Weak Kofi
Goodbye to a man for his times
The continued existence of the United Nations is
one of the great imponderables of our time. I can think of no
valuable thing that the UN has done since its inception. I’m
not being sarcastic here. I honestly cannot think of anything
that the UN has done that is worthy of note or praise. Not one.
It has not prevented a single war from occurring. It has not brought
existing wars to earlier or more humane conclusions. Its “peacekeeping”
forces are universally acknowledged as a joke, known for cowardice
and incompetence when not busy raping and stealing. Some might
say that its charitable work – say UNESCO – has been
worthwhile. I see the UN’s charitable efforts as being very
much like those big “We Are The World” rock-star efforts.
They have glitz and glam and warm fuzzy-wuzzies, but in the end
the relief supplies end up piling up on a dock somewhere in Africa
while folks continue to starve in the interior. Expecting the
UN to deliver effective charity run contrary to everything we
know about how good charity works. Think Mother Theresa rather
than UNICEF.
The only thing more puzzling to me than the fact that this corrupt
collection of cacophonous cranks is still around is that it is
so fervently supported by the elites of the West. Actually, I
lie for rhetorical purposes. I do know why they support it. Our
elites don’t so much mind corruption. What really bugs them
is democracy, the idea that a bunch of WalMart-shopping, church-going,
NASCAR-watching hoi polloi can actually drive U.S. policy. And
since we are the hyperpower, that means we will spend much of
out time telling the world how to behave.
So Western elites tend to gravitate towards and support those
institutions that serve to take power away from the actual people,
and give it to folks like themselves. That way they can keep us
regular folks from messing up the world too badly. Thus their
fondness for the judiciary, the media, non-profit institutions,
and especially the UN. For the UN is the very antithesis of American
democracy. It has become a place where the world’s thugs
and goons get together in order to make sure no good thing happens,
especially anything that the U.S. would like to have happen.
For the past several years, Mr. Kofi Annan of Ghana has stood
astride this marvel of governance, simultaneously urging it on
and haranguing those who would dare to question its authority.
Instead of making anything resembling actual progress, the UN
has oddly resembled a bird with one broken wing, squawking and
squawking as it vainly jerks around in circles. Mr. Annan possesses
all the qualities one would expect of a former budget officer
for the World Health Organization. He speaks in a gentle and very
wise-sounding voice, gently lecturing his children about the perils
they face and the need to do things to make things better.
But he never actually got anything done. The world faced some
pretty dicey times during his tenure, and the UN failed miserably
at making any of those problems better. Mr. Annan was head of
the UN’s Peacekeeping operations during the Rwandan genocide
of the 1990s. Now it is Darfur that he sadly shakes his head about
while doing nothing. I am not sure who could actually
do anything with these situations. The UN is a worthless institution,
and even a remarkably talented leader would not be able to make
it into something useful. But Mr. Annan makes it so much worse
through his immense arrogance. Even now, on his goodbye tour,
he prattles on endlessly about the most ludicrous sort of left-wing
claptrap, railing about "an unjust world economy, world disorder,
and widespread contempt for human rights and the rule of law.”
Well, duh! The world economy would be much more just if the morons
running the unfree countries of the world would just institute
free market principles. I’m sure that’s what he means,
right? Don’t you love the neutrality of “world disorder,”
as if somehow the world just woke up a little disheveled one morning?
Search far and wide, nowhere will you find a clear statement from
the Secretary-General that radical Islamism and leftwing totalitarianism
are responsible for 95%+ of the “world disorder and widespread
contempt for human rights and the rule of law” that so concerns
him.
No, he would much rather lecture the one nation actively trying
to actually defeat those evils. The U.S., he declares, must return
to a policy of “multilateralism.” It doesn’t
take a whole lot of cynicism to believe that he wants this because
it would serve to enhance to role of the UN while guaranteeing
that nothing actually ever gets done.
Kofi Anan has been a perfect reflection of his organization: weak,
corrupt, arrogant and vain. But because he positions himself above
the United States on the global food chain, and because he takes
us to task for violating the shibboleths of left wing progressivism,
he is beloved by the elites. As he walks out the door of the UN
I wish we could look forward to a world without him. But I suspect
he is going to the Jimmy Carter School of Retired World Leaders.
He’ll keep popping his head up like a Whack-A-Mole, lecturing
us and praising assorted tyrants at the most inopportune times.
I wish we could look forward to better from his successor Ban
ki-Moon. But I doubt it.
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