Woo-fookin-hoo! Charles has announced the winners of the 2006 Oriana and Fiskie Idiotarian Awards. Despite stiff competition (Howard, Harper - the greats) John Bolton took honors in a landslide victory. BOTH MY PICKS WON! I wish Vegas had odds on it. I would have bet the house (and the senate.)
The biggest, dangerous idiot? The biggest loser? Drunroll...............and the Fiskie goes the KOFI of course. What will Kofi do with an award that doesn't have a half million dollar pay off ?
Moral illnes, the pathology of the left.................
The negotiator Salon.com James Traub's
examination of Kofi Annan reveals a patient and wily leader who managed to
outwit John Bolton and elevate the United Nations.
Korrupt Kofi vs the Honorable Mr. Bolton? The mind reels. Coffee Enema presided over the very worst period of corruption, antisemitism, genocide, and nuclear proliferation in UN history.
Who's the cat that won't own up, who knows how to be corrupt? [Give 'em the] SHAFT!Shut your mouth!
Another corrupt nail in the morally and ethically challenged career of the Kofmeister. Something tells me this is the tip of the iceberg...... and he dares lecture America on values.
As Secretary-General Annan prepares to leave his post at the United Nations, a mystery is surfacing surrounding his apartment on Roosevelt Island, subsidized by New York taxpayers, which is still in use by the family of his brother, Kobina Annan.
The apartment was where Mr.Annan and his wife lived before 1997, when he became secretary-general. The Roosevelt Island home is part of an estate of low-rent state-regulated housing. For years, the Annans saved considerable sums by occupying an apartment meant to help financially strapped low to moderate-income New York families.
One question Mr. Annan has never addressed is why he and his wife felt comfortable availing themselves of this generous arrangement. Another is how it is that, since Mr. Annan and his wife left that Roosevelt Island apartment 10 years ago to move into the rent-free residence on Sutton Place supplied to the secretary-general, their former low rent apartment was handed over to be occupied by the family of Mr. Annan’s brother.
This kind of apartment, part of a state-regulated housing development program called Mitchell-Lama, is subject to strict eligibility requirements, involving family size and financial ceilings on combined family income.There is also a requirement that the leaseholder make continuous use of the apartment as a primary residence.
Kobina Annan is currently Ghana’s ambassador to Morocco, a post he has held for some years. His wife, Ekua Annan, features in the Ghanaian and Moroccan press as active in the Rabat diplomatic community. The pair posed together at a gala reception they hosted at their official Morocco residence in 2004.
But the issue is pertinent because Kofi Annan, whose wife comes from
one of Sweden’s wealthier families, has spent years lecturing Americans
on how the well-heeled have obligations to those less fortunate. Those
low- to moderate income New York families for whom such accommodation
was built face a four-year waiting list. Read it all here.
TEHRAN (OFF News) – March 15, 2007 – After three months of living
“underground,” former Secretary-General Kofi Annan came to the surface
and spoke in the Iranian capital at the opening of a two-day conference
questioning the existence of the UN Oil-For-Food scandal…. ( Read the rest HERE)
You mean the White House dinner wasn't enough of a send off for this cretin? Dinner, lunch ....what's next? Breakfast at Tiffany's? The man is the worst kind of corrupt snake and no friend, no friend to America. Diplomacy my ass.
Cut Condi's meds!
Rice bids outgoing UN chief Annan farewell at lunch AFP via
Yahoo! News US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave Kofi
Annan her best wishes at a lunch ahead of the end of his 10-year stint as United
Nations secretary general.
Gunmen burn civilians alive in Sudan Khartoum - Gunmen on horseback attacked a truck carrying medicine and
aid in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region and killed around 30 civilians
on board, some of whom were burned alive, the United Nations said on
Sunday.
The African Union had earlier put the death toll at 22 and said 10
others were wounded on Saturday when gunmen attacked the vehicle near
Sirba, 45km north of El Geneina, capital of West Darfur state and close
to the Sudan-Chad border.
