I am just starting a very early bound galley of The UN Gang: A Memoir of Incompetence, Corruption, Espionage, Anti-Semitism, and Islamic Extremism at the UN Secretariat by Pedro A. Sanjuan to be published by Doubleday in September. In 1984, Mr. Sanjuan was appointed by then Vice President Bush to a position in the Secretariat. His mission: keep an eye on Soviet agents inside the UN bureaucracy. What he saw: according to the galley’s back cover, things that make the oil-for-food scandal “just the tip of the iceberg.” I’ll report more on this book after I’ve read it. [Why, sir, do you read books through?-ed. Enough already with your Dr. Johnson!]
And speaking of oil-for-food, this blog has been paying special attention to the Volcker investigation (or lack thereof). Stay tuned.
APROPOS: The UN has evidently chosen Qatar for its Human Rights Center, raising some eyebrows.
Very recently, the UN has done a complete 180 on their public statements. Kofi Annan is trying to kiss up to the White House and Congress, the sex harasser Ruud Lubbers was forced out, the head of UN peacekeeping admits that there are terrible sex abuses in *all* peacekeeping operations, the UN admits that Kofi’s right-hand woman’s name was omitted from the Volcker Report, the UNRWA admits that it had Hamas terrorists on payroll, the UNHCR head admits that the UNHCR is loaded with serial human rights abusers (Cuba, Libya, Sudan etc) and so on.
That is a lot!
Some details here:
http://noonshadow.blogspot.com/2005/03/strange-happenings-at-unhcr.html
http://noonshadow.blogspot.com/2005/03/things-are-changing-in-turtle-bay.html
http://noonshadow.blogspot.com/2005/03/crime-and-cover-up-at-turtle-bay.html
http://noonshadow.blogspot.com/2005/02/blue-helmets-and-purple-helmets.html
http://noonshadow.blogspot.com/2005/03/kofi-lets-us-see-him-sweat.html
I am not sure what is going on. Confessing any error is not the common practice of our UN superiors.
My guess is that there is some massive smoking gun somewhere just beginning to poke its barrel out (whether in the full Volcker Report or somewhere else) that has the potential to bring the whole rotten edifice down.
Otherwise the super-tranzis wouldn’t deign to give the peons’ complaints any attention.
Just wait ’till Bolton gets in . . . THEN we’ll see fireworks!
“I am just starting a very early bound galley of The UN Gang: A Memoir of Incompetence, Corruption, Espionage, Anti-Semitism, and Islamic Extremism at the UN Secretariat by Pedro A. Sanjuan”
Some bloggers have all the luck!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just kick the UN to Brussels? Or Switzerland? And,then neither fund them with American taxpayer dollars. Nor allow them to staff NATO with our fine men and women.
Bunch of hooligans.
You know, the smoking bans that went into place, affecting New York’s finest restaurants, I can see the diplomats actually stampeding for the exits. We can even promise them they can speak French and German, as their official language(s); as who cares, now, what they have to say?
What to do with that property on First Avenue, facing the river? A parking garage comes to mind. It would be way more useful! AH! And, maybe that new stadium could be built on the East Side … rather than the West Side? Given that the West Side was a terrible choice, in the first place?
How did New York City end up hosting this shit, anyway? The idea stank even as it was coming out of the gate. Lucky San Francisco. It didn’t win. And, now they have an excellent stadium in their city. Go figa.
Carol,
SF is already doing the rest of the nation a great favor by attracting all the craziest moonbat hippies from entire country and keeping them here.
Besides, SF main revenue generator are parking tickets ñ the parking ticket police are quite inventive here, and I donít think that the City could absorb all those UN workersí unpaid citation; they would go broke tomorrow. On the other hand, perhaps it is an ideaÖ.
Katherine,
The UN first met in San Francisco. Site of its first meetings. But then “lucky NY” got the prize.
Coming from NYC, I know the UN property well. Busloads of school kids used to go there, too. Like I said, though it is falling apart today, I remember it well.
And, I’m not suggesting that the UN go West! Those diplomatic dudes deserve one way tickets EAST.
Plus, there’s another problem in the Big Apple right now. And, that’s gonna destroy the Westside. To build an ugly, and unwanted, stadium, there. How? Traffic will have to fly over! There’s no room for cars, now.
How so? Let me tell ya about NY’s wonderful Westside. The buildings, for the most part, are all “pre-war.” That’s BEFORE Americans owned cars. Let alone, New Yorkers. The last group in the world to use cars for transportation.
To give you an example, there was an old joke that went something like this: I have a car in NYC, and I have it parked. HOW? I bought it in place.
Did you know the average New Yorker, who drives, and comes home late to his Westside apartment, stays in one of the side streets for hours and hours … waiting for someone to come out of a building, there. And, drive away.
Outside of cities like Rio, in Brazil, I don’t think you’ve seen parking problems like this.
So, I’m sticking with my suggestion. Boot the UN across the pond. Brussels works. They’ve already got Wallooons.
The other day I was watching Chris Wallace Fox Sunday and there was a UN spokesman on there and he was amazingly candid about the problems facing the UN, including the issue of the Human Rights Commission. He did make a valid point.. the problem is not only the UN as an insititution, it is the member nations.