Like A Rotten Mackerel By Moonlight
By Randall Nunn (02/14/05)
John Randolph of Virginia once described a colleague, who he said was a man of splendid abilities but utterly corrupt, as being “like rotten mackerel by moonlight” that both shines and stinks at the same time. Very much the same description could be attached to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.
And, in fact, the same description could be applied to the United Nations itself. Maybe the monumental corruption, the anti-Americanism and the bureaucratic incompetence that pervades the U.N. is a good thing, since it might serve to open the eyes of American citizens and Congress much like the odor and inflammation of an open wound alerts one that there is a festering problem that must be attended to.
For years, many conservatives have been aware of the failings of the United Nations and the terrible waste of American dollars going to such a structurally-flawed organization. But until the Oil for Food scandal came along, too many Americans simply went along with the conventional wisdom that we needed the U.N. so that nations could talk to one another and resolve problems in a spirit of cooperation. Too many of us believed the babble about the need to have dialogue so we could “stop the cycle of violence” and do humanitarian good deeds. And the one-world bureaucrats continued to parade about on their stage in New York City pontificating about the world’s problems while living high on the hog at the expense of the provincial and narrow-minded people like the rest of us. But like all organizations and bureaucrats who amass too much power, they became corrupt, arrogant and mindless of their critics. No one is a finer standard-bearer for this corruption and arrogance that the U.N. now represents, than Kofi Annan.
What do we know about Kofi Annan? His annual salary is nearly $300,000—tax free! He gets a $25,000 annual fund for “personal entertainment”. In addition to free security, Annan lives rent-free in a mansion on Manhattan’s East Side. Annan’s security detail for a time went around New York City carrying submachine guns (not legal in New York City, or anywhere else in the U.S.) until the Bush administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms put an end to it in 2003. Did Annan need submachine guns in his motorcade to protect him in New York City? Of course not—they simply were one more status symbol for a power-obsessed international bureaucrat. In short, the Secretary-General is living the good life as a refined and erudite high-roller in striped pants, largely at our expense. And to make it worse, Annan criticizes the United States at every opportunity and makes comments on the eve of the United States presidential elections critical of President Bush. Perhaps the man is so puffed up with his own importance that he thinks someone other than the media and academic types listen to his drivel.
What of the history of this man while at the United Nations? While head of the U.N. Peacekeeping Department, a massacre of somewhere between 800,000 and 1 million took place in 1994 in Rwanda, largely because of Annan’s inaction. In 1995, an estimated 7,000 people were massacred in Srebrenica, again because of inaction on the part of U.N. “Peacekeeping” forces who the victims of the massacre thought were there to protect them. Around 2 million people died in fighting in the Congo in 1998, while the U.N. did nothing to stop the slaughter being carried out by two member nations, Congo and Uganda. We have witnessed massacre after massacre carried out under the noses of U.N. Peacekeeping forces, yet Kofi Annan reserves his harshest criticism for the United States rather than the U.N. member states carrying out genocide—openly and uninterrupted.
To get a flavor for the measure of the man, one only needs to read the response Kofi Annan sent to the French general on the ground in Rwanda in 1994 after Annan had been sent a cable warning of the likelihood of genocide in Rwanda if some action wasn’t quickly taken. Annan responded with diplomatic gibberish and ended his response by stressing that “the overriding consideration is the need to avoid entering into a course of action that might lead to the use of force and unanticipated repercussions. Regards.” Of course, there was no use of force by Mr. Annan’s Peacekeeping Department then in Rwanda and there were no “unanticipated repercussions.” All the repercussions were those anticipated by the French general—the brutal and systematic slaughter of over 800,000 human beings. The wonder of it all is that Kofi Annan can still strut around the world stage speaking in clipped and cultured tones about peace and understanding.
Finally, we have the massive Oil for Food scandal, where billions of dollars were paid to companies and people selected by Saddam Hussein, all under a program set up and controlled by Kofi Annan. Annan’s son is involved in the scandal, as are many other “eminent personalities” selected by Annan and the magnitude and scope of the corruption are still not fully known. If politicians and the media can work themselves into a lather railing against corporate scandals like Enron, wouldn’t you think a scandal as large as the Oil for Food scandal would merit condemnation at least as harsh? Yet we hear very little criticism from the mainstream media, the academic world or liberal politicians about the rot that has set in at the U.N. These people see the U.N. as a type of world government that is empowered to pass resolutions and charters binding on the United States that enable them to enforce their vision of a collectivist government, making us all subjects of the state rather than free and independent people who can be governed only the extent of their consent.
The more one examines the state of the United Nations today, its control by member nations who oppress their own people and leadership by the likes of Kofi Annan and his hand-picked favorites, the more obvious it becomes that submitting ourselves in any way to its jurisdiction is unwise. Perhaps Randolph’s description doesn’t quite fit here—the stink from this rotten mackerel is so great that it overwhelms any shine that it once had.
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