Into the Teeth of the Horse

You can file this story under “You Can't Please Everyone,” “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished,” “Its Bush So It Must Be Wrong,” or “Looking a Gift Horse In the Mouth.”

Some utter internationalist Euro Weenie is complaining that President Bush's effort to set up an international coalition to coordinate disaster relief is really just an attempt to undermine the United Nations.

But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN.

“I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,” she said.

“Only really the UN can do that job,” she told BBC Radio Four’s PM programme.

“It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.”(emphasis mine)

I think the last thing we need is a bunch of U.N bureaucrats descending on the scene and using their moral authority to trade relief supplies for sex with children. To claim that the U.N. has any moral authority is beyond ridiculous. The closest Ms. Short gets to a grasp of reality is that on some level she understands that the U.N. requires the United States support for it to have any legitimacy. If we don't build it up, it will collapse.

I say cheers to the cowboy unilateralist for forming yet another international coalition to deal with the world's problems, and bravo for keeping the kleptocrats at the U.N. out of it.

Stingy nations of the world unite.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 10:30 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment