U. N. As Moral Arbiter?
posted by Bob Clasen
Andrew Sullivan in Times OnLine
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1481651,00.html
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Comment: Andrew Sullivan: The bubbling UN cauldron under a shaky western lid
The sight of Paul Volcker lumbering amiably towards microphones is not one to set the pulse racing. His most exciting achievement as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board was to grind down American inflation in the 1970s and early 1980s.
When he was picked to head the independent commission into alleged corruption and abuses in the United Nations oil for food programme in Iraq neoconservative hearts sank. Would he bore the institution into submission? Or was he too chummy with the establishment types who love the UN? But Volcker surprised. His report was not a whitewash. It even occasioned the usually placid Kofi Annan into declaring — via a spokesman, of course — that he was “shocked” at the report’s revelations. Key among the conclusions: Benon Sevan, the director of the oil for food programme, received oil contracts from Saddam Hussein worth up to $1m (£536,000).
The programme was rife with corruption, enriching Saddam to the tune of $6.5 billion, while paying off “persons the programme did not recognise as oil purchasers”. Ah, that dry Volcker wit. The entire scheme was “tainted” because the administration of the programme “failed to follow the established rules of the organisation designed to assure fairness and accountability”. Translation: rampant corruption.
There were some juicier details, such as Sevan declaring that the $160,000 deposited in his bank account came from an impoverished aunt in Cyprus who died by falling down a lift shaft before Volcker could have a chat with her. The report was also interim. We will soon know more about allegations against Kofi Annan’s son and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Annan’s predecessor.
There’s no question that proven corruption at the UN will serve only to increase Washington’s suspicion of its activities, even its existence. Congressional committees are even now hard at work. In a Republican party where opposition to the UN is a surefire way to win primary voters in a few years’ time, the grandstanding has only just begun.
At the same time none of this can be genuinely shocking. When a largely unaccountable transnational organisation filters billions of dollars into Third World countries via such countries’ representatives, corruption is inevitable.
Kleptocrats do not good bureaucrats make. And because the UN treats every sovereign country as morally indistinguishable it cannot easily avoid the kleptocrats. Or the tyrants. That’s why the current UN Commission on Human Rights working group is made up of the Netherlands, Hungary, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. No, I’m not making that up. Next up: Robert Mugabe on the gay rights commission; Kim Jong-il to monitor non-proliferation; and Ayatollah Khamenei on women’s rights.
The Iraq case is particularly instructive. In Britain the debate over war hinged a great deal on whether the UN Security Council would give its blessing. The premise was that this would give the invasion some kind of moral legitimacy. In plain English: Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac were the critical arbiters of morality.
But we now also know that the UN solution of sending round after round of weapons inspectors while maintaining sanctions and the oil for food programme was absurd. The inspectors could never prove what they were supposed to prove without Saddam becoming an entirely different kind of leader (and they would not have been sent at all without British and US insistence).
The oil for food programme succeeded in minimising some of the deprivations experienced by the Iraqis, but it was also a critical source of funding for Saddam (and a bribery fund).
More significantly, the majority of Saddam’s income in the 1990s came from illicit oil deals — often with the UN members who were supposed to be enforcing the sanctions. The only word for this is a farce — with kickbacks.
Imagine we had followed the UN line and not gone to war. The corrupt oil for food programme would have continued, while pressure to remove sanctions increased. Saddam would have gradually rebuilt the ability to threaten the region and the world. Hundreds of shady businessmen, lobbyists and bureaucrats would have seen their bank accounts padded with lucrative oil contracts.
The Iraqi people would have continued to live in a fast-collapsing police state, kept barely alive by medicine and food supplies from the UN that were also the means to keep them under Saddam’s thumb. How on earth would this have been anything but a disaster and an injustice? Yes, critics of the war are right to say that we now know the WMD threat was greatly exaggerated. But it is equally true that we now know that the status quo the war critics preferred was inefficient, corrupt and deadly to the Iraqi people.
I’m not one of those who think the UN should be abolished. We need something like it. We need a forum in which the world can sometimes come together and discuss world problems. Where genuine peace exists it can make sense to send UN peacekeepers to police it. When international disaster strikes the UN can be a useful instrument for delivering aid.
But precisely because it has to represent all nations, it cannot represent justice or even any meaningful definition of the word “peace”.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As long as Saudi Arabia is determining what human rights are, it’s a joke.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yes, it can be useful as a mechanism for the great powers to enforce their will in less naked and more consensual a fashion. But without those great powers, it’s useless. Remember Srebrenica? Or Rwanda? If the UN is powerless before genocide and corrupt in the face of dictatorships how can it be relied on to do anything of real significance in the world?
_________________________________________________________
That kind of work is left to the despised leaders of the West — the George Bushes and Tony Blairs and Michael Howards. They are accountable to voters, whereas UN bureaucrats are accountable once in a blue moon to Volcker.
_________________________________________________________
We have learnt a lot since the liberation of Iraq. Western leaders are fallible. They even occasionally preside over serious crimes in pursuit of their policies. But without these western leaders and military powers, the Taliban would still be in power and Saddam would still be skimming off UN dollars. And Annan would be making excuses.
After all the huffing and puffing of the past three years, doesn’t that tell you all you really need to know?
