FINE START
The minor United Nations official who accused the United States of being “stingy” with reference to humanitarian contributions toward world-wide problems could not have picked a better theme to make the New Year a difficult one for the U.N. Organization. What a way to start the bright new and supposedly wonderful of 2005!
Statistics have been flowing freely since the moment he said that word :”stingy”. It is being quoted extensively both in and out of context and it can only do harm to a UN reputation which many people consider million to be in tatters and tangled shreds anyway. Just when the oil-for-food rumpus was quieting down a bit this disquieting voice pipsqueaks a petty accusation and lights the anti-UN flame in the hearts and minds of thousand of critics.
The League of Nations suffered the same slings and arrows after World War I. That organization, however, was officially located in Switzerland and, since it was powered from afar it was easier for us to say we were not going to have much to do with it and its ingrown problems. We used our “remote” abilities to dial up only those area which were of interest and concern. Born in California and planted in New York City, the United Nations is a different the of the same flower of potential peace and understanding. Many of those who run it and have ruled in roles of authority in maintaining the Garden of Eden attitude for such a haven for all nations, could have made use some words of Thomas Jefferson. He spoke of himself as being “an old man, but a young gardener.” The care and nurturing of the United Nations has been haphazard and often in the hands of some willing, eager but unqualified,inexperienced “gardeners.”
The rebuttal figure being bandied about claims that we, with only a small percentage of the world's population, give over forty per cent of the humanitarian aid contributed by nations. That's “stingy”? Compared to what? The critic seems to have considered President Bush's initial figure of $35-million as being too low. It was just the beginning and after more estimates of what the gigantic tragedy was going to cost, you will recall, the ope-end sum was set at 350-million dollars. The critic and others who joined him grabbed, from habit at something which seemed to be a political opportunity for their own use. Our President George W. Bush rightly chose to see it in the light of a humanitarian gift to the suffering people of, a least, eleven nations.
A.L.M. January 1, 2005 [c445wds]