"The gunmen were riding on horseback. The exact number of civilian
casualties is not yet established but it is estimated that around 30
people were killed," UN spokesperson in Sudan Radhia Achouri said on
Sunday.
The
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, has said the international
community has to wake up to the reality of rape, murder and destruction
in the southwestern Sudanese region of Darfur.
He was
speaking ahead of global events to mark the International Day for
Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died in three years of
fighting.
Organisers want to draw attention to the level of rape and sexual violence against civilians.
The United Nations plans to gut the super-luxe
East Side townhouse that's home to the secretary general and give it a
multimillion-dollar renovation - complete with a $200,000 kitchen.
"That's a fantastic budget. It'd be a hell of a thing," said Stefan
Boublil, owner of swanky SoHo design firm The Apartment. "It's an
expensive kitchen."
The pricey kitchen upgrade is only a small part of a $4.3 million
overhaul of the four-story Sutton Place manse where Kofi Annan has
lived rent-free for a decade.
In a farewell speech on U.S. soil today, retiring United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan plans to deliver a tough critique of
President Bush's policies. He will accuse the administration of
trying to secure the United States from terrorism in part by
dominating other nations through force, committing what he termed
human rights abuses and taking military action without broad
international support.
Though Annan has long been a critic of the war in Iraq and other
Bush foreign policies, the planned speech is among his toughest and
is unusual for a U.N. secretary-general concluding his tenure.
He ought to be exiled to Africa where his African brothers would tear him limb from limb, this evil poser.
So Bolton was at that dinner at the White House last night honoring Kofi the Krook and Bolton's wit was still biting? Amazing. A dinner honoring Kofi at the White House, more amazing. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the twilight zone.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, whose temporary appointment ends shortly, was back at the United Nations on Tuesday, his wit and prickly relationship with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan intact.
Just hours after he made clear he would not seek a renewal on Monday, Bolton and his wife Gretchen attended a White House dinner in honor of Annan, who leaves office on December 31, and his wife Nane.
Must have been hard to keep the food down.
Asked about a "healing process" with Annan, Bolton told reporters: "Nope, nobody sang Kumbaya."
Annan later quipped "But does he know how to sing?"
Bolton was referring to the African-originated hymn popularized in the United States as a campfire song.
Bolton, who spoke to reporters shortly before he voted in the U.N. Security Council on a Somalia resolution he drafted, was asked whether he had been offered a senior U.N. post.
Laughing, Bolton said, "I don't expect to be offered, and if offered, I would not accept."
This is rich ........the President is hosting a dinner for whom? The only way to get any respect nowadays is to subvert and undermine America. Why is Bush honoring Kofi Enema? He has never been a friend to this great country in any way. He has served to undermine the efforts and aspirations of free men everywhere.
Uh, shouldn't the dinner be honoring Bolton? I'm confused.
There is diplomacy and then there is idiocy and then there is being a schmuck. This is somewhere in between the latter two.
US President George W. Bush was to host UN chief Kofi Annan for dinner to honor the secretary general for his service despite lasting disagreements, the White House said.
Bush spokesman Tony Snow downplayed the likelihood of any bitter words with Annan, who most recently raised hackles at among US officials by branding the conflict in Iraq a "civil war."
The dinner "demonstrates that the president is somebody who does not think that, because you disagree with somebody, you can't be hospitable to them and thank them for their service," Snow told reporters.
"This is not going to be sitting around and having debates with the Secretary General. Instead, it's going to be an attempt to thank him for his service. It's an important job," said Snow.
The dinner came one day after Bush accepted the resignation of the controversial US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, effective when his temporary appointment to the post expires, perhaps in days.
It seems inconceivable that the Secretary-General will not disclose even the more basic financial information considering the 21 billion dollars in fraud that we know about at the UN. How does he get away with it? Rosett nailed it, "power without law." Newsmax reports here
UNITED NATIONS -- Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said Annan will not be coerced by any nation to
disclose his personal financial information.
Coerced?