___________________________________________
Andrew Sullivan in Times OnLine
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1481651,00.html
________________________________
Comment: Andrew Sullivan: The bubbling UN cauldron under a shaky western lid
The sight of Paul Volcker lumbering amiably towards microphones is not one to set the pulse racing. His most exciting achievement as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board was to grind down American inflation in the 1970s and early 1980s.
When he was picked to head the independent commission into alleged corruption and abuses in the United Nations oil for food programme in Iraq neoconservative hearts sank. Would he bore the institution into submission? Or was he too chummy with the establishment types who love the UN? But Volcker surprised. His report was not a whitewash. It even occasioned the usually placid Kofi Annan into declaring — via a spokesman, of course — that he was “shocked” at the report’s revelations. Key among the conclusions: Benon Sevan, the director of the oil for food programme, received oil contracts from Saddam Hussein worth up to $1m (£536,000).
The programme was rife with corruption, enriching Saddam to the tune of $6.5 billion, while paying off “persons the programme did not recognise as oil purchasers”. Ah, that dry Volcker wit. The entire scheme was “tainted” because the administration of the programme “failed to follow the established rules of the organisation designed to assure fairness and accountability”. Translation: rampant corruption.
There were some juicier details, such as Sevan declaring that the $160,000 deposited in his bank account came from an impoverished aunt in Cyprus who died by falling down a lift shaft before Volcker could have a chat with her. The report was also interim. We will soon know more about allegations against Kofi Annan’s son and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Annan’s predecessor.
There’s no question that proven corruption at the UN will serve only to increase Washington’s suspicion of its activities, even its existence. Congressional committees are even now hard at work. In a Republican party where opposition to the UN is a surefire way to win primary voters in a few years’ time, the grandstanding has only just begun.
At the same time none of this can be genuinely shocking. When a largely unaccountable transnational organisation filters billions of dollars into Third World countries via such countries’ representatives, corruption is inevitable.
Kleptocrats do not good bureaucrats make. And because the UN treats every sovereign country as morally indistinguishable it cannot easily avoid the kleptocrats. Or the tyrants. That’s why the current UN Commission on Human Rights working group is made up of the Netherlands, Hungary, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. No, I’m not making that up. Next up: Robert Mugabe on the gay rights commission; Kim Jong-il to monitor non-proliferation; and Ayatollah Khamenei on women’s rights.
The Iraq case is particularly instructive. In Britain the debate over war hinged a great deal on whether the UN Security Council would give its blessing. The premise was that this would give the invasion some kind of moral legitimacy. In plain English: Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac were the critical arbiters of morality.
But we now also know that the UN solution of sending round after round of weapons inspectors while maintaining sanctions and the oil for food programme was absurd. The inspectors could never prove what they were supposed to prove without Saddam becoming an entirely different kind of leader (and they would not have been sent at all without British and US insistence).
The oil for food programme succeeded in minimising some of the deprivations experienced by the Iraqis, but it was also a critical source of funding for Saddam (and a bribery fund).
More significantly, the majority of Saddam’s income in the 1990s came from illicit oil deals — often with the UN members who were supposed to be enforcing the sanctions. The only word for this is a farce — with kickbacks.
Imagine we had followed the UN line and not gone to war. The corrupt oil for food programme would have continued, while pressure to remove sanctions increased. Saddam would have gradually rebuilt the ability to threaten the region and the world. Hundreds of shady businessmen, lobbyists and bureaucrats would have seen their bank accounts padded with lucrative oil contracts.
The Iraqi people would have continued to live in a fast-collapsing police state, kept barely alive by medicine and food supplies from the UN that were also the means to keep them under Saddam’s thumb. How on earth would this have been anything but a disaster and an injustice? Yes, critics of the war are right to say that we now know the WMD threat was greatly exaggerated. But it is equally true that we now know that the status quo the war critics preferred was inefficient, corrupt and deadly to the Iraqi people.
I’m not one of those who think the UN should be abolished. We need something like it. We need a forum in which the world can sometimes come together and discuss world problems. Where genuine peace exists it can make sense to send UN peacekeepers to police it. When international disaster strikes the UN can be a useful instrument for delivering aid.
But precisely because it has to represent all nations, it cannot represent justice or even any meaningful definition of the word “peace”.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As long as Saudi Arabia is determining what human rights are, it’s a joke.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yes, it can be useful as a mechanism for the great powers to enforce their will in less naked and more consensual a fashion. But without those great powers, it’s useless. Remember Srebrenica? Or Rwanda? If the UN is powerless before genocide and corrupt in the face of dictatorships how can it be relied on to do anything of real significance in the world?
_________________________________________________________
That kind of work is left to the despised leaders of the West — the George Bushes and Tony Blairs and Michael Howards. They are accountable to voters, whereas UN bureaucrats are accountable once in a blue moon to Volcker.
_________________________________________________________
We have learnt a lot since the liberation of Iraq. Western leaders are fallible. They even occasionally preside over serious crimes in pursuit of their policies. But without these western leaders and military powers, the Taliban would still be in power and Saddam would still be skimming off UN dollars. And Annan would be making excuses.
After all the huffing and puffing of the past three years, doesn’t that tell you all you really need to know?
___________________________________________
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