Burning the UN in Order to Save It
Roger L Simon
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I would like to say the continued absence of the Oil-for-
Food Scandal from the pages of The New York Times,
Washington Post and Los Angeles Times is perplexing, but
alas it is merely ideological. We all know that these
newspapers are biased, just as all are. "Freedom of the
press belongs to the man who owns one"... blablabla.
But what is interesting is how shortsighted they are for their own purposes (the salvation of the UN). The New York Post, with its admittedly opposing ideology, but much smaller investigative force, stays on the case like the proverbial hawk, reminding us today how deeply embedded the UN was with Saddam:
According to a report Monday on Fox News Channel (a Post sister company), the program's director, Benon Sevan, took the letter and went directly to . . . Saddam.
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"I am duty-bound to bring the matter to the attention of the Security Council,"<font color=black> Sevan wrote the Baghdad Butcher's U.N. envoy, Mohammed Aldouri.
Apparently, duty could wait:
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"Prior to doing so . . . I should like to receive most urgently the views and comments of the government of Iraq." <font color=black>
Sevan is, of course, silent on the matter, as he is on almost everything else. So are the Great American Newspapers cited above (unless their extensive resources are quietly at work, which somehow I doubt).
What is their thinking in soft-pedaling one of the biggest
stories of our time? That the emerging fact that our most
important international institution has been hijacked by a
venal alliance of thieving bureaucrats and kleptocrats
will simply go away? Well, maybe it will. But is that what
those newspapers want? I don't think so really. I think
their editors and publishers are ideologically confused
and frightened to face reality. They are living in a
romantic "liberal" past which makes them unable to see the
present clearly. It is a fear that if one major card (the
UN) is pulled from the deck, the whole house will fall
down. And maybe it will. But so be it.
Instead of hiding with their heads in the sand, however,
those same newspapers could be performing a great public
service -- trying to analyze how the UN can be saved and
improved. I feel pathetic in a lonely little blog
attempting that myself and I post this to ask you to help
me. I am also going to ask you to play along... I
understand the argument that the UN should be destroyed in
its entirety and replaced with a new organization, but let
us try to reform it for now.
The first and most obvious step must be total economic
transparency. And I mean TOTAL... down to Kofi Annan's
expense account... whom he took to lunch and what they
discussed. After all, we're paying for this. It's in our--
the citizens of the worlds'--name. And these books should
be available online, twenty-four-seven, updated on a
continuous basis.
Next, something must be done about the Security Council.
How could an organ worth that name have stood by during
the genocide in Rwanda and now Darfur? The number who have
died is unthinkable. The idea was that there would never
be another Holocaust, but in less than sixty years, there
has! How to regulate this, I am not sure. But the actions
must be brutal, non-democratic regimes banned, etc. Even
that won't be sufficient, but something... We're all open
to suggestions. |
