Wolf here again.

According to the Washington Times, the U.N. has found that although they have spent decades brown-nosing, ass creeping, looking the other way when they arm and/or regroup, take your pick endeavoring to interact with and try to curb the activities of international terrorists and the nations that sponsor them, the criminally corrupt, power hungry, pitifully inept organization financed in major proportion and hosted by the U.S. taxpayer has been having some terrorist problems of its own.

At least 20 U.N. outposts in dangerous corners of the world suffer from inadequate security despite rising threats to the organization, the U.N. director of security says.

Gregory B. Starr, a former State Department security specialist named as U.N. security coordinator a little more than three months ago, cited U.N. offices in Iraq and Afghanistan for particular concern.

He also classified outposts in Somalia, Sudan’s Darfur region, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon as dangerous spots for U.N. international and local staff.

How did I title this post? Hoist on their own petard?

The specter of terrorist attacks has prompted many U.N. agencies and programs to beef up security. Often, they hire security contractors to help deliver and distribute humanitarian goods, to relocate mission staff to more stable neighboring countries, and to develop protocols for movement and protection in dangerous postings.

The big difference here is that it’s the U.N. whose asses are hanging in the breeze. If it were the Israelis, the same U.N. would deem whatever security precautions they took to be “excessive”, “oppressive”, “inhumane” or other words to that effect.

Here’s my favorite:

The danger has risen dramatically over the past decade as radical Islamists have grown increasingly suspicious of the United Nations and many of its goals.

…suspicious of the United Nations and many of its goals.

I never thought I’d say it, but there is one thing I’ve had in common with radical Islamists for a very long time.

Read the entire Washington Times article here.

Wolf out.

…the wheels grind slow in Congress, but who cares, right? It’s only the taxpayer’s money that’s often flushed down the commode of politicians’ ineptitude.

Back on 28-October-2005, I posted this on the UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees ) quagmire.

If I was able to learn about it from sources totally accessible to the public, the rest of the media and, though it might have taken them awhile, the government surely knew what was going on then and what has been going on since at UNWRA.

However, they have not been at all diligent about addressing the Palestinians refugees’ expansion vs its cost on the backs of the U.S. taxpayer.

Here we are, over three years since I posted that article and five decades plus change since the scurrilously corrupt, incompetent U.N. agency began UNWRA.

Finally, now (all emphasis mine),

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. CON. RES. 29

Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding, employment, or other support to terrorists.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 28, 2009

Mr. ROTHMAN of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. KIRK, Mrs. MYRICK, Ms. BERKLEY, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. TAUSCHER, Mr. ENGEL, and Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding, employment, or other support to terrorists.

Whereas the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established in 1949 as a temporary agency to provide relief services to Palestinian refugees and is the only United Nations agency dedicated to one specific group of refugees;

Whereas UNRWA’s definition of refugees includes not only the Palestinian refugees themselves, but also their descendants, resulting in a more than 400 percent increase in the number of beneficiaries from 900,000 in 1950 to 4,500,000 today;
Whereas since 1950, the United States has contributed more than $3,400,000,000 to UNRWA and is the largest single donor to this United Nations organization;

Whereas as of September 2008, the United States has already contributed $148,000,000 to UNRWA for fiscal year 2008;

Whereas UNRWA employs approximately 24,000 staff to care for a population of 4,500,000 registered refugees in camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Palestinian Territories;

Whereas, in contrast, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the agency tasked with resolving refugee problems worldwide, employs approximately 6,300 staff to care for a population of 11,400,000 refugees worldwide;

Whereas despite the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) military disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and the 1993 creation of a Palestinian Authority that has jurisdiction over the Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, UNRWA remains the primary professional, medical, educational, and social service provider for Palestinians living in `refugee’ camps in the Palestinian territories;

Whereas according to UNRWA Report of the Board of Auditors for the biennium ended December 31, 2005, UNRWA does not track recording, deleting, renaming, or manipulation of financial information by staff members or volunteers, and therefore has no means of detecting the alteration of financial data or other types of redirection of UNRWA funding, leaving UNRWA unable to technically comply with section 301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which ensures that no United States tax dollars support terrorism;

Read the rest of H. CON. RES. 29 here.

