From the New York Post | editorial of the same name:
Kofi Annan would like the big news from the United Nations this week to be his new "reform" package. [/] He can forget it.Yes, it has all the bells and whistles one should expect — a new Human Rights Council, proposals for expanding the Security Council and lots of flowery language about "freedom." [/] Who knows? Perhaps some of the suggestions should be taken seriously.
Yet that shouldn't — indeed, can't — happen until Annan acknowledges, and deals with, the elephant in his living-room: the Oil-for-Food scandal. [/] For that matter, the more recent scandals involving sexual abuse and harassment by various U.N. personnel also demand immediate resolution. [ … ]
This week, however, two significant developments continued to undermine Annan's credibility. [/] First, the Financial Times revealed that his son, Kojo Annan, received $300,000 in payments — nearly double what had previously been reported — from Cotecna, a Swiss firm at the heart of the Oil-for-Food mess. [ … /] Second — and far more outrageous in many ways — is the news that, despite its previous denials, the U.N. has been paying the legal fees of disgraced Oil-for-Food overseer Benon Sevan.
Outrageously, those fees are coming from the escrow accounts of the self-same Oil-for-Food program. [/] Does that sound somewhat close to an accused embezzler being allowed to pay his lawyers by dipping into the accounts of the very institutions that he's ripped off?
But again, the question has to be raised: How is it possible that United Nations manages to financially support the legal defense of its disgraced employee — yet the secretary-general himself knows nothing? [/] It defies credibility.
In short, Kofi Annan & Co. can publish a report that might garner universal acclaim — unlikely as it might be — and it would still mean nothing. [/] The organization has zero moral authority left. [ … ]
Bad news for those whose Hope for Man is in the United Nations.
