To Kofi Annan with love,Bart
Posted on 12/04/2004 4:04:03 AM PST by beyond the sea
Plop in the middle of the entangled, entangling, impossible mess of the United Nations, where Kofi Annan ego attempts achingly to overswell diurnal scandals (this morning's -- "Swiss Firm Suspected of Fraud/Paid U.N. Chief's Son $50,000"), enters John C. Danforth. This resolute human being, who only four months ago became U.S ambassador to the United Nations, announced that he was quitting. Why? And why at this time? Because, he said, he wants to be home. He needs to spend more time with his wife, Sally.
"Forty-seven years ago," Mr. Danforth wrote to the president, "I married the girl of my dreams, and, at this point in my life, what is most important to me is to spend more time with her. Because you know Sally, you know my reason for going home."
Well, if we knew Sally like John knows Sally, we'd perhaps simply ignore all other considerations before the house. But we don't, and are therefore driven to pause over other matters that might have entered the mind of John Danforth when he decided to pull out.
Pause, first, for an aerial view of the scene:
The secretary general is pretty universally discredited by a money scandal which some estimate as perhaps the largest in human history. It is a scandal that has so immobilized normal respiratory practices that Paul Volcker himself, the most direct and fearless public official in recent history, is tongue-tied. He appears to be hiding behind remote technicalities in order to serve the U.N., whose secretariat is of course the agent of Kofi Annan, who is the primary defendant in the whole mess.
There are no less than five congressional committees living on the tether's end of patience for failure to get cooperation from the U.N. on a matter of far-reaching concern. Is it possible that some of the $20 billion routed and re-routed from the sale of Iraqi oil, ostensibly collected to buy bread for starving Iraqis, has ended up by financing the insurgents who kill U.S. Marines every day?
But the framework is even wider, as the files on Sen. Danforth quickly reveal. New York Times correspondent Warren Hoge advises that it was actually the day after he wrote his private letter of resignation that Danforth publicly criticized the United Nations "in an unusually brash denunciation of a move in the General Assembly to cut off a motion that would have criticized human rights violations in Sudan, which the United States has called genocide."
Danforth declaimed: "One wonders about the utility of the General Assembly on days like this. One wonders if there can't be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building (in New York City)? What is it all about?"
The question of legitimacy dogs the U.N. For years it has been so, living lopsidedly on the arbitrary allocations of membership in the Security Council done in San Francisco in 1945. But these distortions, and others -- notably the victimization of Israel and the coddling of Castro-Cuba -- diminished in strategic consequence because the Cold War swept away everything in its path, generating among other things the undenied and undeniable legitimacy of U.S. leadership of the free world.
That has changed. Europe's security from Soviet imperialism has led to the delegitimization of the U.S. as inherent and singular leader in policy-making on international problems. That is the reason for Europe's refusal to back our venture in Iraq. It isn't that Germany and France objected to troops in Iraq. They objected to their being dispatched there other than by an organization, the U.N., in which France exercised a veto power.
The survival, in its present shape, of a U.N. pockmarked by the charter of 1945 may not be in question: Nobody's about to rescind the U.N. But its prestige is at rock-bottom low. Its hypocrisy was sensed and indeed articulated by John Danforth, and its bureaucratic self-interest is reinforced by Kofi Annan's refusal to resign. It is a true mess, and whatever our concern for Sally, the world joins in asking, with John Danforth, "What is it all about?"
ping
Why IS he quitting? Can anybody get ahold of Sally and find out?
Let's hope that Danforth's resignation is the first chink in the dam. Maybe that when the rush of water starts it will flush that useless body right into the East River.
John is the only one who can prepare for Sally back in Missouri their favorite recipe, 'BREAD BAKED WITH HONEY AND CREAM'. He knows just how much 'crème fraîche' (a French sour cream) to use for finest flavor.
Seriously though, I think Mr. Buckley hasn't really touched the real reason Mr. Danforth split so quickly. But I'll wait for wiser men than me to answer your question. But the stench at the U.N. is hard to take.
Agreed.
I was thinking when I first read here on FR that he was quitting (it was on a thread where it was explained by posters how horribly Danforth did on 'Fox and Friends' the other morning) that his early resignation is a sign that big ugly things are right down the road for the U.N. and 'oil for food'.
Danforth was a man of (dubious) duty with his Waco "investigation", so I thought he would stick this ambassadorship out. His quitting early sounds alarms to me - alarms for what I don't know. But it smells.
LOL! There are some people here at FR and elsewhere who believe that Danforth is well above that kind of thing. My jury however is out on him ever since he took that regrettable Waco (snow)job.
Give Kofi a break. He has Bill Clinton as an example....
Never surrender, never resign.
Kofi is leader of a rogue nation crafted within the boundries of America. This nation is accountable to no one.
It should be invaded and conquered.
Oh how I hope and wish that Bill/Hillary are involved in this scandal. They are over due for one.
LOL...... yeh, Billy Boy set a great example by 'toughing everything out'...... a lousy example even to the kids today who saw all that bull from him!
To Kofi Annan with love,Bart
Doesn't Kofi look like he could be Eddie Murphy's father?
I believe that when Danforth left the senate some years back he used the same excuse. Thus, can we assume that he thought the Senate a corrupt institution. It wouldn't surprise me.
I believe Danforth believed what he put out about Waco. You can fault him for that since you are convinced it was a crock. Everyone who knows the man seems to think he well-represents the values and morals of the ordained minister that he is, and that his religious faith is deeply felt and genuine. Yet here you are, saying you have yet to be convinced he isn't being bribed by Kofi Annan. Really now.
He probably is.....but then who knows for sure?
Yeah, can SOMEONE explain to me why FRANCE was put on the SC? What the hell were our post-war leaders thinking?? Seriously, France did NOTHING in the war. NOTHING, well, except for surrender. I can see the rationale for the Soviets, Brits, and Americans. But France?? And when was China added? Were they in in '45 or were they added later?
Admittedly wild speculation: If the Clintons have more exposure in this case than their link to Marc Rich, they could be desperate to use whatever agents they have to suppress the investigation.
When he did his Waco cover up, Danforth was working for the Clinton administration. What did the Clintons have to do to get a man with a very good reputation to front the cover up on their atrocity?
We'll probably never know for sure, but we do know that Filegate has worked very well for them. IF, if, if the lever they used on Danforth was blackmail, they could try to use it again. IF Danforth just couldn't stand to be used for evil purposes again, perhaps he might preempt the attempt and avoid the whole situation.
His strange behavior and ruminations about Waco on Fox show a man deeply disturbed by something in that past and perhaps there is some link to the present and future too.
Danforth is an extremely rich man.........many generations.
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