"The U.N. is an inter-governmental organization," Dujarric said. It is not a
national government. [Financial] Disclosure forms are an internal control
mechanism, they were filled out by about 1,000 staff members under the
understanding that they would remain confidential."
Why?
Dujarric was responding to remarks made by U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations John Bolton to reporters on Friday when he called for Annan to publicly
disclose his personal financial worth before he leaves office Jan. 1, 2007.
Norm Coleman, one of the fighters on the forefront of UN Reform, has been relentless along with Ambassador Bolton in trying to begin to eliminate the enormous corruption (21 billion in fraud!), nepotism, and embezzlement at the UN.
Kofi is shameless. He embodies power without law and he continues to spit in the face of change. Kofi Annan's Last Cover-upis a disaster. He is still stonewalling on financial disclosure forms.
The fact is that if Mr. Annan
departs Turtle Bay without having made his financial disclosure form
public, the public will have reason to wonder. His term at the United
Nations will be remembered only for the oil-for-food scandal, the
sex-for-food scandal in the Congo, the massacres at Rwanda, Cambodia,
and Srebrenica, and inaction in the face of the genocide in Darfur —
and establishing that deception, secrecy, and patronage cannot be
pierced by the reforms by which he sought to rescue his reputation.
COLEMAN GIVES A FAILING GRADE TO UNITED NATIONS REFORM EFFORTS
Washington,
DC—Senator Norm Coleman, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations, and Congressman Henry Hyde, the Chairman of the House
Committee on International Relations, today released a Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report detailing the dismal status of reform efforts at the United
Nations (U.N.). The report was requested as part of the Subcommittee’s
continuing investigation into the U.N. “Oil-for-Food” Program. The Subcommittee
has already held four hearings and issued several reports relating to its
investigation and continues to press for meaningful reform at the
U.N.
“The report makes clear that reform efforts have been, at
best, very disappointing and moving at glacial speed,” says Coleman. “I would
give the U.N. an ‘F’ for its efforts taken to date. Everyone who has studied
the U.N. – including the Subcommittee, the U.N. Independent Inquiry Committee,
the Gingrich-Mitchell Task Force on U.N. Reform, and even the U.N. Secretariat –
are in agreement that the institution requires major reform. This new report
indicates that the U.N. has, thus far, fallen woefully short of what needs to be
accomplished.”
The GAO report related several areas where U.N. reform
efforts have failed to meet expectations, and identified several obstacles to
reform:
In a morally inverted world, where right is wrong and good is evil, Kofi Annan still is an abject failure and worse, guilty of war crimes, murder even. Annan has much to answer for.
Srebrenica is rarely mentioned nowadays in Annan’s offices on the 38th floor
of the UN secretariat building in New York. He steps down in December after a
decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But
behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence,
mismanagement and worse. Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations (DPKO) between March 1993 and December 1996. The Srebrenica massacre
of up to 8,000 men and boys and the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda
happened on his watch. In Bosnia and Rwanda, UN officials directed peacekeepers
to stand back from the killing, their concern apparently to guard the UN’s
status as a neutral observer. This was a shock to those who believed the UN was
there to help them.
Annan’s term has also been marked by scandal: from the sexual abuse of women
and children in the Congo by UN peacekeepers to the greatest financial scam in
history, the UN-administered oil-for-food programme. Arguably, a trial of the UN
would be more apt than a leaving party.
The charge sheet would include guarding its own interests over those it
supposedly protects; endemic opacity and lack of accountability; obstructing
investigations, promoting the inept and marginalising the dedicated. Such
accusations can be made against many organisations. But the UN is different. It
has a moral mission.
It was founded by the allies in 1945 to “save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war” and “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights”. Its key
documents – the Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
genocide convention – are the most advanced formulation of human rights in
history. And they have been flouted by UN member states for decades.
