In response to the angry responses to my posts as a UN aid worker, no sweat, I have worked with conservatives in the past, and there is some justified anger against the UN, but I won’t take the rapist/thief insults personally.

First it might be useful to review the US record in Haiti, military occupation, supporting and then bailing on Aristide, and then leaving totally. The UN troops in Haiti include troops from India, Brazil, Uruguay, and Colombia (where I work and am providing support), among others. I won’t defend everything they have done, but as the General Assembly voted to support elections and not building infrastructure, it doesn’t surprise me that the work was aimed in that direction.

You have to recognize that the UN is nothing but an amalgam of all of its member states. The UN has no hospital ships, but it does organize the arrival of hospital ships, it also organizes field hospitals which are currently in place with teams from throughout Europe, and as far as wheat, the World Food Programme (http://www.wfp.org/) has distributed more food throughout the world then any other organization, and in Haiti as in other locations runs the Humanitarian Air Service. Much of that food is sent from the US. Just sending food is controversial in many locations, as it can depress local grain prices. These are not simple solutions to simple problems, but you asked what aid has been sent, so look at http://ochaonline.un.org/Default.aspx?alias=ochaonline.un.org/cerf. You can also find out how much Europe, China and Japan have done there. China did send aid to Haiti rather quickly.

If you want to see what map work has been done, take a look at www.reliefweb.int. We are a small team, and we work with a number of NGOs. The work is worthwhile and it saves lives.

Again, the UN has worked on a huge number of initiatives. I don’t support climate change carbon emissions taxes and cap and trade, and I don’t like the human rights commission, because of its membership, but those campaigns were launched based on a decision of all member states, so stop directing your ire towards the UN and complain about the presidents who promote the campaigns, they asked for them…. On the other hand, Jan Egeland, if you actually were to meet him, is one of the greatest humanitarians I have ever met. Great guy, and he was right to call the US government stingy, it was.

Speaking of Congo and Central African Republic, where I have served, where is the US there? I am a US citizen and went to the US Embassy in Bangui, the only guy around was a telephone repairman from Johannesburg, the Ambassador had bailed in 2005 with an uprising and they hadn’t bothered to replace him.