If members of the U.S. Congress worked in private companies…

…seems to be underway.

An international humanist organization has warned that Islamic governments are trying to use the United Nations to shut down free speech. The warning comes as a bloc of Islamic states is holding a summit with “Islamophobia” high on the agenda.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on Thursday began a meeting in Senegal, with the shadow of Danish cartoons satirizing Mohammed and a Dutch lawmaker’s film criticizing the Koran hanging heavily over the gathering.

The 57-member bloc is considering a report by a new body set up to monitor instances of what many Muslims view as growing prejudice against them and their religion, particularly in the years since 9/11.

Warning that Islamophobia poses a threat to global peace and security, the 58-page report by the “Islamophobia Observatory” examines the reasons for the perceived trend — exemplified by stereotyping, hostility, discriminatory treatment and the denigration of “the most sacred symbols of Islam” — and suggests ways to combat it.

The recommended steps include a range of responses, including monitoring of and responding to incidents, and a campaign to show Islam to be a “moderate, peaceful and tolerant” religion.

But the report also says that legal measures are required.

Legal measures, huh?

“There is a need for a binding legal instrument to fight the menace of Islamophobia in the context of freedom of religion and elimination of religious intolerance,” it says.

“The Islamophobes remain free to carry on their assaults due to absence of legal measures necessary for misusing or abusing the right to freedom of expression.”

Islamic states must therefore keep “the pressure on the international community at the multilateral forums and bilateral agendas,” the OIC report recommends.

Since the uproar over the Mohammed cartoons in 2006, the OIC has stepped up its attempts in international forums to protect Islam against criticism. Late last year it succeeded in getting the U.N. General Assembly to pass a first-ever resolution on the “defamation of religions.” Islam was the only religion mentioned by name in the text.

The OIC has 56 votes at the 192-member General Assembly, but it managed to win sufficient support from non-Muslim nations, mostly in the developing world, to see the resolution pass by 108 votes to 51, with 25 abstentions.

Repeat after me: The U.N. is our friend. The U.N. is our friend. The U.N…. ah, forget it, even after I repeated it 1000 times, I still wouldn’t be able to convince myself of its veracity.

As the U.N. prepares later this year to mark the 60th anniversary of the landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights, some observers worry about the growing clout of the Islamic bloc, and its agenda.

In a statement delivered to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a non-governmental organization with consultative status at the U.N., voiced concerns about the OIC push.

“The implications of this [defamation of religions] resolution for freedom to criticize religious laws and practices are obvious,” the IHEU said.

“Armed with U.N. approval for their actions, states may now legislate against any show of disrespect for religion however they may choose to define ‘disrespect.’”

As I understand it, the U.N. is supposed to deal between governments, not supplant them.

“The Islamic states see human rights exclusively in Islamic terms, and by sheer weight of numbers this view is becoming dominant within the U.N. system,” the organization added. “The implications for the universality of human rights are ominous.”

And this,

The charter would be in accordance with the provisions of the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam - the last major OIC human rights document - which says that all human rights and freedom must be subject to Islamic law (shari’a).

“Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the shari’a,” it says.

Emphasis mine.

Of course, the U.N. will do the usual — perform the kiss of shame on the Islamofacists of the OIC and in so doing, attempt to hammer yet another nail in the coffin of the free world.

These people are truly amazing in the scope of their stupidity: Anyone with an IQ of 6 who has their access to information should be able to see what the leaders of the Islamic nations are trying to do, yet they simply suck it up and go with the program, not seeming to grasp the very real fact that their own personal freedoms are as much on the line as everybody else’s, that once Sharia has been successfully foisted on the western world, they’ll be the first to go.

I’d like to see our government and those of other free countries fight the OIC charter tooth and nail at the U.N., but with their collective recent track record of sucking up to Islam as any kind of indicator, I won’t hold my breath.

The question of free speech and its effect on religious sentiment has been on the Human Rights Council’s agenda this week.

On Wednesday, the council considered a report by a U.N. “special rapporteur” on freedom of expression and opinion, Kenyan lawyer Ambeyi Ligabo.

