Posted on 01/06/2005 9:32:39 PM PST by CHARLITE
"U.S. helicopters fly to places which haven't been reached for the whole week and drop food... No talking but action. European countries are until now invisible on the ground."
"U.S. Navy flying aid missions, Bundeswehr still looking things over," said the headline Jan. 3rd in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel (the Mirror). "While advance teams of the Bundeswehr (German army) are still camping in three tents at the Banda Aceh airport, Americans, Australians and New Zealanders have already flown tons of aid packages into disaster areas." At least the Germans were on the scene. On Jan 3rd, Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team was still in Canada.
"In Aceh today 50 trucks of relief supplies are arriving," UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said at a news conference New Year's Day. "Tomorrow, we will have eight full airplanes arriving."
A foreign service officer (and blogger) working on disaster relief told colleagues in the U.S. Agency for International Development what Egeland had said. "Their heads nearly exploded," said the Diplomad, who obtained the Dutch sitrep quoted above.
"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.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Good piece by Kelly. Thanks for the heads-up.
"The UN is taking credit for things that hard-working, street savvy USAID folks have done.
All the more reason the UN should go the way of the League of Nations.
I caught a few moments (all I could take) of UN flack, Jan Egeland's press conference this morning on C-SPAM (sic). The first order of business was to tell the world what administrative wonders and paper shuffling had been accomplished so far just as Kelly's article and what I read earlier in the Diplomad blog confirm perfectly well.
Early last month, Democratic party foreign policy big shots held an "intervention" with Annan in the Manhattan apartment of Richard Holbrooke, who had been UN ambassador during the Clinton administration. They backed Kofi and the UN, but were concerned that the oil for food scandal, and the coverup of sexual harassment by one of Annan's top aides were tarnishing the UN's image.
The advice these worthies gave Annan was, essentially, to put more lipstick on the pig. Better public relations, more meetings with officials in Washington.
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Annan and Holbrooke and their Clintoon Cronies are all Socialist Operatives of the UN. If you caught Holbrooke on B O'Rielly's show, and the Whiny defense that the US needs the UN and the UN needs the US and that we all need Annan, where do these Socialists come from? These people are all for throwing out our Constitution and replacing it whit there Failed Socialism!! O'Rielly recommend that BJ Billy take over the UN, My God what is this world comming to!?
The UN is so utterly worthless. I was part of the relief effort in Rwanda and several times our crew was sent to Dar es Salam, Tanzania to pick up shiny new Nissan Patrol SUVs so the UN bigwigs could drive around in air conditioned comfort. I wonder how many people died because our planes were diverted so UN officials could have their creature comforts. BTW, we used taxis to get back and forth. Nobody wanted to sit up front in what was called the suicide seat. Talk about white knuckle rides!
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