Posted on 01/01/2005 3:36:16 PM PST by quidnunc
President Bush has announced that an alliance of the US, India, Australia and Japan will co-ordinate a humanitarian drive.
But Ms Short said the effect of the parallel coalition would be to undermine the UN.
She said only the UN had the "moral authority" to lead the relief work.
Ms Short resigned as international development secretary over the Iraq war.
"I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to co-ordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up," she said.
"Only really the UN can do that job," she told BBC Radio Four's PM programme.
"It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers."
Ms Short said the countries involved could not boast good records on their response to major disasters.
The US was "very bad at coordinating with anyone" and India had its own problems, Ms Short said.
"I don't know what that is about but it sounds very much, I am afraid, like the US trying to have a separate operation and not work with the rest of the world through the UN system," she added.
Well, we're heading into Day 7 of the Asian quake/tsunami crisis. And the UN relief effort? Nowhere to be seen except at some meetings and on CNN and BBC as talking heads. In this corner of the Far Abroad, it's Yanks and Aussies doing the hard, sweaty work of saving lives.
Check out this interview (on the UN's official website) with SecGen Annan and Under SecGen Egeland shows,
Mr. Egeland: Our main problems now are in northern Sumatra and Aceh. <...> In Aceh, today 50 trucks of relief supplies are arriving. <...> Tomorrow, we will have eight full airplanes arriving. I discussed today with Washington whether we can draw on some assets on their side, after consultations with the Indonesian Government, to set up what we call an “air-freight handling centre” in Aceh.
Tomorrow, we will have to set up a camp for relief workers — 90 of them — which is fully self-contained, with kitchen, food, lodging, everything, because they have nowhere to stay and we don't want them to be an additional burden on the people there.
I provided this to some USAID colleagues working in Indonesia and their heads nearly exploded. The first paragraph is quite simply a lie. The UN is taking credit for things that hard-working, street savvy USAID folks have done. It was USAID working with their amazing network of local contacts who scrounged up trucks, drivers, and fuel; organized the convoy and sent it off to deliver critical supplies. A UN “air-freight handling centre” in Aceh? Bull! It's the Aussies and the Yanks who are running the air ops into Aceh. We have people working and sleeping on the tarmac in Aceh, surrounded by bugs, mud, stench and death, who every day bring in the US and Aussie C-130s and the US choppers; unload, load, send them off. We have no fancy aid workers' retreat -- notice the priorities of the UN? People are dying and what's the first thing the UN wants to do? Set up "a camp for relief workers" one that would be "fully self-contained, with kitchen, food, lodging, everything."
The UN is a sham.
(Diplomad in The Diplomad, January 1, 2005)
To Read This Article Click Here
Sorry we don't trust the UN to handle our funds....is that the message we are sending to the world? It is an appropriate no confidence vote.
Meanwhile, Kofi spent three days after the tsunamis on vacation at tony Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
I just posted that Diplomad blog on another thread..I am burning...
They always want to "lead" when US is DOING something. UN is nowhere when something has to be done. By the time they get "organized" it is usually too late.
STFU
This president continues to pull down the pants of the U.N. - repeatedly exposing it's puny little self for the world to see.
Michael Totten is nonplussed.What a bizarre assertion. If the UN didn’t exist, what on earth would we do? Would south Asia drown in wreckage and mud while we tried to create a UN from scratch before we could send in some aid? ... The US, Japan, India, and Australia don’t have the moral authority for crisis relief? Who bestows this moral authority? Clare Short? Who gave her the authority to do that?
Leaving the issues of moral authority aside, the operational question is whether the world is better and more efficiently served by the UN organizational model. The real thought experiment that proponents of UN legitimacy must pass is whether they would entrust Paris, not just Kigali to the bureaucrats on the East River. Clare Short is probably perfectly happy to entrust Rwandan lives to the United Nations; whether she would entrust her own to it is another question.
Clare apparently isn't aware that Kofi was out of pocket. He was on vacation, skiing, the first 3 days of the disaster. And on his return, he plans to have meetings during this coming week.
Well, Clare, the US Military and other organizations couldn't wait for Kofi. The people needed help and assistance immediately.
But, Clare, we're sure you can find plenty of other things to whine about.
We had an oil-for-food-for-graft scandal, does she now want a contributions-for-food and bottled water-for-graft scandal to go with it?
Just when you think the fools of the world can't get any more asinine, they top themselves.
They seem to only criticize the United States (under Bush). They'll dig and dig and find something wrong with everything he does or says.
This bloated and corrupt institution has as much moral authority as a petty thief. The only question is whether they are active criminals or merely flaccid enablers of active criminals. I vote both.
Must be running short on Food for Oil scam money and need a bit more to spread around! SCREW the UN!
I'd advise Short to not list "food for oil," Sudan and Ruanda as examples of the proper exercise, of that "moral authority."
I'm hearing the UN and EU committee meetings start in about another week, once winter solstice holiday is completed.
"Moral authority" doesn't put food and water into empty bellies when the roads are washed out. Aircraft carriers, gator-freighters, C-130's and helicopters do.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&e=10&u=/ap/20050101/ap_on_re_as/tsunami_us_military
World - AP Asia
Tsunami Survivors Mob U.S. Aid Copters
There's your moral authority..The UN talks..we do..
Maybe if the UN would do its job, there would be more of an incentive for the US to rely on the UN. The truth is that the UN, whose primary function is to facilitate peace, has been more of an impediment to peace in recent years than a facilitator. It failed to engineer peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. It failed to engineer peace in Afghanistan, Iraq, and between Pakistan and India. It failed in Bosnia. It failed in Russia.
Why should the US bet the farm on a failed institution like the UN?
|
|
||||||
| Unheraled Relief Efforts by US Navy, Airforce | ||||||
In Short...shut up!
Of course the UN's will be catered by Elaine's.
The UN response to any "crisis" is to form committees to investigate and propose "resolutions". And none of the ACTION the US and others are taking has been "approved" by UN "resolution". Hence, the actions taken to save and help people will be declared "illegal" by the UN.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.