Filippo wrote:

First, Kofi Annan’s apt, as the one of every UN’s, is not subsidized by NY tax payers, but rather worlwide tax payers.

Please re-read what Claudia wrote: she clearly distinguished between his UN financed dwelling, one attached to the office of Secretary General of the UN, and the abode in which Mr. Annon resided prior to assuming that august position, a NY apartment not subsidized by the UN but subsidized exclusively (if not completely) by US citizens.

It was the later that Mr. Annan seems to have passed along to his brother.

Filippo continues:

However, let me remind the first commentarist to this article that the central point should not be “I am trying to figure out if there is actually any good coming out of the UN.”, but rather focussing on where the real source of power is within the UN. You will “astonishingly” find that UN Administrators and personnell are far less powerful than Presidents of States, whose control and decisions of actions over the United Nations often countervene the spirit of the UN. [My emphasis . . . Brian].

Translation: the UN cannot work for good because it has no power. It has no power because each nation, or bloc of nations, is out to further its own agenda, irrespective of fairness or good (hence the absence of UN condemnation for even a single Palastinian action taken against Israel, and the plethora of resolutions condemning Israel for human rights violations against the Palastinians; the failure of member nations to punish peacekeepers who are guilty of rape, extortion and the like; and corruption within the UN bureaucracy, like the Oil for Food scandal).

Filippo’s observation, which I happen to agree with, is roughly analogous to a physician diagnosing an incurable, untreatable and fatal disease: it identifies why the doomed patient is unable to function normally, allows us to predict the patient’s future, but offers no treatment.

All of which raises 2 interesting questions: if the UN is broken in the way Filippo and I believe it is, what is the logic behind complying with UN resolutions when they are ineffectual at best, and at worst bolster tyrants, breed corruption and victimize the weak, all the while opposing US interests?

And what is the argument in favor of continuing the extravagant funding we’ve so generously provided the UN, when we (at least, Filippo and I) know full well the UN cannot be fixed?

Brian