U.N. can't take the lead in Iraq's reconstruction

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 3/28/03 | RALPH PETERS

[optimistically_conservative]

I've been reading his articles for a while, and am very impressed with him - since he agrees with me so often, of course.

[x1stcav]

Let's see, we're going to put the most corrupt NGO, the UN, in charge of programs in which we're very concerned about corruption. This whole article seemed to straddle both sides oif the issue.

How did we handle it in post war Europe? Did the occupying powers administer, aid, etc. or did we get the UN involved?

[F.J. Mitchell]

I agree too, he wrote what I would have written if I had the expertise- but then, I am a mere retired military Non-comissioned officer , and author of little more than a few poems and many letters to the editor, all for free of course. It is a pleasure to once again salute a genuine superior officer, fully deserving of respect- by my own free will and not by rule of law.

[angkor]

U.N. participation must be limited to tasks that are subject to rigorous observation and that offer limited opportunities for graft.

He's saying that if the U.N. is involved, it must be watched carefully, just like the maid you suspect of petty theft.

If left to the U.N., Iraq reconstruction and NGO arrangements will become a veritable hog wallow for those who know how to play the game.

[Publius6961]

Let's see, we're going to put the most corrupt NGO, the UN, in charge of programs in which we're very concerned about corruption.

I do see a certain perverse logic here...

[x1stcav]

Then I've got to reread this more carefully. If Peters is aguing that inspite of the limitations of the UN that we go ahead and let them handle it afterall, and if the UN needs to be watched so carefully, then who will do the watching? Us?

If that's the case, why don't we just administer the reconstruction in the first place?

[Carry_Okie]

Corruption is the cancer that kills all else. It polarizes and balkanizes societies. It fosters mistrust and destroys incentive. The danger posed to Iraq's recovery by rampant corruption is the great reason our government must not hand over Iraq's future to the United Nations.

I agree completely. It's why Bush's gift to Tony Blair (a socialist) of reinstituting oil-for-food was so very foolish. Instead of freeing the US from the burden of managing post-war Iraq, it virtually guarantees that we will be blamed for the mess that the UN will make of it.

[LaineyDee]

This reminds me of the story "The Little Red Hen". Nobody wants to help weed the field, plant, water or spend the time it takes to harvest..... then prepare the meal.......but ALL expect to sit down at the table and partake of the feast. The U.N. needs to take a hike.

[Pushi]

Wish I had said that.

[optimistically_conservative]

I think what is being argued for here it that we (US/UK/allies) are the administrators of post-war Iraq. Nothing/no one operates in Iraq without our oversight. The UN can bring in food, medicine, etc., as well as other NGOs, but under our auspices and our rules.

I am also for ending the UN oil-for-food program and turning it over to an Iraqi administration under our oversight. If humanitarian efforts are successful initially, Iraq should be using this money for infrastructure and economic rebuilding while we take care of the basics (ala Marshall Plan).

I also agree with the Little Red Han analogy - think I saw this posted here before....

Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some grains of wheat. She called her neighbors and said, "If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?"

"Not I," said the cow.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Not I," said the pig.

"Not I, said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen. And she did. The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain. "Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Out of my classification," said the pig.

"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.

"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen, and she did.

At last it came time to bake the bread. "Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.

"That would be too much work," said the cow.

"I'd lose my welfare benefits" said the duck.

"I'm a public school graduate and never learned to read," said the pig.

"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for her neighbors to see.

They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, 'No, I can eat the five loaves by myself."

"Selfish!" cried the cow.

"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck.

"I demand equal rights! Or, I'll Call The ACLU" yelled the goose.

We'll sue, yelled the pig, a biased judge without the proper constitutional oath will see our way. And they painted "unfair" and "selfish" on their picket signs and marched round and round the little red hen shouting obscenities.

When the cops with the government facilitator came, they said to the little red hen, "You must do consensus. Volunteer to give 50% or go to jail. I earned that bread, this is wrong said the little red hen.

Doesn't matter, said the agent, the law is the law. In today's modern world there is no such thing as right or wrong, everything is relevant. Government must collect taxes, there is hunger out there. We're compassioned and must provide soup kitchens and welfare for the needy.

And they lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who keeps working and baking bread. Next time, the agent come for 60% of her bread. The increase was necessary said the agent, there is more hunger.

[supercat]

I agree completely. It's why Bush's gift to Tony Blair (a socialist) of reinstituting oil-for-food was so very foolish.

I'd think so, except that the Iraqis won't let the program be resumed. Perhaps Bush is being crazy like a fox.

[Carry_Okie]

I hope so. The corruption of the UN isn't just small-time crap like bribery and inside deals, it is an institution structurally predisposed to organized crime at all levels (at which I would regard the venality of M. Chriac to be that of a mid-level hood). In fact, it is my opinion that the UN was intended to bring us the kind of institutional corruption that would destroy free markets worldwide, and a free America with them, instituting a democratic socialist synthesis of fascism and communism, world-wide.

The big-time corruption is breath-taking in scope (like Carter citing a Ford Foundation-sponsored GreenPIECE study to kill the nuclear industry and maintain our dependency upon imported oil to benefit his principal sponsor: David Rockefeller). I like to call such machinations, "Highly Organized Crime." Tax-exempt "charitable" foundations have instituted a system of for-profit racketeering using environmental NGOs to sue on behalf of regulatory agencies in federal court. These suits cite laws pursuant to treaties drafted, administered, and maintained at the UN. It is truly an integrated system of organized regulatory corruption at all levels of domestic government.

