What if Kofi Annan Ran Enron?
By Randall Nunn (01/07/06)
Most of us are aware of the misdeeds by Enron executives that led to the collapse of the company, the loss of millions of dollars to shareholders, the loss of employment for many and the prosecution of a number of the Enron executives. We have been treated to numerous articles in the mainstream press about corporate corruption and the need for harsh punishment for those in charge who either intentionally engaged in illegal acts or deliberately ignored what was happening. The name Enron is mentioned and Americans know it to be an example of corruption and wrongdoing. Yet the CEO of the largest and most important international organization in the world is involved in a scandal of epic proportions that is largely ignored by the mainstream media. If Kofi Annan had run Enron instead of the United Nations, he would be living high and basking in the acclaim of the mainstream media and few of us would even know that anything terribly wrong had happened.
There is no question that what happened at Enron was wrong and those responsible should be held accountable. The damage that was done to shareholders, employees, the image of corporate America and the U.S. economy was substantial. Executives who abuse their positions of power should be punished and should pay a heavy price if convicted for their illegal conduct. Corporate lawbreakers wreak more havoc than a bank robber who steals an equal amount of money at gunpoint, because of the collateral damage inflicted on many innocent people who implicitly trusted those executives to manage their companies responsibly and honestly. Very few of us have sympathy for such wrongdoers when they are brought to justice. Why the difference when the person at the helm is the head of a behemoth international organization, heavily funded by the American taxpayer?
One might conclude that the Enron story simply has more “sex appeal” as a story, involving top executives of a major corporation caught up in a major scandal. But isn’t the diversion of over $10 billion dollars from a program run by the United Nations, ostensibly as a way to allow money to flow to the needy people of a country run by a brutal dictator, into the pockets of corrupt officials and organizations equally attractive as a story? The money diverted from the U.N.’s “Oil for Food” program helped Saddam Hussein continue to profit from his evil and maintain his tyranny. The money was used to buy influence and prop up his murderous regime while the United Nations represented itself as a caring organization helping the oppressed people of Iraq through the wise management of Iraq’s oil revenues. People all around Kofi Annan have been implicated in the “Oil for Food” fiasco, yet Annan is portrayed as being above it all and not responsible. If we applied the same standard to Annan as is applied to the CEO’s of American corporations who sit idly by while funds are being mishandled on a massive scale, Annan would be hounded by the media, under intense investigation by every agency that conceivably had jurisdiction and his name would be synonymous with wrongdoing and mismanagement. Why the different treatment?
The reason that Kofi Annan continues to strut the world stage and pontificate on the great issues of our time is because he is one of the darlings of the mainstream media and the American left. A sacred principle of these people is that the United Nations is the main force for good in the world and the best vehicle for pushing a socialist agenda on a global basis. For years anyone who criticized the United Nations was branded as a right-wing extremist who did not understand that our national interests must be subordinated to the need for a new world order. Now that many Americans are waking up to the corruption, mismanagement and anti-Western animus of the United Nations, the left must downplay the “Oil for Food” scandal and the Volcker Committee report so that the UN is not weakened by this scandal.
Where is the outrage at public servants who abuse their public trust in such a devious and yet flagrant fashion? Where are the bureaucrats, regulators and prosecutors pushing for trials and public hearings so they can expose this corruption and prosecute the wrongdoers? Most of them appear to be quietly ignoring this huge scandal or waiting to see if the public catches on to the magnitude of the corruption and the arrogance that exists within the UN before they speak out. As the liberal press believes, “if we don’t print it, it didn’t happen.” That has sadly been true in the past when talk radio and the Internet didn’t exist or were in their infancy. But now, if a few forceful, articulate and courageous spokespersons step forward, public opinion might be aroused and politicians might be prodded to examine in detail a scandal that makes Enron look like small potatoes.
Funding an organization whose leaders allow corruption to flourish under their watch should not be acceptable simply because the organization has been clothed with the aura of respectability by the mainstream media. If the left can question and attack the basic institutions of this country on a daily basis, why should a bloated, out-dated, mismanaged bureaucracy like the United Nations be off limits from criticism? And one of the first questions should be why the United States pays over 20% of the UN’s budget while the Secretary General turns a blind eye to the corruption engulfing his organization.
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