Iran backs Khatami to replace Kofi Annan at UN

Rikki | September 18, 2004 8:33 AM

What a huge mistake it would be to let this man take such an important position, Iran, the heart of islamic jihad infiltrating what was once one of the planets great forces.

It would be sheer lunacy to give him any position in the UN, mind you we've already seen Libya join the UN, are we now about to see another histiric fuck-up.
I don't know whether this is just a religious equality statement to show the UN isn't prejudiced against islam (which actually shows how sightless it is), but I think the UN is far too important to be experimenting (in science at school experiments using the wrong chemicals can be fatal).

Iran is too babaric and unstable a country to have anyone within the confines of it's government as a representative of a force that exists only to keep the planet safe from such tyranical states and regimes.

Ali Dashti | September 18, 2004 8:44 AM

Personally, I find it somewhat disturbing the way China now seems to OPENLY support Iran and the Islamofascists. I know Huntington was dismissed as being paranoid when talking about a possible Chinese-Islamic alliance against the West and the democratic world, but I'm not so sure:

China supports NAM position on Iran nuke

China’s ambassador to the 35-member International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors has warned the ambassadors of the European big three that Beijing supports the views of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) nations in regard to Iran’s nuclear program, an informed source at the Vienna-based nuclear agency told the Mehr News Agency. The source, who requested anonymity, said that the adoption of such an official and strong position by China is unprecedented, adding that it seems that China has been disturbed by the politically-motivated tough position toward Iran’s nuclear program adopted by Britain, Germany, and France. Unofficial sources in Vienna said on Tuesday that China has warned Washington that it would veto any decision on Iran if the Iran’s nuclear dossier is forwarded to the UN Security Council under any political or non-technical pretexts.

China admits to nuclear cooperation with Iran

China today for the first time admitted to having cooperated with the Tehran regime on its nuclear program. Zhang Huazhu, the Chinese deputy minister in charge of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, acknowledged that in the period between the late 1980s and early 1990s China cooperated with Iran in developing nuclear technology. Zhang stressed that Beijing had insisted that Iran should not transfer nuclear technology to any other country without prior Chinese consent.

Ali Dashti | September 18, 2004 8:46 AM

News about Iran:

http://www.apostatesofislam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=661

http://www.iranfocus.com/

http://www.daneshjoo.org/cgi-bin/messageboard/ikonboard.cgi

http://www.activistchat.com/

http://iranfilter.com/

http://www.radiofarda.com/en_default.aspx

http://www.payvand.com/news/

http://www.iranmania.com/

http://aoij.org/english/

Joe Bananas | September 18, 2004 9:03 AM

Katami may be the best thing to happen to the UN, because then the US will definelty walk out on it along with a string of other countries, and then it can be renamed, or turned into a soup kitchen.

obl r us | September 18, 2004 9:10 AM

Why are their totalitarian (atrocity committing) countries in the UN Commission on Human Rights at all... what a perverse comedy. That Commission is in the old League of Nations building... and it is doing just as bad a job as the league of nations. The UN is just an expression of its constituents wishes ... if all its constituents were dictorships the UN would be spending all its time doing evil. THe UN ONLY does good because of the votes of its constituent democracies. I think the day a radical Islamic jihadist becomes Secretary Genral would be the day the UN dies. Then it would be time for the democracies to get out and form their own body. The french may get in the way at times but I think history shows we can trust in the people to make better decisions than clerics and despots. I am tired of the arab league proping up (in the UN and out of it) genocidal regimes like the sudanese government. It is one of the most sickening things in the world to watch.

epg | September 18, 2004 10:07 AM

The U.N. lost its credibility a long time ago and has been dying for many years. It's instructive to watch what happens to a body that is taken over by Islamists. I'm sure that they were hoping to use the U.N. to implement and enforce the precepts of the Caliphate. LOL

Hugh | September 18, 2004 10:17 AM

How silly. Kofi Annan is doing a splendid job for the Iranians, the Sudanese, the "Palestinian" people right now. He is really the best candidate any devout Muslim could wish for -- please, he should be left in place. Tariq Ramadan thinks so. Gilles Kepel thinks so. Dominique de Villepin, poet and star of world-stage and screen, thinks so. Jacques Chirac, counting his loot from the Gulf, delivered by Rafik from Lebanon, thinks so. Edward Mortimer, that admirer of Khomeini ("quite the most glorious morning in the history of mankind"), that hater of Israel (see his glowing review of Lonni Brenner's book describing a "Nazi-Zionist" collaboration), and Director of Communications at the U.N., sometimes calling himself a "Senior Advisor" to Kofi Annan, certainly thinks Annan is doing his best to keep the U.N. safe for the Islamintern International.

