getting a piece of the action

When it comes to providing aid to the victims of the recent Asian earthquake/tsunami, it appears that the United Nations is more concerned about getting its "piece of the action" than making sure that victims get aid in the most expeditious manner possible. How else to explain the following comments in response to President Bush's initiative in creating a groups to coordinate efforts consisting of the US, Japan, India and Australia.

"“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.”"

Of course, the most recent major effort undertaken by the United Nations is the Iraqi "Oil for Food" program from which billions of dollars were improperly taken. With Oil for Food now only a fond memory of UN bureaucrats due to Saddam Hussein's fall from power, one can see how the UN would love to replace it with another major program from which a bit of "vig" can be extracted.

President Bush is to be commended for not using the UN under the present circumstances. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is supposedly having the Oil for Food program invesigated but at a pace that is even slower than the CBS investigation of Dan Rather. Perhaps if the United States stopped participation in all UN aid programs until the Oil for Food problems are disclosed and resolved, some action might be forthcoming.