A more specific charge would be that, under the doctrine of command
responsibility, the UN is guilty of war crimes. Broadly speaking, it has three
principles: that a commander ordered atrocities to be carried out, that he
failed to stop them, despite being able to, or failed to punish those
responsible. The case rests on the second, that in Rwanda in 1994, in Srebrenica
in 1995 and in Darfur since 2003, the UN knew war crimes were occurring or about
to occur, but failed to stop them, despite having the means to do so.
Thoroughly despised is Annan by his African "brothers" for enabling the Arabs to mindlessly slaughter hundreds of thousands of Africans.
UPDATE: Onward and upward (more like downward spiral.) Beny Avni writes of the "last Secretary-General" (Gd willing);
The new Turtle Bay chief — most likely the South Korean foreign minister, Ban
Ki-moon — must realize that if he stays in office for two terms, he may go down
in history as the last U.N. secretary-general.
Can this inefficient, corrupt institution, which was born of the victory over
the Nazis, shaped during the Cold War, and kept on life support during the
short-lived single-superpower era, survive another decade as new alliances shape
a new international power structure?
Why should it? BTW, did youblog for Bolton(how insane that the Dems won't confirm him?)
Finally, I have found something to admire about Kofi Annan--- his utter in-your-face chutzpah. Just as Claudia Rosett described at the Hudson Institute on UN reform, power without law, so goes Koffee. The NY Sun
While blaming Turtle Bay's
member states for failing to enact his "ambitious" reform proposals,
Secretary-General Annan yesterday all but confessed to his own failure
to comply with one of the only reform measures that has been passed.
Now that's rich, pun intended.
[...] But when asked if he had filled out the financial disclosure form,
which at the height of the oil-for-food scandal became obligatory for
senior U.N.staff as a means of curbing some of the corruption, Mr.
Annan gave a diplomatic answer that amounted to saying he has not. "I
honor all my obligations to the U.N., and I think that is as I have
always done," he said. (Phototoon: iHillary)
ishcabibble, ishcabobble "Eb-dee eb-dee eb-dee ebdee- That's ALL FOLKS!"
Yesterday, Mr. Annan
acknowledged that several other ideas that he had suggested to revamp
the United Nations failed because "the decisions were up to the member
states." His plans were "ambitious, some would even say overambitious,"
he said. "We have achieved quite a lot, but there are areas where I
feel we could have done more, and we should continue."
And looking around I can't help thinking that if
Churchill had to face the obstruction and opposition that Bush now
faces, that we probably wouldn't have won the war. Bernard Lewis, 9/11/06 Hudson Institute Watch the video of his compelling speech below. Download BernardLewis91106.wav
Mr.
Lewis, the most influential postwar historian of Islam and the Middle
East., served in the British Army in the Royal Armoured Corps and
Intelligence Corps and observed;
"I had no doubt we would triumph. I don't have that confidence now."
I spent the day at the Hudson Institute Symposium "THE UN AND BEYOND: UNITED DEMOCRATIC NATIONS",
listening to some of the best minds explore, debate, recount, and
deservedly excoriate the history of UN failures. A small but select
group attended to hear what Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Anne Bayefsky
(bless her soul, the architect behind this symposium), Walid Phares,
Michael Krauss, Natan Sharansky, John Bolton, Bill Bennett, Claudia
Rosett, Jed Babbin, Bernard Lewis and esteemed players on the world
stage speak to the future of America's involvement and considerable
financial support of the UN.
It was a once in a lifetime, let me tell you.
Looking around I saw the rapt faces of Monica Crowley, Georgette
Mosbacher, Larry Kadish, Cliff Kincaid, Joseph Farah, Norman Podhoretz
and his lovely wife, Midge Decter. What a waste of brilliant thought.
Bayefsky opened up the symposium outlined the historical, the
historical failures, too numerous to outline here of UN incompetence,
corruption and complicity. Michael Krauss outlined point by point the
UN failure in Bosnia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, the genocide in Darfur etc and heaped contempt on the UN cowardly, bureaucratic peacekeepers.
Five years after 9/11 the UN is still unable to define terrorism.
