UN Dispatch Attacks Roger L Simon
Captain's Quarters
Pity the poor United Nations. Not only is the management at Turtle Bay hopelessly corrupt and inept, its new blogosphere apologists don't appear very bright, either. Not only did they run a lame attack post about Roger L. Simon's recent focus on history's largest embezzlement scam, they sent out e-mails to bloggers asking us to promote it:
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20% of Roger L. Simon's blog entries during the month of April make reference to the Oil-for-Food controversy.
0% of Roger L. Simon's blog entries during April make reference to the following UN-related issues[...]
Is Simon's hyper-focus on a single UN-related issue based on deep convictions? Unbending principles? Moral outrage? Maybe. Then again, there's his explanation:
"Thanks to the Secretary General of the United Nations for providing this blog with its first 50,000+ visitor day." - Roger L. Simon
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UND then lists a number of UN initiatives that supposedly have been or are successfully being implemented. Perhaps these programs do work well, although it's hard to tell. By the time we get past issues like Annan's nepotism, Saddam's massive theft, his purchasing of UNSC vetoes staving off action against his genocidal regime, and the endemic sexual exploitation of women and young girls unfortunate enough to find themselves under the "protection" of United Nations peacekeepers and observers, we're simply too exhausted to examine the minutiae of the UN's efforts to rebuild Iraq's marshlands.
(I would point out to the bloggers at UND that this latter effort would not have been possible if the US and UK had not removed Saddam Hussein from power despite the UN's best efforts to protect him. It also would not have been necessary had the UN allowed us to march to Baghdad in 1991 when the road was open and the marshes still existed.)
Nowhere does UND attempt to dispute what Roger writes about the UN or offer evidence of improvement. It simply criticizes Roger for writing about what interests him and for not being "balanced" in his opinions about the UN, and for making a joke about Kofi Annan's continuing misrepresentation of investigative reports being a source of Roger's traffic.
A word of advice, guys. If you have a problem with Roger's posts, it had better be something substantial. Bloggers have no sympathy for arguments that start, "Why don't you write about what ____ does right?" If the UN needs a PR flack, Roger obviously isn't interested in the job. Giving us a laundry list of minor programs that haven't received any criticism as a defense against the monumental corruption of OFF and the chronic and grotesque sexual misconduct of UN staff is nothing short of laughable.
When the UN starts holding its executives accountable for their crimes and incompetence, then Roger and the rest of us won't need to spend 20% of our time blogging on the UN's fecklessness. If UND wants to criticize that, then UND has decided to be nothing more than toadies for the corrupt and incompetent at Turtle Bay.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit and Hugh Hewitt readers!
Posted by Captain Ed
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