Bush 'Undermining UN with Aid Coalition' By Jamie Lyons, PA Political CorrespondentPeople who would politicize the suffering in southern Asia deserve nothing but contempt. There isn't a decent, honest, humane bone in their body. It always amazes me how leftists can turn a blind eye to tragedy, treating it in the abstract to promote some irrational political point.United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster. The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response. But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN. “I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,” she said. “Only really the UN can do that job,” she told BBC Radio Four’s PM programme. “It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.” Ms Short said the coalition countries did not have good records on responding to international disasters. She said the US was “very bad at coordinating with anyone” and India had its own problems to deal with. “I don’t know what that is about but it sounds very much, I am afraid, like the US trying to have a separate operation and not work with the rest of the world through the UN system,” she added.
If George Bush were to wave his hands and instantly cure cancer all around the world, he'd be criticized for being a showoff.
First we didn't donate enough, then we didn't donate fast enough and now we're undermining the UN. It makes perfect sense to have India, Australia, the United States and Japan coordinate the relief operation. We all have navies in the area and already have an infrastructure set up to deliver aid.
The UN has moral authority? Since when?? First, there's this:
"Teenage rape victims fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being sexually exploited by the United Nations peace-keeping troops sent to the stop their suffering. The Independent has found that mothers as young as 13 - the victims of multiple rape by militiamen - can only secure enough food to survive in the sprawling refugee camp by routinely sleeping with UN peace-keepers. "And then there's the multi-billion-dollar oil for food scandal. So far as I'm concerned, the UN thugs have no moral authority to be trusted with anything. But the Bush haters don't want to be bothered with facts. They feel, they don't think. Facts simply muddy the waters.