Today Bayefsky wrote this editorial here at NY Sun;
Just last Friday the U.N. gave the world its answer to 9/11. The General
Assembly adopted its first-ever "Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy." The title
is grand. The substance was not: it called for the implemention of a General
Assembly resolution from 1991, which draws a distinction between terrorism and
the "legitimacy of the struggle of national liberation movements." The document
was also telling for what it omitted: a definition of terrorism, a reference to
state sponsorship of terrorism and a call to sanction states that harbor and
assist terrorists. Worst of all it began, not with defeat of terrorists, but
with "measures to address conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, which
it describes as "prevent[ing] the defamation of religions, religious values,
beliefs and cultures," "eradicate[ing] poverty" and reducing youth
unemployment.
What does such a strategy do for winning the war? It throws sand in the eyes
of the troops on the front lines and renders the goalposts a mirage. More here
I thought I had a good idea of how debased that organization was. I
was wrong. From the outset the UN set out to fail. They have failed the
tortured, the oppressed, the poor, in incalculable ways. The graft and
corruption is endemic to the institution. Senator Norm Coleman referred
to the UN as a "jobs program for many countries." Those that contribute
little or nothing have enormous say.
9,000 mandates. The UN has 9,000 mandates and accomplishes little.
The premise of the discussion was the question of whether the UN be
could reformed and except the lone voices, the consensus from the best
minds was no. The alternative? A different organization. "The United
Democratic Nations," an organization of free nations. Shared values.
This seems to be one of the malignancies of the UN. How can democracies
and dictatorships co-exist in a world body successfully. They can't. And so immediately the organization is/was destined to fail.
My only complaint was the glaring omission from this 12 hour symposium of the continuing islamization of the United Nations as well documented and investigated by the intrepid David Littman here, here and here.
Hirsi Ali, Walid Phares, Michael Krauss. Phares, "Jihad divides the world"
Ayaan Hirsi Ali shares her thoughts on the UN; "The United Nations has proved to be incompetent and incapable of solving conflicts"
"The United Nations has been worse than ineffective. It has been
outright complicit. ...... Often threw inaction, sometimes through
neglect and somtimes through willful nuetrality.
Joseph Farah, World Net Daily...........loved talking to him. Talk about seeing things the same way.
Bayefsky explained that the multi billion dollar UN system was once
largely closed to NGOs (non governmental organizations) as the private
playing fields of member states. But NGOs have now found their way into
the most intimate recesses of the UN. Kofi and member states have found
it extremely useful to operate through these "partners" or proxies.
Bayefsky speaks of these orgs as GONGOS to discredit "government
sponsored non-gorvermental agencies."
But there is a
much darker side to the UN-NGO nexus than the rise of these obvious
interlopers in the NGO circles. it is the large number of NGOs that
have been empowered by UN-accreditation to spread anti-semitism, hate,
and encourage terrorism from a UN platform. The call for boycotts and
sanctions against Israel is a central plank of this campaign.
Claudia Rosett and Cliff Kincaid from Accuracy in Media Claudia Rosett and Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media
The most powerful remarks came from the journalist closest to the
inside machinations of the UN, Claudia Rosett. Rosett is inside the
asylum. The UN does not "distinguish between democracy and dictatorship,
good and bad. And the enemy is getting worse."
The UN charter is a big lie and things built on big lies tend to work to extremely damaging effects.
The charter proposes Power without Law. There is no higher authority. It is a law of its own.
" The UN is not fixable"
How does Rosett explain UN reform? First, "silence, then investigation, then reform aka cover up, then silence."
"The UN is "POWER WITHOUT LAW." "It operates outside the law. The law of its own recipe .......brought us Animal farm.
It is corrupt by its very nature........... And it's a universe unto itself."
Senator Coburn
Natan Sharansky, former Soviet politcal prisoner was asked what was
motivating Human Rights Watch in its one-sided condemnations of Israel;
"Human Rights Watch was born as Helsinki Watch," Mr. Sharansky said. "We were
arrested for this." He mentioned the founding chairman of Human Rights Watch,
Robert Bernstein. "Then it had clear moral standards," Mr. Sharansky said. But
lately, after Mr. Bernstein's retirement as chairman, the organization has taken
a turn in the wrong direction. "I spoke with the new head," Mr. Sharansky said.