Ligabo said he was concerned about attempts to expand the scope of defamation laws beyond the protection of individuals, to include the protection of “abstract values or institutions” such as religions.

Where international human rights documents placed limitations on freedom of expression, he told the council, they were designed to protect individuals — not religions — from criticism.

Ligabo also said he “strongly rejected” the view that the use of freedom of expression has undermined people’s ability to enjoy other rights, such as the freedom of religion.

His stance drew criticism from some Islamic states in the council.

Iranian representative Asadollah Eshragh Jahromi said Ligabo should address the issue of freedom of expression and religion “in a more balanced and comprehensive manner.”

“Insulting religions is incompatible with the right to freedom of expression and cannot be justified or interpreted under such a pretext,” he said.

“When someone defames a religion or religious personalities or symbols, he hurts the believers of that faith and impinges on his exercise of right to religion and belief,” said the representative of Bangladesh, Mustafizur Rahman.

The OIC and its allies effectively dominate the Human Rights Council, where 26 of the 47 seats are earmarked for African and Asian countries.

Emphasis again mine.

I fully understand that the oil lying underneath so much Islamic soil is a major factor behind Islam’s international “influence”, so perhaps we need to rethink certain policies in that regard.

In the course of email correspondence with an Angel, she indicated her displeasure (yeah, an understatement, and being a fellow Noo Yawkah –though not dwelling there presently — I share her consternation and disgust) at the thought of an enemy of our very form of civilization being welcomed to New York to speak at the U.N., or for any other reason, for that matter.

This stuck in my mind for a bit, and the result was that every time I’ve come across a link on anything related to the matter, I’ve clicked on it.

Articles like this one.

And Ahmadmanjihad is the enemy.

US-led forces in Iraq say they have arrested an Iranian officer operating in the north of the country.

They say the man was a member of the Quds Force - an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards - and was detained in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya.
“This individual has been involved in transporting improvised explosive devices,” the American military said.

The US has accused the Quds Force of helping arm Shia militias in Iraq. Iran denies any involvement with militants.

A statement by the US military said the arrested man had been involved in the “infiltration and training of foreign terrorists in Iraq”.

Okay…

So, just to show how well the “intellectual elites” (lefteez) have done at taking over academia, the past and present jihadi with nuclear arsenal ambitions is to speak at Columbia U during his visit, by invitation. I wonder if they’ve sent any invitations to Nicholas Sarkozy. Probably not, as he’s a right thinker rather than a malevolent threat to our national security.

This is certainly true.

Meanwhile: As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus.

A perfect synecdoche for too much of American higher education: they are friendlier to Ahmadinejad than to the U.S. military.

The ROTC bit really rankles me as an American: The Democrats have no problem pushing their tax-devouring, vote-chasing, negative-result social agendas at the federal level, but there doesn’t seem to be any sort of patriotic movement afoot among the rest of their political folderol. If they can peddle their socialist wares on a national footing, it seems to me that the Republican side of the political equation could mandate onsite ROTC, which is, after all, one of the building blocks of the future in the national security/defense sector, as a requisite for any federal university tax subsidies. No tickee, no washee, no exceptions.

As far as the Iranian Islamofascist terrorist president’s declared intention of visiting and placing a wreath at Ground Zero is concerned, they’d damn well better not let him. Not only would it be a desecration, of that national shrine, of the highest order (it would be the equivalent of spitting on the graves of all those who perished on, or as a result of, 9/11), but it would also provide Ahmadmanjihad with provender for a veritable feast of propaganda opportunities.

Not too long ago, I posted about the coming of the North American Union, an agenda which, much to my chagrin, is being engineered by the man I voted for twice for President and his counterparts in Mexico and Canada.

Some commenters took this either with a grain of salt, some with a degree of alarm, some, I thought, may have humored me with their comments.

As they say, it’s all good. The very concept sounds both farfetched and absurd, like the plot of a Robert Ludlum novel or the fantasies of a serious paranoid.

After all, conspiracy theories abound, right?

