Your UN Dollars at Work

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HagiaSophia

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Notes from the Diplomad commenting on UN action (inaction) :

"…This Embassy has been running 24/7 since the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. Along with my colleagues, I’ve spent the past several days dealing non-stop with various aspects of the relief effort in this tsunami-affected country.

That work, unfortunately, has brought ever-increasing contact with the growing UN presence in this capital; in fact, we’ve found that to avoid running into the UN, we must go out to where the quake and tsunami actually hit. As we come up on two weeks since the disaster struck, the UN is still not to be seen where it counts – except when holding well-staged press events.

Ah, yes, but the luxury hotels are full of UN assessment teams and visiting big shots from New York, Geneva, and Vienna. The city sees a steady procession of UN Mercedes sedans and top-of-the-line SUV’s – a fully decked out Toyota Landcruiser is the UN vehicle of choice; it doesn’t seem that concerns about “global warming” and preserving your tax dollars run too deep among the UNocrats.

Sitting VERY late for two consecutive nights in interminable meetings with UN reps, hearing them go on about “taking the lead coordination role,” pledges, and the impending arrival of this or that UN big shot or assessment/coordination team, for the millionth time I realized that if not for Australia and America almost nobody in the tsunami-affected areas would have survived more than a few days.

If we had waited for the UNocrats to get their act coordinated, the already massive death toll would have become astronomical. But, fortunately, thanks to "retrograde racist war-mongers " such as John Howard and George W. Bush, as we sat in air conditioned meeting rooms with these UNocrats, young Australians and Americans were at that moment “coordinating” without the UN and saving the lives of tens-of-thousands of people.

Seeing these UNocrats perched at the table, whispering to each other, back-slapping, shaking hands, they seemed like a periodic reunion of old cynical Mafia chieftains or mercenaries who run into each other in different hot spots, as they move from one slaughter to another, “How are you? Haven’t seen you since Bosnia . . …”
 
Wonderful “Fly on the Wall” stuff, but, if the “fly” is so interested in the plight of the Tsunami victims, what was he doing sitting on the wall?
 
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Norwich:
Wonderful “Fly on the Wall” stuff, but, if the “fly” is so interested in the plight of the Tsunami victims, what was he doing sitting on the wall?
Read the article. It starts out talking about working. You never miss a chance to post smart a** negative remarks about the US, even where none are warranted. If you’re so wonderfully full of Christian values, why don’t you go help instead of belittling the efforts of others?
 
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geezerbob:
negative remarks about the US, even where none are warranted.
My friend, I didn’t mention the US and the article quoted could also be classed as offensive to those in the UN who do a great deal of works. Do you not think that food for the goose is food for the gander? Or is this only a one way street?
 
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Norwich:
My friend, I didn’t mention the US and the article quoted could also be classed as offensive to those in the UN who do a great deal of works. Do you not think that food for the goose is food for the gander? Or is this only a one way street?
:hmmm: no, perhaps you did’nt but your anti american attitude comes through loud and clear.
 
OK folks gloves off.

You accuse me of anti americanism, wrong. I have worked with and for Americans for many many years, I was with them in Dharhan during Desert Storm working on keeping the runways open when Saddam was trying to bomb the hell out of them and us. I have worked alongside Americans in China when they were looking at the retro fitting of all the bridges in California after the earthquake there. I could go on. What sticks in my craw, and I would add an awful lot of Americans I know who have been in the real world, have worked overseas and have seen and worked with other races and creeds is the incescant carping on about how you are so misunderstood because the rest of the world (the vast majority I would point out) don’t accept your interpretation of world politics and events. No wonder Bart Simpson is such a well loved character he seems to have the worst trates of some Americans, “It wasn’t me”. Try getting of your high horse and look around, when one soldier is out of step with all the others it almost certain he’s the one out of step.

What you seem to have misseed is in almost all my posts when I criticise the West I use the word **WE , have you not managed to work out that means ALL OF US **.

Try being a little more self analytical and a little less defensive andf you may see the world from a world perspective.

Now I feel better.🙂
 
TSUNAMI – Delivering aid stymies UN
Francis Till
While the United Nations appears to be adept at having meetings, the organisation is hopeless on the ground say career foreign service officers in tsunami-affected regions

As news media are increasingly dominated by footage of US, Australian and regional military forces actually delivering aid to stricken survivors of the Boxing Day tsunami, UN officials are carping about housing in major cities far removed from the front lines and passing around elaborate business cards.

Organising to organise seems to be the word of the day for the UN, say career US foreign service officers anonymously, who fault the international organisation for taking credit where none is due and proving hopeless at actually delivering relief.

One particularly alarming note came in a post yesterday when the blog’s authors noted that the WFP (World Food Program) – a principal agency involved in the distribution of emergency food relief around the world, had arrived in the capital of the unnamed country from which the blog has been reporting (again, most probably Sri Lanka).

The team has spent the day and will likely spend a few more setting up their “coordination and opcenter” at a local five-star hotel. And their number one concern, even before phones, fax and copy machines? Arranging for the hotel to provide 24hr catering service. USAID folks already are cracking jokes about “The UN Sheraton.” Meanwhile, our military and civilians, working with the super Aussies, continue to keep the C-130 air bridge of supplies flowing and the choppers flying, and keep on saving lives – and without 24hr catering services from any five-star hotel . . . . The contrast grows more stark every minute.

The picture that is emerging from the work on the ground – where even NGOs such as Oxfam say they are moving around the countries on military helicopters, rather than through self-sourced transport – is increasingly one in which foreign aid budgets might most effectively be diverted to support military operations, dressed in their own uniforms, rather than “going blue” and falling into line behind UN “leadership.”

nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=11040&cid=5&cname=Asia%20&%20Pacific
 
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HagiaSophia:
TSUNAMI – The picture that is emerging from the work on the ground – where even NGOs such as Oxfam say they are moving around the countries on military helicopters, rather than through self-sourced transport –
The news braodcasts and all the NGO’s agree you CANT move around by road transport because most of the roads are either blocked or washed out!!! Why do you think it took so long for relief to get to some of the remoter parts of Indonesia?

Now, if you want the NGO’s to spend all the money they have raised buying helicopters to get around why don’t you suggest it, althougfh I have a feeling you may get very short shrift.
 
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