On December 31st, the time of Koffi Annan as UN Secretary General will be over, and probably will always be remembered because of the scandal of Oil-for-Food and his opposition to Iraqi war.
His successor will have to deal with a lot of difficult matters. The first will be, without doubt, the reform of UN, from the Security Council, where some new permanent members will be appointed [probably Japan or India], to the supervision of the UN Budget. But there will be some other difficult issues such as the implementation of democracy and Human Rights, and the setting of the responsibility of UN troops in international missions, especially in cases like the sexual harrasment from individuals belonging to UN peacekeepers' forces.
There are some names already considered to the job. But among others there is one name that looks like is going to obtain the job: the South Korean, Ban Ki Moon, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who has been aided [in the form of lucratious trade agreement with Europe and help to under-developed countries, by South Korea in his quest to obtain the job [according to The Times], help denied by his country. Another one of the candidates is the Jordanian Prince, Zeid Raab Zeid Al Hussein, ambassador of Jordan to the UN, Muslim, and now running on the 4th place. The Indian candidate, Shashi Tharoor, a senior Indian UN diplomat, is also very well positioned to be the UN new Secretary General.
The Washington Post is holding a discussion on this issue on Global Post, where some journalists have given their opinions.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Who will be the next UN Secretary General?
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3 comments:
Nobody should replace him, as the institution itself should be abolished. In my opinion the UN gets in the way of sensible policy and appears to be anti-western in its approach. It seems to apply double standards, apparently castigating Israel while at the same time dragging its feat on taking meaningful action in places like Darfur. The money that the western world contributes to the UN bureaucracy could be put to much better use.
Well I pretty much don't care who replaces him so long as the US and any other free nation withdrawls their membership and they are removed from US soil. A civilized debating society is well and good if there are civilized people to have a debate with. Ignoring all the many crimes and hypocrisies of the UN (of which volumes could be written), given that the fundamental charter of the UN is to further human rights, it is utterly absurd to give a voice to non-democratic nations, period. So the US, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the rest of Europe should they decide to fight off dhimmihood, and India (again, should they finally decide to get serious about fighting their Islamic problem)--sure, they all have something to discuss. There simply is no reason to involve communist countries, Islamic theocracies, dictatorships, and other assorted nutters into any sort of debate about what the free countries of the world ought or ought not do about attempting to free the rest of the world from tyranny. To have dictatorships vote on whether or not a democracy ought defend itself from acts of war (e.g. Israel) or ask dictatorships permission to remove other dangerous dictators from power (e.g. Iraq) is absurd and pointless. Given the obscene speeches given a couple weeks ago at the UN by various psychopathic dictators, it is obvious the gauntlet has been thrown down by the rest of the world. They know the war is on, they've declared it--piddling around debating with them anymore is useless.
So let them elect another Jew-hating, totalitarian loving criminal. Big deal. They can talk about how evil the US and Israel are to their hearts content in Caracas or Damascus or whatever G-d forsaken place they want so long as it is not in NYC.
I'm not absolutely opposed to the UN. I could support the UN if someone like John Bolton were appointed the next Secretary General.
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