I had thought my research on the subject was pretty extensive, in fact, somewhere along the line I was reminded of my ex-wife’s own “ravings”, back in the days of the Carter Administration, when she talked about then National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s ambitions toward what was called the Trilateral Commission.

In those days I was still kinda’ sorta’ liberal and pretty laid back, and to tell the truth, couldn’t give the proverbial “flying fuck” about such things. Please excuse mah French (spit!)….

In the comments section of my post on the North American Union ambitions of those involved, the forever awesome Always On Watch suggested that I contact a great blog called Sixth Column, who had been following the NAU proceedings for some time. I did.

We resolved to share information on anything our respective research unearthed on the subject. In that quarter, they have thus far kicked my ass, LOL.

An emailed article I recently received provides the entire history, names, methods, intentions, chronology and all, of events leading up to what is now the plan for the North American Union. It is lengthy and will require some time, but I urge you to read it in its entirety.

It should convince you, in alarming detail, of what is to come in the next four years, no matter what else occurs in the political spectrum of the United States of America.

It is here.

As I said last time out, we are indeed in grave trouble, because our very sovereignty is about to be sacrificed on the altar of corporate expediency. While our future Congresses and POTUSes will govern our country, they will be like state legislatures, while extranational congresses determine the details of our economy (a collective with Mexico and Canada), eventually becoming part of a global collective consisting of the EU, the NAU, the SAU, the AU, etc….

We are in big trouble here, a world government awaits just around the corner, and most unfortunately, the politicians who might be able to prevent it are being kept outside the loop.

As I said in my previous post about this, the involved congresses/parliaments, etc involved herein have been kept in the dark about it, as has the media.

I am wondering whether we are going to wake up and deal with this, or whether we’re simply going to drift into it in blissful ignorance, becoming an entirely different country….

ULTRA-MAJOR and MEGA-GRATEFUL hat tip to CUBED!

GOOD FOR THEM!

It is purely amazing that western leaders still haven’t figured out what happens when they extend Arab Muslims any kind of trust, as in the trust that they will honor peace agreements.

While it’s true that Israel left a lot of room for improvement in strategizing their ground war in Lebanon — not the fault of the IDF, but the fault of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his jolly retinue for taking it upon themselves to manage the war rather than let his generals do what they’re paid to do — the result has been a sort of aimless deployment of reservist troops who don’t have a clue as to what, exactly, their objectives are — President Bush lived up to the liberals’ claim that he is “dumb”, in this case, by reversing his earlier policy and endorsing a cease-fire. As a two-time Bush voter, I am, at the very least, profoundly disappointed.

I mean, what does it take for the most powerful politician in the world to finally “get it?” A man who’s been spearheading a global war against Islamic terrorists for nearly five (count ‘em 5) years, who has had all that time to learn, from vast experience, the charactar of the enemy. This has to be one of the biggest screw-ups of our President’s career, one that will ultimately result in putting our troops in Iraq and elsewhere in greater danger than they need be, to say nothing of what Israel will now have to deal with.

And Olmert shares the blame, for signing off on the cease-fire.

Naturally, the Lebanese government and Hezbollah also signed off on it — why not?

Just as the Arab Muslim world viewed Israel’s previous withdrawal from Lebanon as a victory for Hezbollah — giving the terrorist organization the dubious reputation as the only Arab entity ever to beat Israel in war, they will do so once again. U.N. resolution 1701 is not law, Olmert could have told Bush, Kofi and the capitulative socialist powers of Europe to go piss up a rope, instead he agreed to a plan that not only may never see the return of two abducted Israeli soldiers, assuming they’re really even alive at this point, but one that places the responsibility, for the moment, of disarming Hezbollah in the hands of their comrades in the Lebanese Army. It also leaves, for the time being, the same impotent U.N. presence in southern Lebanon — you know, the one that has thus far been more a help than a hindrance to the terrorist organization — that’s been there since the last U.N. resolution regarding the Israeli-Lebanese border area. This means that in short order, Hezbollah can be back to the business of firing rockets into Israel and launching the occasional cross-border raid.

