The Heartfelt United Nations relief effort -- Part Two

From The Diplomad comes this story of the United Nations, in two of their publications on their own website, taking credit for things they had little or nothing to do with. First, a bit about credibility -- from their own website: bq. About Me Name:Diplomad A Blog by career US Foreign Service officers. They are Republican (most of the time) in an institution (State Department) in which being a Republican can be bad for your career -- even with a Republican President! Join the State Department Republican Underground. FSOs (and others) Send us your suggested posts to diplomad-at-hotmail-dot-com OK -- it is a group blog and from one paragraph in this post, at least one of them is over in that area right now and seeing what is going on with their own eyes. On to the post: bq. More UNhonesty We warned you; some of you didn't believe us. We told you that on or about January 26, UN Undersecretary General and Disaster Relief Coordinator Jan "Stingy" Egeland would hold a press event to boast of what the UN has done on tsunami relief over the past month since the December 26 disaster. He did. bq. You can find the two documents thus far put out by the UN here and here. The Diplomad wants to underline that these documents appear on the UN's official web site; they are what the UN wants you to know; they comprise the official UN party line; they are not interpretations by journalists or bloggers. They start off by quoting from one of the UN Reports and have the following things to say (I am excerpting heavily -- visit the website if you want the item-by-item fact-checking): bq. So, "20 foreign militaries lent" their assets, eh? Lent? To whom? Not to the UN, that's for sure. For at least three of the past four weeks, the UN had nothing to do with the operations of the "20 foreign militaries." The UN certainly was not directing the Aussies, who were the first ones in; they blazed the path for the rest and thousands of people owe them their lives. They weren't running the assets of the Kiwis or the Singaporeans, either, and they sure weren't running ours. Up until just a few days ago, those "20" foreign militaries were Aussies, Singaporeans, Kiwis (who've gotten little credit for the fine work they've done), and Yanks with a modest but appreciated assist as of about 10-12 days ago of the Spanish and the Pakistani militaries. The coordinating was being done by the Australians, the USA and the Indonesian military. Up until just about four or five days ago, except for the disaster tourists such as Annan and Bellamy, the UN WAS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN -- except quite overwhelmingly in Jakarta's luxury hotels, a few UNocrats in Medan, and a tiny handful at the airport in Aceh writing up press releases claiming all the credit for the UN and bad-mouthing the hard-working Aussies and Americans. Emphasis mine, caps theirs. The diplomad then quotes from the other article on the United Nation website, does some severe fact-checking on that one too and closes with this paragraph: bq. The Diplomad finds absolutely stunning the language about the response being "remarkably, perhaps singularly, effective, swift and muscular" and that it "had succeeded in just one month. Normally, such a phase took three or more months . . ." Why was it so quick and effective? Thanks to President Bush who quickly threw together a "core group" of nations that responded right away, without waiting for the UN. Precisely the group that Clare Short and her ilk so criticized for undermining the UN. The United Nations does not work and it needs to be dismantled because it is sucking support and resources from the NGOs that are doing good work. Koffi and his corrupt cronies are offering zero benefit to this planet.