The last several weeks have been incredibly revealing about what the UN is.
Whilst I knew it had become a corrupt organization and that it was just a
huge bureaucracy without any oversight, I was under the (mistaken)
impression that one thing they would excel at would be disaster relief.

After the huge, perhaps the largest corruption scandal in history, we come
to find out that the UN is involved in a huge sex scandal in Africa, with
children and destitute women, the same victims they are supposed to be
helping.

However, when the tsunami struck, I expected the UN to jump into action.  I
also read the early reports in the Mainstream Media (MSM) where that
Scandinavian UN guy was complaining about how stingy the US was.  I also
listened to what the MSM was saying about Bush still being on vacation at
his ranch.  I also saw the early reports where the UN was complaining about
the US, Australia and Japan going it alone.  I thought, "here we go again."

Then I read the Diplomad blog and saw other reports on the web.  They all
said the same thing.  The UN doesn't do anything.  It is totally powerless
to do anything.  It is just a huge, corrupt bloated bureaucracy.

On the other hand, we come to find out the US diverted a carrier group to
the area and that another fleet with the USS Bonhomme Richard was
approaching another stricken area.  The Australians, the Americans were
doing the heavy lifting aided by Japan and other countries.  The countries
and organizations that criticizing the effort were doing.... nothing.

I read the Diplomad very often.  It is illuminating.  This person is right
there, on site and reports what is going on.  I watch the MSM news and they
no longer even mention the UN.  It must be bad.  They have started talking
about the US/Australian led effort, but almost standoffishly.

The anecdotes the Diplomad reports are both amusing and sad at the same
time.  I remember the one about the UN person complaining that the US and
Australian military personnel should be wearing the (UN) blue helmet so as
not to offend the sensibilities of the locals.

I smiled when I read about the lack of sensitivity shown by the Australian
and US military when they do not shut down operations so the UN
"coordinator" can get a daily verbal report of activities.  It must be
difficult to have this meeting near the runway where C-130 are landing and
taking off constantly and the helicopters are coming and going.

I am impressed most of all by the glowing reports from the Diplomad on how
well the Australian and US militaries are working together to save countless
lives.  I urge you to read the blog.

A few days ago, I was shook up. I read the Diplomad's entry about how the
affected nations are not even helping their citizens, how they are shrugging
off the disaster and its victims, leaving them to be cared for by outsiders.
I was also dismayed, but not surprised, to find out the Arab countries were
giving virtually nothing to the victims.  Indonesia is the largest Muslim
country in the world and only the US and Australia are helping them.  I did
read an editorial in a Kuwaiti paper calling for the Kuwaitis to get off
their butts and start doing something. In Kuwait, the hired help is mainly
from the affect countries, and actually outnumbers the Kuwaiti population.
It was also interesting to read that Muslim charities (an oxymoron if there
ever was one) are directed to only care for muslims.  Now, beyond the
stupidity of that directive, how is one supposed to do that?

Finally, my biggest fear now is the money.  The incredible amount of money
being raised for the victims, if given to the UN, will never get to the
victims.  If given to the local governments, it will also never get to the
victims.  I am afraid a lot of this money will be stolen or find its way
into terrorist hands.  This amount of money, without oversight or managed by
the UN (but I repeat myself), will be wasted or worse and there is nothing
that can be done about it.

And let's all remember:  No good deed ever goes unpunished.  These countries
will hate America even more, because we are helping them.

http://www.diplomadic.blogspot.com/



Denys

-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Jay Maynard
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 6:50 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Tsunami and Diego Garcia

On Tue, Jan 11, 2005 at 09:19:14AM +0000, John Dunlop wrote:
> Your anti-UN (and anti-EU) and "US saves the world" bias is wholy
> inappropriate in this context.

Your anti-US bias has been inappropriate in general, but it's especially
inappropriate here.  Before you slam us yet again and hold up the UN as a
shining example of international cooperation, go read the Diplomad's blog,
at http://diplomadic.blogspot.com . He's a US diplomat in the stricken area
(Indonesia, I think, but I can't be sure), an writes about what's really
happening there. It's not flattering to the UN at all.

I note with great astonishment, also, that the UN has taken the unusual step
of hiring an outside accounting firm to audit the flow of aid money and
invesitage any reports of fraud. What astonishes me is that 1) it's unusual
that they'd do that, and 2) they felt compelled to do so now.

Yes, there are lots of folks out there working hard to provide relief, and
not just Americans and Aussies, either. Just don't count the massive UN or
EU bureaucracies among them.

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