"There is a clear lack of moral criteria."
Mr. Sharansky spoke of Human Rights Watch's condemnation of Israel for
deliberately targeting Lebanese civilians — "slaughter," Human Rights Watch's
executive director, Kenneth Roth, called it in a letter to the editor of the New
York Sun. The Israeli politician said that Hezbollah terrorists were using "all
Southern Lebanon as one big human shield." In the face of such a Hezbollah
atrocity, in this battle, Human Rights Watch "accuses Israel of war crimes."
Mr. Sharansky is correct to call this a "very big problem." It extends beyond
Israel to Human Rights Watch's approach to the wider war on terror. Mr. Roth
marked the fifth anniversary of September 11 by issuing a statement denouncing
not the terror-sponsors in Tehran and Damascus but rather the Bush
administration, which according to Mr. Roth is responsible for America's "loss
of the moral high ground." Mr. Roth wrote that the "The Bush administration
still subscribes to the view that it is engaged in a ‘global' war," a theory Mr.
Roth wrote "threatens the basic rights of us all."
Truth is — as Mr. Sharansky recognizes — it is not America or Israel that has
lost the moral high ground in the war on Islamic fascists, but Human Rights
Watch itself that has lost its moral bearings. A sad fate to befall an
organization for whose founding ideals Mr. Sharansky spent so many years in the
gulag archipelago. More at the NY Sun
Jed Babbin, Josh Muravchik, Michel Gurfinkiel. Interesting contretemps between these guys. Watch Babbin in this video
The irrepressible Bill Bennett
Bernard Lewis made a remarkable speech. Stunning.
Karit Goldwasser (with Dershowitz-oyish), the wife of the kidnapped
soldier Ehud Goldwasser. The UN could have, should have is obligated to
bring him home safely. So says Resolution 1701. She spoke ....... it is
heartbreaking. Olmert sold his people out.
Senator Coleman thought the oil for food scandal would be a mirror in
the face of the UN and yet nothing has been accomplished since the
conclusion of the permanent subcommittee. Despite the UN having signed
on to the UN reform document.
The original human rights was so outrageous, so egregious it seemed
like low hanging fruit. Change that, reform that. That should have been
easy. But the UN has tried to make this a left right issue. Blaming the
United States and in the case of Malloch Brown, even FOX NEWS.
The graphs demonstrate just how fed up the American people are. This should be a major campaign issue.
Despite a left wing, UN sympathizing media, the outrageous abuse and
corruption have thoroughly disgusted the American people.
In a Frank Luntz poll commissioned by the Hudson Institute, a majority
of respondents expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the United
Nations and embraced scenarios under which the organization would be
"scrapped altogether." Luntz characterized the results
as showing that Americans are "one scandal away from washing their
hands" of the U.N. and that the issue could tip a future presidential
election. More here
And the UN still can't define terrorism. Pathetic.
Despite traitor Chaffee Senator Coleman is confident that Amabassador Bolton will be confirmed before the end of the year.
Congress must use our financial leverage in the UN to reform the UN. Must.
The
world has changed a great deal from the time of the United Nations
birth in 1945, and so has the United Nations. Sixty years ago
democracies, both nascent and well established, comprised the majority
of the founding nations of the UN. The members of the General Assembly
were strategically aligned primarily along what would become the lines
of the Cold War. America was confident that the UN would be an
organization which would work in tandem with American national
interests in promoting the welfare of humankind and the basic rights of
every human spirit.
We could not have been more
wrong. Because with 20 years, global politics and the UN has been
wildly altered. By the mid 60s, UN membership had more than doubled and
the majority of members were not democratic. Thugs calling the shots.
This post is a work in progress. I will be posting all of the audio on these speeches.
