corrente

This op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds says it all:

"Things are going badly for Kofi Annan. The Oil for Food scandal has revealed U.N. behavior regarding Saddam Hussein's Iraq that ranges from criminally inept to outright corrupt. Rape and pedophilia by U.N. peacekeepers haven't gotten the kind of attention they'd get if American troops were involved, but the scandals have begun to take their toll. And the U.N.'s ability to serve its crowning purpose--the "never again" treatment of genocide that was vowed after the Holocaust, and re-vowed after Cambodia and Rwanda--is looking less and less credible in the wake of its response to ongoing genocide in Darfur. "

Less credible as opposed to the strong presence the US has made in Sudan; its continuing containment of the atrocities in the Congo; the key role it played in stopping the genocide in Rwanda; and the countless lives saved by its intervention in the killing fields of Cambodia. Yes, we here in the States have built up an impressive human rights record over the last 45 years, and we can stand on the Segway of righteous indignation along with George Bush himself and say, "Shame! Shame on you Kofi Annan! You see where this multilateral world cooperation thing gets you?"

Glenn goes on to the next damning observation:

"Mr. Annan, by contrast, is a trimmer and temporizer who has stood up for tyrants far more than he has stood up to them."

Yes, he certainly looks bad when compared to our own leaders: Nixon in Cambodia and Chile, the Phillipines and Iran; Reagan in Nicaragua, South Africa, Panama and El Salvador; the support of the School of the Americas and the funneling of military aid to Iraq; Bush I in Indonesia; Bush II in Uzbekistan, Egypt, and Pakistan. And of course, the home-grown humanitarian abuse and murders of prisoners across the American gulag.

But Glenn pulls out his best rapier and thrusts it, thusly:

"The U.N. is losing what shreds of moral legitimacy remain, even among those who were once sympathetic, as the extent of its corruption becomes too obvious to ignore. There's talk of replacing--or, more diplomatically, supplementing--the U.N. with a Community of Democracies that would draw its support from legitimate governments, not thugs and kleptocrats. At the very least, it seems likely that the U.N. will soon come under enormous pressure to reform. "

Kleptocrats! Did you hear that? Why, we here in the states would know nothing of the stealing of an election, would we? And thugs? Preposterous!

I'm convinced, Glennikins. Oust the bastard. Let's let Georgie's minions, moral paragons that they are, pick a suitable successor.