A column about history, culture, policy, and things in between.
Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations since 1996, is stepping down in January.
He gave his obligatory farewell speech at the Truman library in Independence Missouri last week, a sad irony to see this paper diplomat standing in the intellectual and historical shadow of Harry S. Truman. The contrast could not have been more stark: Truman, the man of few words backed with mighty action, versus Annan, a man to whom action has always been distasteful and odious, but who always provided an endless stream of empty, meaningless rhetoric.
At best, the UN under his management has been inneffective. At worst it has been hopelessly corrupt. Looking back over his adminsitration of this once great body, one searches for a significant achievement to associate with his stewardship; a legacy to be left. One finds none.
I recall endless urgings to the Israelis to "take a risk for peace", while not even once in the years could he bring himself to urge restraint upon Yassar Arafat, or to condemn the years of calculated violence that great terrorist directed against innocents and civilians.
I recall endless condemnations and smug reproachments for the United States, all the while remaining silent and moribund regarding the ethnic cleansing and atrocities raging across the continent of Africa, a conflagration which remains unabated today. And for all his scorn for the United States, he never hesitated to take our billions, while simultaneously chastising us for not giving him even more.
As for Iraq, he was busy presiding over what has been the largest and most sickeningly corrupt scanal in history; the notorious "Oil for Food Program". At best his defenders claim he was was ignorant of the corruption in his organization. At worst, he was at some level conscious of it. The first scenario damns him as an incompetent, while the second damns him as corrupt beyond our imagination.
While always insisting that only the UN had the "legitimacy" to act in matters of international affairs requiring strong intervention, he simultaneously gave renegade and violent regimes voices, seats, and votes in the UN. Thus equipped to prevent any actions contrary to their interests, these regimes have been free to follow their courses of repression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
It is time for us to stop evaluating the United Nations for the high-minded principles upon which it was founded, and start evaluating it based on the effectiveness of its programs and the capability of its leaders. Under Mr. Annan's leadership, it flunks on both counts. Sadly, the United States continues to pour billions into this obese and corrupt body.
I face the future with the hope that his South Korean successor will do better. And I do so with a certainty he cannot do worse.
No doubt Mr. Annan will immerse himself in a wealth-encrusted retirement, from which he will occasionally issue more meaningless and inneffective communiques, full of condemnation of the West.
Happy New Year to you sir, and good-bye.
