Kofi’s Parting Shot
Kofi Annan’s tenure as head of the United Nations in my opinion has been an absymal failure. Nuclear weapons have proliferated all over the world unchecked. Human rights have been violated en masse world-wide. And, conflicts that threaten the next generation have grown without the United Nations showing any concern or planning. Many in the United States have grown to consider the United Nations totally valueless on the world stage, I am one of those. More often than not there is a clear clue which side is right or wrong, the United Nations rarely could come to that conclusion under Annan. Conflicts that were a problem when Annan took office are till a problem to this day. The United States finally elected a President who called the UN for what it was, spineless, indecisive, and expecting the United States to almost single-handedly pay for its existence. He, like a lot of Americans, called for other countries to contribute more, and was rebuked. This President asked the UN to assist in dealing with a very antagonistic ruler who had already been convicted by that UN of using chemical weapons on innocent people and genocide. When push came to shove, the UN, via Annan, ran and hid. The sanctions the UN imposed were meaningless. The UN at that point became equally as meaningless. Oddly enough, the attacks on and within the US stopped at the exact time we did what the UN refused to do. Some say it’s a coincedence, some said it made things worse, including Annan. However, the annual attacks on and in the US stopped. So, rather than address the obvious failures of the United Nations under Annan’s tenure, and they are many and BIG, Annan flew to Independence, Missouri, to compare George W. Bush to Harry S. Truman. And, in a very blatant attempt, to put all the failures of Annan’s United Nations on the US and Bush. Some people will jump all over this speech. Others like me, will see it for what it truly is, an attempt by Annan to deflect his own failures.
- The Oil for Food scandal was covered up and forgotten by the media.
- Iran is threatening Israel with a nuclear holocaust while the UN watches them build the weapons.
- North Korea is building nukes while the UN ignores.
- The US and Iraq are still fighting Muslim extremists funded by Iran.
- Lebanon’s leaders are being killed by Syria.
- Africa is STILL watching as genocide goes unabated and unchecked.
- Israel and Palestine are pretty much going it alone while the world watches them self-destruct.
- The US still has troops in Bosnia under UN command. That was supposedly settled a decade ago.
These aren’t small problems. The bigger problem IMO is a lot of the world is pouring resources into the UN and those resources are not doing anything about the world as the concflicts that have gone on for a thousand years get worse and more dangerous. Kofi Annan had a chance to call out the world’s problems in his final address without fear of retribution, what he gave was utterly useless. That, pretty much sums up his leadership in a nutshell.
I hope the next leader of the United Nations has the balls it takes to deal with the world’s problems. Those problems are not simple, they are deeply ingrained, and, pretty often, they will involve the use of force no matter how ugly that appears. When the might of the many outweighs the threat of one, THEN the United Nations might become something of value to the world. If the NEXT Secretary General of the United Nations recognizes that fact and uses it for the good of the world, THEN we might have something. If not, if they are another Kofi Annan, the United States may as well withdraw from the UN and spend our money enforcing our own will. And when that happens, the United Nations will be bankrupt since no one else contributes hardly anything. Then, we’ll be right back where we were when Harry S. Truman took office. Kofi is too stupid to see the irony in that.
