I sat raise the rent to what that NYC prime real estate is really worth...when they can't pay - bulldoze the place and put the new stadium there!
win Autographed Copy of Hugh Hewitt's Best Seller
The UN is the most corrupt organization in the world. Its HQ should be in Havana, Paris, Berlin or Pyongyang, but not in New York.
I beg to differ. It is in the money area that they are most UNtrustworthy and corrupt! You want to see the worst features of every third-world country in action? Just give the UN a big chunk of change and watch it head for Switzerland.
The UN is totally ill equipped to handle anything much less a Disaster. The UN doesnt even know the capabilities of the equipment needed to handle the emergency. They have no ships , planes ,helicopters, troops , yet they want to rush in and take charge? . The UN cant even get their building renovated , they are hardly ready for the Big time.
I can't argue with that.
Giving the UN control of the disaster relief would be like giving the city of Boston billions of tax dollars so they could build another tunnel.
Good
UN=lying, thieving weasels. Koffi and company should be kicked out asap. How much more proof do we need of corruption and graft? When all is said and done, the UN will blame the US every which way but up, and if you think Islamofascists and other enemies don't pay attention, think again. When the US fails to slap down the likes of Koffi and Egeland, we're seen as weak and invite not only verbal, but physical attack.
And it ain't coming from the U.N. The Associated Press reports on the arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the cost of Aceh, Indonesia:
From dawn until sunset on New Year's Day, 12 Seahawk helicopters shuttled supplies and advance teams from offshore naval vessels while reconnaissance aircraft brought back stark images of wave-wrecked coastal landscapes and their hungry, traumatized inhabitants. The helicopters took off from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, staged in calm waters about three miles off the Indonesian province of Aceh along with four other vessels to launch the sprawling U.S. military operation.
More than a dozen other ships were en route to southern Asian waters, with the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault vessel carrying Marines, headed for Sri Lanka, which along with Indonesia was the worst-hit area. The mission involves thousands of sailors and Marines, along with some 1,000 land-based troops.
Thailand's Vietnam War-era air base of Utapao has become the airlift hub for the region. C-130 transport planes were already conducting sorties to Jakarta and the Sumatran cities of Medan and Banda Aceh, according to a statement Saturday by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.
U.S. Navy medical staff are also on the ground in Meulaboh, a decimated fishing village where several thousand bodies have been recovered. The Navy is considering a request from Jakarta to establish a field hospital there.
The Lincoln's operations officer, Cmdr. Matthew J. Faletti, said the New Year's Day effort off Sumatra was focused on ferrying emergency relief, including biscuits, energy drinks and instant noodles, to communities along the 120-mile stretch of seacoast south of the city of Banda Aceh.
U.S. military medical and damage assessment teams were also landed with helicopters flying in heavy winds, rain and low clouds. Supplies had to be dropped from craft hovering over some water-logged areas where landing proved impossible.
Officers said information was being gathered on how best American resources could be used including the skills of machinists, masons, carpenters, divers and general laborers among the more than 6,000 crew members on the giant carrier.
"Everyone is champing at the bit to go out and help," said Vorce. "Today wasn't about a paycheck."
Memo to those who criticized President Bush for being too slow to "respond" to the humanitarian crisis by giving a press conference: a press conference is not a "response;" what the USS Abraham Lincoln and the Bonhomme Richard were ordered to do--that's a response.
I cannot quibble with the content of Frum's opinion, but I do wonder how he came to be the "Voice of Republicans" on this issue. Valid though his view may be, he does not speak for the RNC or the Bush administration.
The Toyota Taliban
by Joe Katzman at January 2, 2005 05:12 AM
I've often seen the term "Toyota Taliban" used to refer to non-governmental 'aid' agencies and U.N. bureaucrats. I've even used it myself on occasion. What does it mean, and where does it come from? Here's an excerpt from U.N. Insider's June 04 summary:
In a letter from Kabul, British satirical biweekly Private Eye reported on the private life of international community members in the Afghan capital. It claims that only 16% of the $4.5 billion pledged at the Tokyo conference goes to the government; the rest in the hands of NGO; a term used to refer to "the well heeled" international staff of the U.N. and aid organizations who reportedly spend time shopping for wide screen tvs and laptops at a new Sony Centre. "Most other shopkeepers only ever glimpse them as they are driven past in one of the $75,000 Toyota Landcruisers most of them owned by the U.N. -- known here as the Toyota Taliban," the letter says, adding that the cruisers ferried them from office to restaurant to guest house. It continues: "There's a swimming pool at a central U.N. compound and regular parties and barbecues. Memories of a party held by the DHL courier group last November, when an opium pipe was passed around by U.N. staff, are still fresh. If boredom strikes, aid workers might also sign up for Tai Chi and Argentinean tango lessons."
Additional on-the-scene reports from Instapundit's Afghanistan correspondent Professor John Robert Kelly of Boston University, Congressional Chief of Staff Joseph Eule, and a Roger L. Simon commenter with 18 years experience in Afghanistan add further depth to the picture, in both positive and negative ways. This excerpt from John's comment is especially instructive:
"My experience with the UN over the past 18 years is in Afghanistan. Here's what I've seen since 9/11...sorry for the garritous length.
....An enormous and highly profitable international aid apparatus has assembled in Kabul and has largely ignored the input of the Afghan people or their largely American liberators; the latter stand by in disbelief as taxpayers contributions to Afghanistan disappear into outfitting the extravagant needs of European aid community. The UN pays $400 a day (more than a year’s pay for an average Afghan ) plus a generous per diem. This enormous aid infestation has fostered rightful resentment. The UN and associated NGOs ran through years of aid funding in a matter of months. Now when money cannot be found for reconstruction, the UN issues reports criticizing the parsimonious Americans. Meanwhile, the UN and NGOs live like pashas. Hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for Afghans have been transformed into fleets of top-of the-line Toyota Landcruisers, villas and estates to house their workers complete with swimming pools, an endless supply of underpaid servants, luxurious furnishings (accented with looted antiquities,) the latest laptops, video equipment, cases of Johnny Walker Blue and the bling bling ...perks that might even seem excessive to Ken Lay are justifiable expenses charged off to the US. No accountability, no oversight. They don’t bother cooking the books, they don’t even keep the books!
Afghan citizens fear that vocal objections to this patronizing treatment will result in economic reprisals by the UN...."
Amazingly, the story gets worse as one continues. To say that John is upset about all this is a massive understatement.
Perhaps this should not be surprising with respect to the U.N., whose makeup and structure nearly guarantees this sort of behaviour. What is clear, however, is that non-governmental NGO "do-gooders" and international bodies deserve closer scrutiny than they usually receive, and require rigorous accountability mechanisms that include the threat of public exposure.