You are so cynical. If no for the UN, how would we feed all those poor Iraqi children during the sanctions under Saddam.

This might help answer your question:

UNsanctioned Suffering: A Human Rights Assessment of United Nations Sanctions on Iraq

Maybe he meant to say viral instead of vital?

Gee I wonder how many people we could feed/help if we took all the money we wasted at the UN and put it somewhere else.

The problem with the UN is that they are an unelected body accountable to no one, and if anyone tries to hold them accountable (ie newly some US senators and congressmen) they are accused of being mean.

The UN is nothing more than a place for despots who should have no power on the world stage to claim some legitimacy and power. It is time fo the UN to go.

UN speak translation: Kofi just believes it would be INHUMANE to cut off the US gravy train -- how would he manage to continue his posh lifestyle!

Perhaps I forgot to imply the tone of extreme sarchasm in my first post. My bad. The UN did no where nearly as good of a job at feeding starving child in Iraq as it did feeding several slightly hungry French, German, Russian, and Chinese leaders caviar. We need the UN to help us distribute bribes. No organization is nearly as effective at funnelling money into the hands of foreign leaders as the UN. $23.5B is gonna stand as a record for a while.

Shoot even the UN's feed the children program (UNICEF) doesn't even use its money as efficienty or wisely as most private charities.

It is back to that-nobody elects them and there isn't any real accountability. Shoot they even get diplomatic immunity unless Kofi takes it away, and if Kofi's hands are dirty that is unlikely to happen.

fuck un

I read Kofi Annan's opinion piece.
To me, it is a piece of excrement.

Annan doesn't admit to the UN's failures.

Annan writes, "Of course the U.N. is far from perfect--even if some of the recent allegations made about it have been overblown."

Overblown my _ _ _!

Reading Ann Coulter's book, "Treason", I've concluded that one of the reasons the UN was set up, was to provide a safe point from which KGB agents could operate inside the US, besides their embassy. Of course, that also means any other hostile government can use the UN in the same way - "with diplomatic immunity" - against the US.

Excerpt, pg 27 re Alger Hiss (convicted 1/25/50 and imprisoned) Soviet spy:

"President Roosevelt had been warned repeatedly over the course of a decade that Hiss was a Soviet spy, but continued to promote Hiss to positions of greater influence. Hiss had been at President Roosevelt's side at Yalta, where Roosevelt notoriously handed over Poland to Stalin. Britain and France had started World War II over Poland, but at Yalta Roosevelt cavalierly relinquished Poland to another totalitarian despot. The man advising Roosevelt during this transaction was Alger Hiss, Soviet agent.

Truman kept Hiss on as director of the Office of Political Affairs at the State Department. Hiss supervised the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, which helped create the United Nations, and he later served as secretary general of the San Francisco Conference, which drafted the United Nations Charter. In a final gift to his country, the Soviet spy bequeathed us the United Nations...."

Thirty years ago I worked with a very nice person whose father had been a bureaucrat at the UN from Burma. They lost everything when a military coup took over Burma.

The son told me that UN workers paid no income tax in the US or their home countries, had diplomatic immunity, salaries higher than those of any other agency in the world, and essentially unlimited benefits. Due to indifference expenses accounts were open-ended and such things as attendance, vacation, and sick-leave were not tracked. Travel was always first-class and there were often reasons to inspect various parts of the world and attend conferences.

They only way to get tossed out of paradise was political. You backed your boss and hoped your home government was stable.

Some of this may have changed; some seems a bit much. I understand the permanent staff has a union now.

The REALLY laughable part of his comment was that the UN was the only organization with the skill to respond to the tsunami disaster.

As I recall, the UN did not arrive on the tsunami scene until Jan 28th, and then with only two helicopters rented from Japan. They were off in Jakarta "plannin and coordinatin" (how they could rip off the donations). The Aussies were there within two days (Dec 28th), and the American aircraft carrier was there by the end of the week, ferrying food and supplies. The death toll would have been triple what it was if people had waited for the UN to respond.

What a bunch of thieves and losers!