UPDATE: Here's the audio. Listen to them all, at your leisure of
course. Forgive me, Krauss audio did not make it. And he rcoked.
The U.N.'s top human rights body for six decades, the Commission on Human
Rights, was charged with identifying and responding to human rights abuse.
During that time, 30% of all its resolutions condemning a specific state for
human rights violations were directed at Israel, while not one resolution was
adopted condemning states like China, Syria, or Zimbabwe. In recent years, Libya
served as Chair. In the name of enhanced credibility, the Commission was
replaced this past spring by a Human Rights Council. Its members include Cuba,
China, and Saudi Arabia. Since June, the Council has adopted three resolutions
and held two special sessions critical of human rights violations in specific
states. Now 100% of them are on Israel. In the meantime, thousands die in
killing fields and deserts and torture chambers around the world. What does this
U.N. game plan do for winning the war? It defines the enemy as the Jew.
Question and Answer VLOG with Walid Phares, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, And Michael Krauss
UPDATE: The most remarkable, important statement to come out of that gathering is Bernard Lewis' closing statement on the current worldwide conflict;
The idea that democracy is totally alien and impossible for them [Arab nations] is demonstrably absurd in historical terms. Now it's not easy. It's a long, it's a slow, it's a difficult process. But it's one we must make. I will sum up what I have to say in one sentence; EITHER WE FREE THEM OR THEY WILL DESTROY US.
"Hitler would have won under these conditions," Mr. Lewis said, citing
America's inability to clearly define the war on terror and exactly who its
enemy is. The professor, whose vision of the future of the Middle East and
knowledge of Islam has guided President Bush's foreign policy, also cited as
challenges the multilateralism that hamstrings America's ability to fight the
war and the strong political opposition to policies designed to defeat the
enemy, such as detaining terrorists without trial.
During the darkest days of the fight against Nazism, Mr. Lewis said, he "had
no doubt that in the end we would triumph." He does not "have that certitude
now," he said.
Mr. Lewis told the center-right think tank's conference on the United Nations
that he agrees with a former communist dissident and current Israeli
parliamentarian, Natan Sharansky, that the only real solution to defeating
radical Islam is to bring freedom to the Middle East. Either "we free them or
they destroy us," Mr. Lewis said.
The contention, especially popular in diplomatic circles, that Arabs aren't
suited to democracy and that the West's best hope lies with friendly tyrants
shows an ignorance of the Arabs' past and contempt for their present and future,
and is "demonstrably absurd in historical terms," Mr. Lewis said.
Mr. Lewis said a great deal of material exists — from Arabs, from Persians,
and from Turks — that can form the basis for democracies in the region. He
quoted from a 1786 letter to the king's court in France from the French
ambassador to Istanbul explaining why the Ottoman Empire was slow in making
decisions. The ambassador reported that unlike in France, where the king made a
decision and that was it, "here the sultan has to consult" and so it "takes time
to get things done."
Mr. Lewis said he places no hope in the United Nations being part of the
solution. He "first realized the U.N. was hopeless" after the partition of
Palestine, he said. Palestine was a "triviality" compared to the partition of
India that took place a year earlier, in 1947, he added. Millions of refugees
were created and yet India and Pakistan formed a working relationship and sorted
out the problems.
The key difference, Mr. Lewis said, was that "in the partition of India, the
U.N. was not involved. "The United Nations failed to act after the Arab states
invaded Palestine, and then treated Jewish and Arab refugees differently,
leaving problems that remain today, he said.
UPDATE: Cinnamon Stillwell gives a great recap here as does Judith here.
Soros is all over the UN. Mark Malloch Brown, the Deputy Secretary General,
lives in a house Soros rents to him at below market rates. In violation of UN staff regulations.
In my expose of Soros intentions to overthrow the American constitutional government piece here, I indicated how Soros pays off, buys off the UN, the Democratic party et al. In the continuing UN scandal, the inquiry into Housing Subsidies Contrary to UN Charter Goes Ignored for 8 Weeks, as Head UN Peacekeeper Does Not Respond here.