In the convoluted, primitive Muslim mind, this will be a major victory for Hezbollah and, as we’ve seen in the aftermath of past perceived terrorist victories, this perceived victory will inspire Hezbollah and all other Islamic terrorist groups to increase their attacks, not only against Israel, now that they will have perceived weakness there, but also against U.S. forces in Iraq, as President Bush’s support for the cease-fire plan will send the Islamofascist terrorists and backers of terrorism in Iran, and indeed throughout the Arab world, the message that our resolve has been weakened by world opinion.

Caroline Glick has an on-point analysis up at GAMLA’s website.

There is a good reason that Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has accepted UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which sets the terms for a cease-fire between his jihad army and the State of Israel.

The resolution represents a near-total victory for Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria, and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. This fact is evident both in the text of the resolution and in the very fact that the US decided to sponsor a cease-fire resolution before Israel had dismantled or seriously degraded Hizbullah’s military capabilities.

While the resolution was not passed under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter and so does not have the authority of law, in practice it makes it all but impossible for Israel to defend itself against Hizbullah aggression without being exposed to international condemnation on an unprecedented scale.

This is the case first of all because the resolution places responsibility for determining compliance in the hands of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan has distinguished himself as a man capable only of condemning Israel for its acts of self-defense while ignoring the fact that in attacking Israel, its enemies are guilty of war crimes. By empowering Annan to evaluate compliance, the resolution all but ensures that Hizbullah will not be forced to disarm and that Israel will be forced to give up the right to defend itself.

The resolution makes absolutely no mention of either Syria or Iran, without whose support Hizbullah could neither exist nor wage an illegal war against Israel. In so ignoring Hizbullah’s sponsors, it ignores the regional aspect of the current war and sends the message to these two states that they may continue to equip terrorist armies in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq with the latest weaponry without paying a price for their aggression.

The resolution presents Hizbullah with a clear diplomatic victory by placing their erroneous claim of Lebanese sovereignty over the Shaba Farms, or Mount Dov - a vast area on the Golan Heights that separates the Syrian Golan from the Upper Galilee and is disputed between Israel and Syria - on the negotiating table. In doing so, the resolution rewards Hizbullah’s aggression by giving international legitimacy to its demand for territorial aggrandizement via acts of aggression, in contravention of the laws of nations.

Truncating {that’s the “sophisticated” version of snip}

Aside from the resolution’s egregious language, the very fact that the US has sponsored a resolution that leaves Hizbullah intact as a fighting force constitutes a devastating blow to the national security of both Israel and the US, for the following reasons:

It grants the Lebanese government and military unwarranted legitimacy. The resolution treats the Lebanese government and military as credible bodies. However, the Lebanese government is currently under the de facto control of Hizbullah and Syria.
Moreover, the Lebanese army is paying pensions to the families of Hizbullah fighters killed in battle, and its forces have actively assisted Hizbullah in attacking Israel and Israeli military targets.

Indeed, the seven-point declaration issued by the Lebanese government, which the UN resolution applauds, was dictated by Hizbullah, as admitted by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Nasrallah last week.

It incites Shi’ite violence in Iraq. From a US perspective, the resolution drastically increases the threat of a radical Shi’ite revolt in Iraq. Hizbullah is intimately tied to Iraqi Shi’ite terrorist Muqtada al-Sadr. In April 2003, Hizbullah opened offices in southern Iraq and was instrumental in training the Mahdi Army, which Sadr leads. During a demonstration in Baghdad last week, Sadr’s followers demanded that he consider them an extension of Hizbullah, and expressed a genuine desire to participate in Hizbullah’s war against the US and Israel.

It should be assumed that Hizbullah’s presumptive victory in its war against Israel will act as a catalyst for violence by Sadr and his followers against the Iraqi government and coalition forces in the weeks to come. Indeed, the Hizbullah victory will severely weaken moderate Shi’ites in the Maliki government and among the followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

It empowers Iran. Iran emerges as the main victor in the current war. Not only was it not condemned for its sponsorship of Hizbullah, it is being rewarded for that sponsorship because it is clear to all parties that Iran was the engine behind this war, and that its side has won.

The entire article can be read here.

