Sunday, January 02, 2005

Once again, the U.N. is a bunch of !@#(#@_ freeloaders

The Belmont Club notes that while the U.N. is setting up conferences to decide what to do, and setting up facilities for 'their' relief crews, they're trying to claim control over and direction of relief work being done by countries that are actually accomplishing something.

This, to me, further gives the lie to the words of Clare Short that “Only really the UN can do that job,” she told BBC Radio Four’s PM programme. “It is the only body that has the moral authority.” Aside from the 'moral authority' bullshit, the U.N. can't accomplish crap without someone else doing the hard part. They have lots of donations, so now they have to ask us, primarily, to get the stuff where it's needed. Of course, we've already got multi-tons of everything there and on the way, but what's really important is that the 'proper' people (U.N.) gets credit for all of it.

The only way the comments of Ms. Short make sense is through the idea that nothing is really legitimate unless done by the U.N., and that anything that gets in the way of that- including unauthorized feeding of starving people- must stop.

The transnational progressivisists would see us all dead rather than have someone do something without the 'proper' approval. Screw them and the U.N. both.

Update: found this at The Diplomad through Tim Blair:
I provided this to some USAID colleagues working in Indonesia and their heads nearly exploded. The first paragraph is quite simply a lie. The UN is taking credit for things that hard-working, street savvy USAID folks have done. It was USAID working with their amazing network of local contacts who scrounged up trucks, drivers, and fuel; organized the convoy and sent it off to deliver critical supplies. A UN "air-freight handling centre"? In Aceh? Bull! It's the Aussies and the Yanks who are running the air ops into Aceh. We have people working and sleeping on the tarmac in Aceh, surrounded by bugs, mud, stench and death, who every day bring in the US and Aussie C-130s and the US choppers; unload, load, send them off. We have no fancy aid workers' retreat -- notice the priorities of the UN? People are dying and what's the first thing the UN wants to do? Set up "a camp for relief workers" one that would be "fully self-contained, with kitchen, food, lodging, everything."

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