Let's see -- A now red-faced "senior" United Nations official beat a hasty retreat yesterday after accusing the United States and other well-off Western nations of a "stingy" response to the devastation in south Asia.
Jan Egeland, a Norwegian who holds the lofty title of Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, now claims he was “misinterpreted? when he charged Monday that "there are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy."
"It is beyond me why we are so stingy, really," he told reporters.
Misinterpreted? I think not. . . , Egeland knew exactly what he was saying —and he meant every word of it. Of course, it was about as truthful as the rest of the slime that oozes from that corrupt cesspool called the United Nations on New York's First Avenue. Granted, the aid response was seemingly low - but the death toll was 4,000 by Sunday night. No one at the time knew it would reach a toll of 100,000+ four days later when officials began receiving news from remote areas.
Speaking of coughing up millions: If those high-living diplomats would donate a portion of the millions of dollars they stole in the Oil-for-Food program — which was designed as humanitarian aid for starving Iraqis but instead became an under-the-table cash cow for top U.N. officials and their families — Egeland might find some serious cash for the needy in Asia.
While I'm ranting on the subject: Let's add to this sordid mess called the U.N. the recent reports of rape and child molestation committed by U.N. peacekeepers in Africa, allegations of sexual harassment involving the heads of both the U.N. refugee agency and the internal audit division, a revolt against “senior management? by the U.N. staff union, the findings of an internal U.N. integrity survey that a lot of U.N. employees fear retaliation if they speak out, and the statements of a few brave whistle-blowers, fighting for their jobs, to precisely that effect. Plus, if you like, there’s the expanding saga of how the secretary-general Kofi Annan until confronted by the press allegedly failed to notice that his son in Switzerland had allegedly been doing lucrative business deals with a major U.N. contractor under the Oil-for-Food program. All of which has been subject to the marvelously circular argument that the press should shut up until the U.N., in between firing off hush letters to its contractors and employing Mr. Annan’s U.S.-taxpayer-funded staff to lambaste the U.N.’s critics, can carry out allegedly full and independent investigations of all these troublesome matters.
Egeland knew exactly what he was saying —and he meant every word of it. Of course, it was about as truthful as the rest of the slime that oozes from that corrupt cesspool called the United Nations on New York's First Avenue. Granted, the aid response was seemingly low - but the death toll was 4,000 by Sunday night. No one at the time knew it would reach a toll of 100,000+ four days later when officials began receiving news from remote areas.
Speaking of coughing up millions: If those high-living diplomats would donate a portion of the millions of dollars they stole in the Oil-for-Food program — which was designed as humanitarian aid for starving Iraqis but instead became an under-the-table cash cow for top U.N. officials and their families — Egeland might find some serious cash for the needy in Asia.
While I'm ranting on the subject: Let's add to this sordid mess called the U.N. the recent reports of rape and child molestation committed by U.N. peacekeepers in Africa, allegations of sexual harassment involving the heads of both the U.N. refugee agency and the internal audit division, a revolt against “senior management? by the U.N. staff union, the findings of an internal U.N. integrity survey that a lot of U.N. employees fear retaliation if they speak out, and the statements of a few brave whistle-blowers, fighting for their jobs, to precisely that effect. Plus, if you like, there’s the expanding saga of how the secretary-general Kofi Annan until confronted by the press allegedly failed to notice that his son in Switzerland had allegedly been doing lucrative business deals with a major U.N. contractor under the Oil-for-Food program. All of which has been subject to the marvelously circular argument that the press should shut up until the U.N., in between firing off hush letters to its contractors and employing Mr. Annan’s U.S.-taxpayer-funded staff to lambaste the U.N.’s critics, can carry out allegedly full and independent investigations of all these troublesome matters.