Sometimes people just don't know how good they have it. The U.N. is not only a world center of vilification of Israel (possibly 1/3 of its time is spent on a country that is little bigger than Connecticut, comprising 0.2% of the total land area of the 22members of the Arab League), and a place where the relentless Jihad against that country has been, over 35 years, cleverly reframed as one of "two tiny peoples" and "two nationalisms" and all the rest of it. No, the U.N. is the place where nothing serious has been done about the Muslim Arabs in the Sudan killing 2 million animist and Christian blacks in the southern Sudan, and now, with that campaign temporarily on hold, have turned their full attention to killing "mawalis" or non-Arab Muslims in Darfur. It is the place where nothing was done about Saddam Hussein's killing of 182,000 Kurds (why would the Arab League want anyone to do something about that?). It is the place where the war of the Christian Ibo to protect themselves from the Jihad (Col. Ojukwu's accurate description) received not the slightest support (and curious, isn't it, that the only two countries to recognize Biafra were Israel, and --- Ghana, for whatever his marxisant sillinesses, Osagefyo, Kwame Nkrumah, understood, and therefore took a dim view, of Islam, the very Ghana in which Kofi Annan was born). It is the place where nothing was done to protect the East Timorese first from the Indonesian seizure of their territory once the Portuguese left,and then proceeded to kill 200,000 Christian East Timorese.

No, the only time the U.N. has ever acted against a Muslim or Arab state is when it acted against Saddam Huseein. And the only reason for that was that other Arab Muslim states had been invaded (Kuwait) or threatened (Saudi Arabia). It had nothing to do with the massacres of Kurds or others inside Iraq. The American government is now represented by the admirable John Danforth. He should articulate the real problem, which is far larger than the constant attacks on Israel. It is the turning of the U.N. into a forum where the chief problem in the world today, the distempers arising from Jihad, and from a Muslim world full of people who resent the fact that they are not dominating the world, as they believe they should, are determined to inflict their vision on others -- and in many ways, through such suicidal follies as immigration, and the Euro-Arab Dialogue in Europe, have managed to get away with it.

That kissing has to stop.

Leave Annan in place, foolish and obnoxious and pretentious as he is. But treat the U.N. with the contempt -- not that it always deserved -- but that, over the past few decades, it has earned. This is not the U.N. that Rene Cassin or Eleanor Roosevelt worked for. This is not the U.N. that might once have been a place to take your children on a visit to New York City -- in 1953, or 1957. No, this is a place that has become an obstacle, to the democratic nations, and like the Lord Hawhaws and Tokyo Roses of BBC World Service, or Jacques Chirac, handmaidens to the Jihad, in all of its manifestations.

Morgane | September 18, 2004 4:37 PM

Kofi Annan left it late before [deliberately] I believe] coming out to declare Iraq war 'illegal'.
He and his supporters want to damage Bush's chances of Re-election of course. As for China's agenda, it is not quite as baffling as it seems since all leaders of countries want to stay in power. Why does Russia supply nuclear know how to
Iran, why does America reward Pakistan with billions in aid; answer for Russia is hard cash,answer for U S it needs an ally on Afghanistan border also to be able to watch if P's
nuclear arsenal were to fall into Al Quaeda hands..??
China keeps an iron grip on 20 million Muslims : their demographic rate is falling replaced by Han
Chinese. Believe China's ultimate intention is World Domination, not by Religion [Leadership are Atheists] but by trade and influence[force of arms not ruled out of course - look at Taiwan/Tibet.] Way China is surging ahead in trade, this is not an impossible goal.
Worry about America is, that Iraqi War will weaken its status of Superpower if it goes on too long. Britain exhausted itself in WW11 after holding an Empire.
Re: U N read USELESS.Should be scrapped.

susan_b | September 19, 2004 1:15 AM

This is an excellant article on Kofi Annan and in my humble opinion explains the move for Khatami to go for the position of Secretary General.

