead to money.
Rosett tells us that just for the core UN budget, the US has been assessed over $400 million dollars this year - roughly ten times the contribution of Russia and China - combined. Given their domestic military funding and the fact that they have permanent Security Council seats certainly should give us pause.
But here comes the punch line. Ready?
That's disturbing. But if there is one item in all Mr. Annan's talk of reform that should provoke distinct horror, cold sweats, and mighty fears over the trajectory of the U.N., it is a small cipher embedded in Mr. Annan's tastefully printed and expensively bound proposal for U.N. reform, "In Larger Freedom," Annex item No. 5(d). That would be the proposal that developed countries contribute 0.7% of their gross domestic income to the cause of "official development assistance."
For the U.S. alone, where gross national income now totals about $11 trillion, that would add up to more than $82 billion per year--by itself more than 10 times what the U.N. has already failed miserably to manage well. And though Mr. Annan does not spell out exactly how such official aid would "officially" reach its intended beneficiaries, the clear implication is that it would go through the "official" U.N.--generating a great gush of cash, with no more need for the U.N. to worry about reform, or Mr. Annan and his successors even to strain themselves sending staffers to lobby Washington, or signing self-laudatory Op-eds.
This is simply beyond the pale.
Claudia's solution? Throw a Turtle Bay Tea Party.
If that means push the whole thing off into the bay and permanently dilute stale Kofi, we are long overdue.
You want 0.7% of our GDP Mr. Annan? After what has transpired under your watch, I wouldn't give you 0.7% of the exhaust fumes from my truck.
UPDATE: Hoodlumman at FileitUnder suggests the 0.7% was Annan's blood alcohol content when he came up with the UN's latest request for US dollars. Heh.
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TrackPulled on Jul 1, 2005 7:46:31 AM
Tip of the iceberg! While the Oil for Food program is front page, just take a gander at some of the others.
I selected, at random, another ... UNEP and looked at the 2003 Financial Statements.
Gag!
Paragraph 36 "recommends that it recover, through payroll deductions, advances pertaining to staff members and that it take immediate action to account properly for advances paid to "other persons" ".
Paragraph 42 is about "pending write-off".
So, when's the party? I'll be there.
EMCEE: Party? My place, 7 o'clock... Oh, you mean the UN Tea party? Currently unscheduled due to lack of public outrage and symptoms of hyperdonthavetheballsenough on the part of our public servants.Good find there D. Can you imagine what would be found if there were transparency into all of the sprawling nightmare of the UN?
Posted by: Diana at Jul 2, 2005 6:59:45 AM
Oh, and Paragraph 61 ... "At UNEP headquarters, the summary statement of inventory showing a closing value of $10,211,513 as at 31 Dec 2003. This did not reconcile with the physical inventory report, which reflected a closing value of $974,157, resulting in a discrepancy of $9,237,356. The discrepancy was due to the lack of financial value of most of the items in the inventory report."
I can't wait to check out UNICEF.
EMCEE: Since those Rolls Royces are gone, they aren't worth anything ...Posted by: Diana at Jul 2, 2005 7:15:14 AM
