Sour Grapes
I've been advertising a book over on the sidebar for some time now called "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures." It's a memoir of three UN employees, (all former now, I think) and tells stories of stupidity whilst working for the United Nations. It's a book all working people can recognize as ringing true, as many of us have taken bad jobs that we thought in the beginning would be just great. How much more so would it suck were the job involved be working for the premier human rights organization in the world? Let's just say they were disappointed at the end.
The above linked article is to The Times Online (British version) and is about their boss, Kofi Annan. Along with mentioning in passing workaday scandal and abuse, it specifically mentions three failings of the outgoing Secretary General that you might be slightly aware of. I say "slightly" because the press has been miserable about reporting them, and as I said in the beginning, I'm kind of sick about it. Not sick because Annan is responsible, hell I've known this for some time, but sick that a big international newspaper has taken this long to write such an article when this information has been available for years.
The last of the three situations reported by The Times continues today. It is going on in Darfur and a rather large quantity of human beings continues to be slaughtered. Just this past week the UN guy specifically in charge of this mess said in effect, "Sorry, can't do anything about it Old Chap, as the people in charge of the slaughtering won't give us permission." To paraphrase the late great Texan Ann Richards, "Where is Kofi?"
Kofi is on a farewell tour at the moment basking in the glow of affection emitted by dictators and leftists the world over. This is entirely understandable as the body count so far on Annan's watch rates well over 800,000 and the numbers are rising dizzily. In this context it's clear to me that the authors of the above article do not at all understand their subject as they write such things as:
He steps down in December after a decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence, mismanagement and worse. Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) between March 1993 and December 1996.
These charges of 'incompetence' and 'mismanagement' are wholly out of context. I for one don't believe them. Kofi Annan did not find himself in the Secretariat because of his incompetence and lack of management skills; he got there because of his skill at "worse." As you may clearly surmise from the above quote, Srebrenica (8,000 bodies in 1995), and Rwanda (800,000 bodies in 1994) both happened 'before' he was 'promoted.' The incompetence and mismanagement charges lay at the feet of our own mealy-mouthed protectors here in the West: the media.
These blowhards have spent the last ten years licking Annan's boots instead of beating this dog on the snout as he deserved. To come and thrill us now with tales of murder and rape in exotic locales after the fact, blaming mismanagement no less, is the ultimate treason. For how much longer do we want to be lied to?
Update: Here's Austin Bay on Kofi, the UN and the current Darfur situation.