There’s a column in today’s Jewish World Review online by Johnathan Tobin on the United Nations Relief And Works Agency{UNRWA}, that discusses a long ongoing issue that the weasels fine folks at Turtle Bay have been ignoring for years, an issue that’s been snowballing quietly along without any coverage by the liberal media that wouldn’t be dwarfed by their tireless flogging of Abu Ghraib, the federal response to Katrina or the monitoring of terrorist phone conversations by the Bush Administration.

As detailed in a new Jewish Telegraphic Agency series of reports on the topic, UNRWA’s record is one of complicity not only with the political ends of the Palestinian movement, but with its violent tactics as well.

Many of UNRWA’s employees are members not only of mainstream Palestinian terror factions such as Fatah, but of the Islamist Hamas group as well. UNRWA suffered a major embarrassment when its former director, the Norwegian bureaucrat Peter Hansen, admitted as much two years ago, saying it was no big deal. Indeed, in the recent Palestinian election, a number of UNRWA workers were Hamas parliamentary candidates.

The U.N. is not, nor has it ever been, a friend to Israel. When Palestinian terrorists blow up a dining room full of Jews having a holiday meal, the Israelis get mild condolences from Koffi Annon while the Palestinians must make due with an equally mild rebuke. When the Israelis counterstrike, they are victimizing the poor, downtrodden, stateless Arabs who have Semtexed their way out of having a state of their own repeatedly.

What did Abba Eban say?

“The Palestinians never lose the chance to miss an opportunity,” or something like that.

Instead, they terrorize, and much of that tax generated bounty we and other countries, via the U.N., send to the UNRWA helps to finance that terrorism. There are even Hamas terrorists on UNRWA staff!

What’s up with that?

Only an idiot could believe that the U.N. officials who oversee UNRWA aren’t totally cognizant of this state of affairs. If they aren’t, they should be delivering croissants door to door or cleaning fish for a living, not heading up an agency of this magnitude at the United Nations.

Back in October, I was emailed a link to an in-depth article on UNRWA written by a journalist who is an expert on Arab-Israeli affairs and related terrorism issues and a tenacious investigator, the venerable Arlene Kushner, and I posted on it and quoted large segments of the article.

It’s a great and informative read, and can be found here.

UNRWA is a corrupt, terror sponsoring disaster financed mostly with our money, and unlike other U.N. agencies assembled to help refugees, it is a Palestinians-only venue and one that has not only failed to produce its stated goals, but managed to oversee the exponential increase, through generations of procreation, of its client load.

The Hammas members on its payroll must laugh at us every day.

Something’s shaking here.

Corruption at the United Nations?

Shocking!

Not!

The Times of London’s James Bone comments on an incident in which U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan went off on him for asking a perfectly straightforward question whose honest answer might have implicated both Kofi and his Oil For Food profiteering, general purpose sleazeball son, Kojo, in a simple act of fraud by means of misuse of the elder Annan’s diplomatic U.N. status.

It was with some amusement that I found myself the target of a decidedly undiplomatic tirade by the U.N. chief at a news conference last week. The usually mild Mr. Annan erupted in an ad hominem attack, calling me “cheeky” and belittling me as an “overgrown schoolboy.” Although I have covered the U.N. in minute detail for The Times of London since 1988, and have known Mr. Annan for almost all that time, he suggested I was not a “serious journalist.”

The cause of Mr. Annan’s ire was a question I put to him about a Mercedes car that his son Kojo had imported into Ghana (and which cannot, now, be traced). The facts indicate that Kojo had bought the car in his father’s name, thereby obtaining a diplomatic discount and a tax exemption totaling more than $20,000. The question about the car — to which Mr. Annan again refused to give a satisfactory answer — is part of the wider probe into his role in the U.N.’s Oil for Food scandal. Despite months of investigation, important questions about the integrity of public officials remain unanswered. If we are serious about U.N. reform — as Mr. Annan claims to be — they must be resolved.

It is a time-honored tradition at the U.N. to bury a scandal by conducting an inadequate inquiry and then declaring the matter closed. Mr. Annan did precisely that when news first broke in January 1999 of his son’s involvement with a Swiss firm that won a U.N. contract in Iraq.

Read Bone’s entire article here.