FREEDOM ALLIANCE
www.freedomalliance.org/view_article/php?a_id=355

LOOK AT IT THIS WAY
Scandals Engulf the United Nations
by Thomas Kilgannon

It is a scandal of major proportions and an historic breach of trust by an insitiution which portends to be the world's best hope for the advancement of human rights. Yet, the multi-billion dollar scandal involving the United Nation's Oil for Food program is receiving only scant attention from the media. That will change once investigations by the UN, the Iraqi national Congress(INC) and the House International Relations Committee commence.

After years of UN sanctions adversely affected the people of Iraq instead of the intended target-Saddam Hussein's regime-the food for oil program was implemented in 1995. Through it, the UN was entrusted to sell Iraqi oil and use the proceeds to buy food and medicine for Iraqis who were being starved and neglected under Saddam's rule.
Instead , humanitatian needs were ignored and the program-either through ineptness, corruption or both-became a magnet for terrorists, criminals, and people of ill repute of all stripes.

Charges of corruption in the program lingered for years, but it wasn't until the Iraqi newspaper, al Mada published a report two months agoexposing the scam and listing 270 individuals, companies and former politicians who were allegedly in on it, that anyone noticed.

Benon Sevan, who ran the Oil-for-Food program, and reported to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, is among those believed to have profited from illegal oil sales. Sevan has denied any wrongdoing. There have also been questions raised about a possible conflict of interest involving Kojo Annan and Cotecna, a Swiss firm which employed the Secretary General's son and which was contacted by the UN to do work on behalf of the Oil for Food program. Kojo Annan has denied any conflict.

The corruption of the Oil for Food program is immense. The General Accounting Office reports that through a combination of smuggling and illegal surcharges on oil sales, Saddam's regime stole over $10 billion under the watchful eyes of the UN managers. Last year, the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency examined a sample of the Oil for Food contracts and found nearly half of them were overpriced to the tune of $656 million.

While the UN and the INC will confine their investigations to the corruption surrounding the Oil for Food program, Henery Hyde's International Relations Committee would do well to use the Oil for Food scandal as a starting point for investigating the broader charges of corruption and mismanagement at the United Nations.

This week, while Kofi Annan tried to downplay the fallout of the Oil for Food scandal, he was forced to address the lack of security which allowed the August 19,2003 car bombing at UN headquarters in Iraq which killed 22 people. A report on the incident was "seriously deficient" and managers on the scene "displayed profound lack of responsibility and ineptitude...bording on gross negligence."

Sounds pretty bad_and it is. Yet, Kofi Annan saw fit to only fire one person-Tun Myat, the head of global security. The head of security in Baghdad, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, was allowed to transfer to the World Food Program. Annan also refused to accept the resignation of Louise Frechette, his deputy secretary-general, and laid much of the blame for deficient security at the feet of somebody who is no longer able to defend himself-Sergio Vieira de Mell, Kofi Annan's personal representative in Iraq, who was killed in the blast.

Over the tears, the United Nations and its various programs have been accused of mismanagement or corruption. In part it is because the United Nations maintains bloated staff levels with over-paid bureaucrats and refuses to submit to an independent audit. Though the United States provides nearly a quarter of the UN budget, only about seven percent of the UN'S staff are Americans.
Much of the organization operates secretly, drags its feet before releasing information to the press and the public and has little accountability.

The press corps are like a flock of sheep, largely writing what they are fed by Kofi Annan and his spokesman. They do not hold the same healthy skepticism of power, government and bureaucracy that Washington, D.C. press corps does.

There is little or no oversight in the UN. Though Annan will say he reports to the General Assembly, too many of those countries are lead by dictators, terrorists, human rights abusers, or petty thugs-hardly a constituency that demands excellence in government.

Yes, Henry Hyde's committee should ask how the Oil for Food program was corrupted and who is to blame, but the most important question is, "How much more money do American taxpayers have to invest in this corrupt institution and for how long?"

Hopefully, the answers to those questions are "none" and "not for long".

Sorry about the long post, but it illistrates a couple of points, 1. the move on Iran's part to get their man in the position of Secretary General, because Annan is about to go once this investigation really takes off and they would lose a "Good Friend"
which means 2. they would then in most likelyhood have to come clean about the nuke program they have going.
3. Annan has done nothing to help Isreal, anyone else in that position may think differently and if Iran can get their man in there, they may then be in a position to try to force Isreal to disclose what sort of arsenal they have, which Isreal has never admitted to having.

this is how I see it.

susan_b | September 19, 2004 1:16 AM