I wrote a book on the topic; more important, the book contains a free-market antidote.

[LaineyDee]

I like your version better. I'd never seen it posted here before, but it sure fits the way our world works right now.

[Bob J]

Corruption aside, the F4O program is still the best mechanism in place to get someone other that the US paying for the humanitarian aid...until the war ends. Once we mop up Hussein and the Baathe party, it's All America all the time.

[Carry_Okie]

Corruption aside, the F4O program is still the best mechanism in place to get someone other that the US paying for the humanitarian aid...until the war ends. Once we mop up Hussein and the Baathe party, it's All America all the time.

I hate to disabuse you (again), but despite the President's request, the UN is already operating at variance to Mr. Bush's expectations: The OFF program isn't scheduled to begin operating again until hostilities are over. OFF was used to buy weapons and line the pockets of bureaucrats and the Iraqi elite. That's what will happen again unless this is stopped. The UN will do everything it can to make certain the money is distributed "fairly." The French, with all their inside ties to the officials who used to run the programme, will be right there.

Read the whole article.

[Bob J]

Let the UN play their petty machination games. I believe Bush has a plan that will insure minimal actual UN powerafter the war. Bush may allow some face saving virtual authority by the UN, just to keep the petty dictators from having to go home looking like dolts.

[Carry_Okie]

Let the UN play their petty machination games. I believe Bush has a plan that will insure minimal actual UN powerafter the war. Bush may allow some face saving virtual authority by the UN, just to keep the petty dictators from having to go home looking like dolts.

So far, all you have offered me is handwaving, unsupported by facts. Unfortunately for your argument, Chirac, Putin, Shroeder, and the Chinese are hardly "petty dictators" and they did very well off OFF as you well know selling the very weapons systems that now threaten American lives. It was they who pressured Blair and it looks to me as if they got what they wanted. We pay for the war, we fight it, they get to throw rocks at us the entire time, and STILL get in on the spoils through OFF. They "gave in" and signed onto 1441 and then turned their backs while we got stuck once again in UNESCO and paying its back "dues." As long as the UN and their friends in the IMF have their filthy hands on the cash, I don't think they care what the President thinks. History bears me out.

Those UN "petty machinations" and their failings are precisely why Korea is still a mess, Vietnam was lost, Iraq was sold enriched uranium (for the reactor), South Afrcia has turned into a hell hole, Cyprus is still divided, Pakistan got its bomb... See a pattern? None of those perils are what a rational person would call Lilliputian. Hell if OFF had worked as advertised, we wouldn't be in this war either!

I don't look forward to a future where this nation is bankrupted and dragged into chaos patching all the disasters those "petty machinations" induce. Further, they significantly inhibit our ability to afford managing them. The UN Agenda21 (now called Sustainable Development or Smart Growth) is still being popagating nationwide, causing housing shortages, urban congestion, and high prices for goods everywhere it's been instituted. If you think it's going to go away under Bush, consider that the first state to sign onto it was Florida under Lawton Chiles. Under Jeb Bush, it's still there and gaining steam. I have yet to see a single community sucessfully unshackle itself from that bureaucratic tyranny of those "petty machinations."

The landgrabs haven't stopped and the bogus ESA listings with their ecologically destructive critical habitat designations continue unabated. If those like you continue to turn a blind eye to such things, this nation will depend upon the likes of Mexico and Argentina for food and the only big winner will be Lloyd Bensten, George Soros, Tyson Foods, and their Slave Party cronies who are heavily invested in that foreign food production.

Sorry, but your stance appears to me to be blind Party loyalty, however commendible. Those "petty machinations" are so ubiquitous, and collectively so damaging, that conservatives had best hold the President's feet to the fire for every concession he makes to socialist connivances.

[PuNcH]

If we turn this over to the UN the war will become pointless.

[Bob J]

I agree with everything you state. All I'll I've said is that Bush is not going to withdraw from and declare the UN dead after the current engagement. The fact that it needs to be done is not the question, to believe it will happen soon is folly.

Like welfare, I do not think the UN will ever go completely away. Even if the US withdraws and takes it's contribution with it, it will continue to operate, gelded of course, on it's leftover 60%. It allows pathetic socialists like france and germany to believe they are still a world power as they command an audience of other pathetic socialists and affords every tinhorn dictator a soapbox so they can go home and convince their ruling elites that they are relevent. Symbolism over substance has always been highly valued by the incompetent.

It may be more practical to gradually clip the UN's wings until it really is nothing more than a guilded debating society, passing their meaningless resolutions, then sending them home fat and happy and stupid as the US and Great Britian control the important events in the world.

[Carry_Okie]

It may be more practical to gradually clip the UN's wings until it really is nothing more than a guilded debating society, passing their meaningless resolutions, then sending them home fat and happy and stupid as the US and Great Britian control the important events in the world.

The quickest and most certain way to do that is for the United States Supreme Court to review existing treaties for their claims to control the use of private property. There are many treaties with scope and authority that go far beyond the limited powers the people granted to the United States in the Constitution. With that change, many regulatory powers enjoyed by Federal agencies would vanish as their authorizing statutes would lack the authority they currently cite.