The United Sates is the "United Nations," and it has clearly become a Cold War NGO with delusions of grandure.
It has, he tells me, "become like all the best intentions, starting as a organization devoted to it's reason for being, and needing to form departments to see to self-continuity, inevitably been supplanted by self-continutity. Self-Continuity has become it's Reason for being. Tear it down and start over, with a Coalition of the Willing, a United Free Nations."
http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/
A colleague came back from a meeting held by the local UN representative yesterday and reported that the UN rep had said that while it was a good thing that the Australians and Americans were running the air ops into tsunami-wrecked Aceh, for cultural and political reasons, those Australians and Americans really "should go blue." In other words, they should switch into UN uniforms and give up their national ones.
Now you all know that The Diplomad is not a cynical or suspicious being, but there is something funny going on here . . . what could it be? Could it be a genuine concern for local "cultural and political sensitivities" that would be offended by the presence of Aussies and Yanks in their own military uniforms saving thousands of lives? Maybe . . . or, might it not be an odd coincidence that just after the infamous Mr. Anan (see prior posts) says the UN will be setting up air traffic control in Aceh, the UN wants to show that it has an ATC system operating? What better way than to continue in the UN tradition of taking credit for others' work? And this just before Mr. Anan arrives in Indonesia on January 6.