Goodbye Kofi, and Good Riddance

A parting shot from Kofi Annan, the man who oversaw the most corrupt and useless UN ever.

Annan, who steps down at the end of the month, to be succeeded by Ban Ki Moon of South Korea, said, "We need US leadership; we have lots of problems around the world . . . and we require the natural leadership role the US played in the past and can play today."

"None of our global institutions can accomplish much when the US remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky's the limit," he said.

Right. mainly due to the fact that the US has to initiate any military action because the rest of the world refuses to do the really nasty jobs, and the US has to pay for most of them in any case.

"When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose -- for broadly shared aims -- in accordance with broadly accepted norms," Annan said.

How very predictable. Again the UN is stating that the US can't defend itself unless the UN says it's ok, and then you can be assured that we'll be criticized beyond all reason for being the most restrained of actors the world has ever known.

The United States has historically been a leader in human rights, Annan added. "When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused," he said in an apparent reference to charges of abuse at US prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq's Abu Ghraib.

Annan seems to miss a point on context. The US has always followed its ideals, and primary to those ideas is that we don't allow others to murder our citizens. Most of the anti-war crowd and the sanctimonious liberals in this country seem to miss this point. It's fine with them that US citizens die from terrorist attacks, just as long as it isn't their relations.

I'm so very glad Annan is nearly out. Maybe the UN will actually start reforming some time in the near future. I won't hold my breath though.