From the Washington Post Op/Ed page:
You can hardly blame United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan if
he’s spending a lot of his free time these days touching up his resume.
For even by U.N. standards, the oil-for-food scandal; misconduct
charges against senior U.N. officials (and furious complaints by U.N.
employees in recent days that Mr. Annan is covering up); and the
organization’s failure to stop genocide in Sudan represent a low point
for a world body that had fallen into disrepute decades ago.
Add being in charge of the UN as they ran away from the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans and the sex/drugs parties happening in UN camps. Plus, the current operation in the Ivory Coast. It may be France’s military, but it is part of a UN operation. They have done a great job with Milosovich, too, haven’t they?
Looks like Kofi just barely squeaked past the vote of No Confidence:
Then, over the weekend, Mr. Annan narrowly managed to escape (at least
for now), a no-confidence vote from the U.N. staff union for
mishandling a probe of misconduct involving Under-Secretary-General for
Internal Oversight Services Dileep Nair, who was accused of harassing
fellow staffers and practicing favoritism in hiring and promotions.
After Mr. Annan’s office announced that Mr. Nair would be pardoned,
U.N. employees held a closed-door meeting in which they voted a
resolution of no confidence in U.N. senior management. Although their
union officially said it still had confidence in Mr. Annan, the
secretary-general has plenty of detractors. "Kofi Annan is surrounded
by corruption, a gang of criminals responsible for some of the worst
things that happened to mankind in the 20th century," an angry veteran
U.N. staffer told Agence-France Presse on Friday.
That’s about correct. Time to disband the UN and start again. It worked with the League of Nations. When the US pulled out, after a few other small countries had pulled out do to the issues in the LoN, the League went down. Like that time, if we pull out, the UN will lose more then half their money.
Seeing Kofi go will be a good thing, but you are absolutely correct in that the UN has to go. Not because of this scandal, but because the nature of the UN and UN-like organizations are corrupt.
When the United States has issues with other countries, it will work with those countries on an as needed basis. The UN cannot and will not prevent war and dictatorship because the UN’s premise is the same as war and dictatorships. That premise is collectivism. Each of us has to say goodbye to Kofi, the UN, and most importantly to collectivism.