Critic Watch

In the Washington Post today Colum Lynch reports on the developing world's disquiet with some of Secretary Ban's early moves to re-organize UN bureaucracy. Apparently, some member states worry that Ban is too "pro-American," and are suspicious about whom or what is motivating him.

At today's Congressional hearing, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow John Bolton aired the radical proposal of eliminating the current dues-based system of United Nations funding and replacing it with voluntary, a la carte financing of UN operations. This has been a recurring theme in Bolton's speeches and testimonies for well over a year. And now that he is no longer the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, he seems to be pushing this extremist position with renewed zeal. Before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Bolton testified: "A system of voluntary contributions will allow UN members to judge the effectiveness of the various parts of the UN system, and demand results. Non-responsive programs and funds can be defunded, effective agencies and personnel can be rewarded and augmented, and, most importantly, the crippling mentality of 'entitlement' that pervades the main UN organization will be stripped away." Let's be clear: Bolton's proposal is both deleterious to American interests and dangerous to the millions of people around the globe that depend on the United Nations for their sustenance and security.

On the eve of the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, The Guardian revealed that the American Enterprise Institute was offering $10,000 to scientists to publish studies critical of the panel's findings. This is curious, because as The Guardian reported AEI receives large donations from energy companies who would rather you remain skeptical about the human causes of climate change. Much ink has already been spilled chronicling the intellectual decline of the American Enterprise Institute. Today, the Washington Post adds to the chorus with a story that includes a precious quote from a self-respecting climate change researcher who would not be paid to play with AEI.

To mark the UN's Holocaust Memorial day, Anne Bayefsky writes in the National Review Online that "the U.N. provides sustenance for the Iranian genocidal threat, which is directed at Israel now, and America next." We then learn from Bayefsky that the UN is "driven by expansionist greed" and serves as a "mouthpiece of Iranian nihilism." Finally, she criticizes the International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed elBaredei for having the temerity to suggest that threatening military strikes against Iran may inspire the regime to accelerate its nuclear program. Hence, writes Bayefsky, "Genocide awaits us if we wait for the U.N."

Eric Shawn, the Fox News correspondent and author of (brace yourself) The U.N. Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages America's Security and Fails the World, writes a shockingly even-handed dispatch from Kinshasa, where he traveled with the Secretary General this weekend. From Shawn's report:

A controversy is brewing at the United Nations over allegations that funds from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have benefited the regime of Kim Jong Il in North Korea. Last week, the Wall Street Journal opinion page--often critical of the United Nations--published a report by Melanie Kirkpatrick which revealed contents of a letter from an American UN representative raising concern that UNDP funds were being converted into hard currency to the benefit of North Korea.

Claudia Rosett, who has already declared Ban Ki-moon's "half-life of integrity" to be "less than a week," is trying to gin up controversy about the appointment of the new Deputy Secretary General from Tanzania, Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro.

I've often wondered how Claudia Rosett, the "Journalist in Residence" of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, will cope with Kofi Annan's departure. After all, she has earned her name tarring and feathering a man who is about to abandon his pulpit. Once Annan leaves office, those who actually follow her attempts to stir controversy are sure to lose interest.

One has to question the moral compass of the editors of the National Review Online. In back to back "symposiums" NRO contributors take turns exculpating one of South America's most brutal dictators, then in the next breath brand Kofi Annan the leader of a terrorist organization. On Monday, the National Review ran a series of articles on the legacy of Augusto Pinochet, which as Spencer Ackerman notes, includes a choice contribution from Mario Loyola who argues that the former Chilean dictator "worked hard to protect the bases of a modern progressive democracy." Then, on Tuesday, The National Review uses the outgoing Secretary General's valedictory speech at the Truman Presidential Library to launch a series of attacks on Kofi Annan, culminating in accusations that he is a terrorists' stooge.