THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
--
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA:
A FUTURE "IN LARGER FREEDOM"
Philadelphia, 16 May 2005
Madam President, thank you for those kind words, and thank you on behalf of all my fellow honorees for the degrees you have bestowed on us today.
Fellow Graduates, my wife Nane and I are deeply honoured to join you and your proud families on this happy day. We offer each one of you our warmest congratulations.
But I must admit that I am a bit apprehensive, because I know you are all looking at me and thinking: "There's no way he's going to be as good as Bono!" And you're right: the lead singer of U2 is a hard act to follow.
Fellow Graduates,
You have had a precious opportunity at this great university. You have explored the realm of ideas -- ideas about what is true and false, what is right and wrong, what works and what does not.
As you graduate, a new phase of your life begins. The time has come to put ideas into practice. Indeed, the story of your lives will be the story of your struggle to be true to the ideas you believe in.
It is the same for individual nations, and for our world.
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary
DAILY KOS (Hunter): "There are a great many Republicans out there who are incensed that we aren't talking more about Saddam Hussein's corruption of the Oil for Food program, since his circumvention of oil sanctions was yet another of the ostensible reasons we had to launch a preemptive war. So, fine, let's discuss."
MAJIKTHISE: "I have, on several occasions, promised myself that I would not write any more Bolton posts. The basic issues are clear; anyone who is reading this blog has presumably already made his or her mind up, so why bother? But then some new detail emerges..."
POWER LINE: "[Mark] Steyn's core observation, that "John Bolton's sin is to have spoken the truth about the international system," seems incontrovertible. Steyn agrees with Cliff May that "the real debate is between those who think the U.N. needs reform -- and those who think the U.S. needs reform."
WASHINGTON NOTE: "I'm in Denver for the weekend... Virtually everyone I've met -- from liberal internationalist to classic conservative to hard core libertarian -- thinks that John Bolton is either "damaged goods" at this point or is the wrong person to represent American interests in the U.N."
Selected summary of United Nations related news and events
US, UN share same lofty founding ideals: Annan
U.N., China establish poverty relief center
Oil-for-Food Benefited Russians, Report Says
Major public health issues on agenda at UN meeting in Geneva
UN meeting focuses on collective action to tackle problems in Asia-Pacific region
"U.N. human rights monitors are to be deployed next month in northern Uganda to try to stem rights violations linked to the conflict between the government and the Lords' Resistance Army, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Under an agreement being finalised with the government in Kampala, the monitors will also help train local authorities including police, United Nations human rights spokesman Jose Luis Diaz said." Read more...
Instapundit: "TIM WORSTALL notes a new UN report on Iraqi casualties that's rather at odds with the Lancet report, and wonders why it's not getting nearly as much attention."
Selected summary of United Nations related news and events
Report paints grim picture of Iraqi life
German prosecutor to head UN inquiry into murder of Lebanon's ex-premier
Heat Rises Over Meeting on Climate Change
UNICEF to RP: Address rights violations vs children
UN News Service: "Four Central Asian countries which have suffered a dramatic increase in HIV infection rates in recent years today launched a nearly $27 million project to lessen the human and economic impact of the pandemic ... At a project launch workshop, whose organizers included the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Bank, representatives of the four countries signed agreements for a $25 million grant from the Bank's International Development Association (IDA) and a 1 million pound sterling grant from the Department for International Development (DfID) in the United Kingdom."
Digby: "On the UN Foundation's blog UN Dispatch, Peter Daou took issue with Roger Simon's obsessing over the Oil For Food program, while never having a kind word to say about the good things the United Nations does around the world. The right blogosphere is incensed that he would dare to tell a blogger what he should blog about, and besides the oil for food scandal is, like, really really bad. Now call me crazy, but I seem to remember some wingnuts bleating every five minutes or so about how the news media is obsessing about all the "bad news" in Iraq to exclusion of the "good." It's been their mantra for the last two years as a matter of fact."
Stirling Newberry: "A few days ago [Peter at UN Dispatch] took on Roger Simon, who has been making hay by being the wingnut world's designated repeater on oil for food. Peter Daou caught him grinning at the camera about how many hits it was getting him."
John Cole: "I don't, however, buy into the notion that the UN is fatally flawed. It does do good work, and that should be acknowledged. I have a helluva lot of things I would like them to do, but that would require committments that no one in the world, tragically, appears willing to make. That was part of the reason I believe The UN Dispatch took on Roger Simon.... I have read Roger Simon for a long time, and I am fully convinced he is passionate about UN reform and deeply appalled by the Oil-for-Food scandal."
Ambient Irony: "The UN Dispatch, a blog sponsored by - but in no way representing the opinion of - the United Nations Foundation, has developed an unhealthy fixation on Roger L. Simon."
Not surprisingly, our previous post about Roger L. Simon's hyper-focus on the Oil-for-Food controversy elicited a strong response from the UN's blog critics.
And not unexpectedly, the responses were largely dismissive, derisive, and betrayed a shallow reading of the original post.
Michelle Malkin, Captain Ed, Redstate, Glenn Reynolds, Hugh Hewitt, Pejman Yousefzadeh, and a number of others have weighed in. Here are the main lines of argument, with comments:
1. UN Dispatch is the UN's blog, and the post in question represents the UN's displeasure with Roger Simon.
False. Here's a brief quote from the 'About' section of this blog: "UN Dispatch is sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, though the views expressed herein do not represent the official views of the United Nations Foundation, or the UN."
2. UN Dispatch does nothing to refute Simon's contentions about Oil-for-Food and simply takes issue with his topic selection.
A non-argument. The post is clearly about an examination of why Simon is fixated on the subject, not what he says about it. A March 3rd entry on UN Dispatch quotes Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on Oil-for-Food: "There was wrongdoing at the UN, an organization which must live by the highest ethical standards, and we've got to correct it and root it out."
3. Simon has the right to blog about anything he pleases, whether or not the UN likes it.
Again, this isn't in contention. The point is not to deny Simon the right to post, but to examine his rationale for focusing on a single issue, however significant, to the exclusion of other issues of equal - if not greater - impact. The question seems reasonable considering that most issue-oriented bloggers such as Brad DeLong, Volokh, Juan Cole, etc. have an area of specialization that dovetails naturally with their blogging. In Simon's case, it seemed like a fair question to ask why this particular topic is of signal importance to him.
Finally, an unfortunate reaction from some bloggers is their willingness to simply shrug off the examples of UN-related issues listed in the original post. It's clear that many of these bloggers have become accustomed to knee-jerk attacks and are unwilling (or unable) to engage in a reasoned debate.
For the record, we'll re-post the issues we think warrant attention and let readers decide:
Tackling the threat of transnational organized crime
Shipping supplies to millions of Iraqi schoolchildren
Controlling the Marburg virus
Building thousands of homes for tsunami victims
Partnering with the private sector to meet humanitarian needs
Reducing child mortality rates
Rehabilitating Iraq's marshlands
Eradicating polio
Rebuilding lives in Afghanistan
Fighting the global malaria epidemic
Curbing the world's most hazardous pollutants
Improving global disaster and emergency response
Building a sustainable future