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Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
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Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
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The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
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Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 6, 2004 / 26 Teves, 5765

If bureaucracy and BS could fill an empty stomach, the UN could feed the world

By Jack Kelly


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "The U.S. military has arrived and is clearly establishing its presence everywhere in Banda Aceh," said the Jan. 2nd situation report by Dutch diplomats in tsunami-ravaged Indonesia. "They have completely taken over the military hospital, which was a mess until yesterday but now is completely up and running. They brought big stocks of medicines, materials for the operations rooms, teams of doctors, water and food...


"U.S. helicopters fly to places which haven't been reached for the whole week and drop food... No talking but action. European countries are until now invisible on the ground."


"U.S. Navy flying aid missions, Bundeswehr still looking things over," said the headline Jan. 3rd in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel (the Mirror). "While advance teams of the Bundeswehr (German army) are still camping in three tents at the Banda Aceh airport, Americans, Australians and New Zealanders have already flown tons of aid packages into disaster areas." At least the Germans were on the scene. On Jan 3rd, Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team was still in Canada.


Apparently unaware of the irony, the Canadian Broadcasting Company reported that "the (Canadian) military created DART in 1996 because of its experience in Rwanda two years earlier, when international relief organizations arrived too late to save thousands of people from a cholera epidemic. That convinced the federal government it needed to be able to respond more quickly." Maybe next tsunami.


While Americans, Australians and Kiwis were feeding the hungry and treating the sick and injured, the United Nations was setting up headquarters in a five star hotel, planning conferences, and claiming credit for the work of others.

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"In Aceh today 50 trucks of relief supplies are arriving," UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said at a news conference New Year's Day. "Tomorrow, we will have eight full airplanes arriving."


A foreign service officer (and blogger) working on disaster relief told colleagues in the U.S. Agency for International Development what Egeland had said. "Their heads nearly exploded," said the Diplomad, who obtained the Dutch sitrep quoted above.


"The UN is taking credit for things that hard-working, street savvy USAID folks have done. It was USAID working with their amazing network of local contacts who scrounged up trucks, drivers and fuel; organized the convoy and sent it off to deliver critical supplies.


"A UN air-freight handling centre in Aceh? Bull! It's the Aussies and the Yanks who are running the air ops into Aceh. We have people working and sleeping on the tarmac, surrounded by bugs, mud, stench and death, who every day bring in U.S. and Aussie C-130s and the U.S. choppers...We have no fancy aid workers' retreat... People are dying and what's the first thing the UN wants to do? Set up a camp for relief workers, one that would be 'fully self contained, with kitchen, food, lodging, everything."


On Jan. 4th, another UN assessment team arrived in Aceh, the Diplomad reported. It's purpose is to coordinate the activities of the other assessment teams, and to "coordinate all military assistance because the military do not have experience in disaster relief."


What chutzpah. As of Jan. 4th, the UN had yet to feed a single refugee. "Nobody wants to be 'coordinated' by the UN," the Diplomad said. "The local UN reps are getting desperate. "They've flown in more UN big shots to lecture us all on the need to work together, i.e., let the UN take credit. With (UN Secretary General) Kofi (Annan) about to arrive for a big conference, the UNocrats are scrambling to show something, anything, as a UN accomplishment."


Early last month, Democratic party foreign policy big shots held an "intervention" with Annan in the Manhattan apartment of Richard Holbrooke, who had been UN ambassador during the Clinton administration. They backed Kofi and the UN, but were concerned that the oil for food scandal, and the coverup of sexual harassment by one of Annan's top aides were tarnishing the UN's image.


The advice these worthies gave Annan was, essentially, to put more lipstick on the pig. Better public relations, more meetings with officials in Washington.


If bureaucracy and BS could fill an empty stomach, the UN could feed the world. To the chattering classes, what matters is not the good deed, but who gets credit for it.

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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. Comment by clicking here.

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