Despite numerous attempts to get to the truth, the UN continues to stonewall on this scandal. Not only stonewall, but nefariously orchestrate treacheries behind the scenes. Can't you see Soros behind this Bolton smear campaign. On the August 29 noon briefing, Inner City Press again asked Kofi Annan's spokesman about housing subsidies:
Inner City Press Question: Yesterday, you promised an answer right
after the briefing on the staff rules and housing subsidies.
Spokesman: I do have an answer, which is, first of all, we are in
the process of replying to Ambassador Bolton's letter. The rules
pertaining to rental subsidies and deductions are regulated through
administrative instructions issued by the Secretary-General, which we
can give you copies of since they are public documents.
In the process? In the process for months to answer a simple question?
Wednesday Kofi Annan's spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Inner City Press that
the UN "in the last three years partly as a result of Oil-for Food and [the]
Volcker [Committee], is really trying to bring itself up to standards it was
never made to meet by the public or by the member states. I think we've done a
tremendous amount in that regard. The issue of public disclosure is more
tricky."
What's tricky about public disclosure? Unless of course you have something to hide.
What of this apparent conflict of interest? Asked Wednesday afternoon, Mr.
Dujarric said among other things, "You have to have an honor system."
There is no honor among these theives. Honor system, at the UN?
Inner City Press
At the UN, Incomplete Reforms Allow for Gifts of Free Housing to UN Officials by Member States
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS, August 30 -- When UN officials receive free or cut-rate housing from their countries of nationality, the UN does not consider it a gift or favor, or even remuneration. Wednesday as Inner City Press' inquiry continued, it emerged that the issue is far from abstract. In response to follow-up questions, Kofi Annan's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, "I'm not saying there are not people that do get some benefits and have declared them, because there are, and that's being looked at." When asked if the list of recipient will be made public, Mr. Dujarric said, "These are issues that are being discussed... we may very well move to some form of public disclosure."
At the spokesman's noon media briefing on Wednesday, Inner City Press asked about whether such housing subsidy violate UN Staff Regulation 1.2(j), which states plainly that "No staff member may accept any honour, decoration, favour, gift, or remuneration from any Government." As transcribed, Inner City Press requested that the spokesman "at tomorrow's briefing publicly say if those subsidies are illegal under the rules or not." Mr. Dujarric responded, "They need to be declared and then they are deducted from the allowances received. But I will take a look at the staff rules in details and try to square that circle."
UN insiders interviewed by Inner City Press have called member-states' provision of free or cut-rate housing to their national who serve as UN officials both an open secret and a scandal. While in most legal systems a judge would not be allowed to rule in a case in which he or she was receiving free housing from one of the litigants, at the UN as disclosed Wednesday senior officials in such departments as peacekeeping and political affairs can make decisions impacting their countries while at the same time receiving free housing from their countries.
What of this apparent conflict of interest? Asked Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Dujarric said among other things, "You have to have an honor system." He used as an example that the head of the UN Department of Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari, formerly foreign minister of Nigeria, might recuse himself from sensitive matters concerning Nigeria -- but not because of any housing subsidy. Mr. Dujarric added that he was neither saying nor not saying if Mr. Gambari receives any housing subsidy. (UN insiders note that the housing subsidy question should be addressed by Mr. Gambari's predecessor at DPA.) Mr. Dujarric also pointed denied that any housing subsidies were provided to Jean-Marie Guehenno or Louise Frechette. The Canadian mission's press officer Michael Kovrig, in response to a follow-up question from Inner City Press, I can now confirm that Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada did not provide any housing subsidy to Deputy Secretary-General Frechette."
In today's NY sun, President Ahmadinejad of Iran said it is “unlikely” the U.N. Security Council will take action over his country’s nuclear program.
Iran has so far rejected a Security Council request that it suspend uranium enrichment by August 31. Mr. Ahmadinejad did not mention this deadline in remarks to reporters yesterday.
