A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary
Next Left: “Found these Harper’s Index factoids quite humbling: “Annual cost of all sixteen U.N. peacekeeping missions currently underway: $3,870,000,000 [United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (N.Y.C.)]; Monthly cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq: $4,100,000,000.” That is annual vs. monthly cost.”
Radio News America: “The “United Nations Reform Act of 2005” masquerades as a bill that will cut U.S. dues to the United Nations by 50 percent if that organization does not complete a list of 39 reforms. On the surface, any measure that threatens to cut funding to the United Nations seems very attractive, but do not be fooled: in this case, reform “success” will be worse than failure.”
Stygius: “Steve Clemons is back from the McCain-Frist press conference. Mainly, it was just a political gambit to try and get the nomination moving, even though Frist won’t say when he’ll bring it to a vote. But there was nothing that was new in and of itself. Frist’s line, supposedly bolstered by having McCain at his side, is that Democrats keep “moving the goal posts” on the information requests, which is stalling the vote. This is nonsense, of course; Democrats have actually been conceding territory over the past few weeks.”
Talking Points Memo: “Given the central role of Ahmed Chalabi in ‘unearthing’ documents which triggered the UN oil-for-food scandal, can someone tell me why the New York Times still has Judith Miller covering the story? I’d actually like to follow what’s happening in these investigations. But if you know any of the history of the last five years it’s simply impossible to read Miller’s articles on this subject and have any confidence that what you’re reading is anything that, by any measure, can be considered the straight story.”