Written by: Beck

Update: The United Nations Foundation was created by Ted Turner and is not, evidently, support by tax money. As such, disregard what I said below about tax money going to pay for blog ads. Worth noting, however, is that the United Nations actually created the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships to coordinate with the UN Foundation. The UNF gets all its information directly from the United Nations; as such, my arguments about the corrupt UN worldview holds, despite the UNF being a quasi-independant foundation. Just to emphasize that the UNF is basically just an adjunct arm of the UN, have a look at their Board of Directors. Three of them are current employees of the UN, and one is the former Director-General of the UN's World Health Organization. Everything written below here was composed prior to spending a good while surfing around the UNF site trying to figure out just who in hell they were--hence some assumptions that the UNF was an actual part of the UN, as opposed to mostly-but-not-one-hundred-percent a part of the UN.

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The rot that lies at the heart of the UN is not just a few bad apples, but rather an institutional mindset pervading every level of the organization in one way or another.

I noticed a blogad at Instapundit pointing to the United Nations Foundation which caught my attention. It's a website for a United Nations organization in which they try to take credit for the successful election in Iraq.

You read that right. They're trying to take credit for the successful election in Iraq. The United Nations Foundation also has a second blogad on Instapundit pointing to a website called Oil-for-Food Facts in which they attempt to justify the whole corrupt, failed, misbegotten program. I may at some point do a post taking apart the whole Oil-for-Food Facts website, as their "facts" are rather "weak" and in some cases just flat out "wrong." Oh, and you'll notice that nowhere on the Oil-for-Food Facts website do they disclose that it was entirely created and supported by the United Nations itself. I wouldn't even know it had they not smeared their logo on the original blogad. Oh, and one last note: these ads on Instapundit are costing the UN somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000. While I don't have a problem with Instapundit making that money (if anything, I'm glad it's going to Instapundit considering how much work Glenn Reynolds has done to shine light on the whole UNSCAM fiasco from the beginning), I do have a problem with my tax dollars going to pay for web advertising. Oh, and they've also taken an ad out on Daily Kos... for $10,000. I actively dislike Daily Kos. But my tax dollars are going to support his website. Fantastic.

Anyway, about the first ad I clicked, the one doing directly to the United Nations Foundation website where they attempt to imply that they deserve the credit for the successful elections in Iraq.

It starts off by quoting Kofi Annan expressing his commitment to the "birth of a new Iraq." Then it goes on to state that its "advisory role" is a "top priority." I bet those Iraqis sure are glad the UN is out there committed to advising them. Makes all the difference.

Then comes a bullet list of significant milestones. The first they can take direct credit for:

Training of Election Workers: UN election experts, both inside and outside of Iraq, trained more than 8,000 Iraqi electoral workers to assist the IECI in conducting a fair and free election. In the run up to the elections, ongoing violence took the lives of 8 of these brave Iraqis.

I'd like to talk to a few of those electoral workers to see just what kind of training they really received and how useful it was. Regardless, if you skim down the bullet list a ways, you come across this tidbit:

Voting in Iraq: Voting took place on January 30th, 2005. The UN helped to recruit and train up to 148,000 poll workers for the 5,300 polling centers and 29,000 polling stations established mostly in government schools and other neutral buildings.

They just stated that they trained 8,000 Iraqi electoral workers. Now they're trying to imply that they trained all 148,000 of the poll workers. Deceptive lying bullshit. That's just the most flagrant example though.

Take their second bullet point under "Election Progress":

Voter Registration: It is estimated that 14.2 million Iraqis registered to vote. To encourage voter participation, Sunnis living in the especially violent cities of Falluja, Ramadi, and Mosul were able to register and vote on the same day and cast ballots anywhere in their province.

Of course, the UN Foundation had nothing to do with voter registration; rather, Iraqi election workers risked life and limb registering voters while the United Nations refused to send anyone for over a year because it wasn't sufficiently safe for them. So just how many UN employees were in Iraq during the election?

UN presence: The Secretary-General has pledged to provide adequate UN staff and resources to Iraq for the election process. There are currently 58 substantive and support staff in Iraq, 22 of whom are elections experts led by Carlos Valenzuela.

Notice the slight-of-hand where they first quote the 58 number, then afterwards append it to note that only 22 of them were, you know, related to the election they're busy claiming credit for? And what did these election experts do? By their own admission, jack & shit:

Election Monitors and Observers: Between party agents and national observers, it is estimated there were more than 55,000 Iraqis monitoring the election. Because the UN provided technical assistance, it could not be a monitoring body.

I once read some business psychology literature which observed that people are actually far more willing to do what you want them to or believe what you're telling them if you simply insert the word "because." Here's a classic example. Because the UN provided technical assistance... it could not be a monitoring body. What the fuck? Is that supposed to be a joke, or some sort of Zen riddle? What is the sounds of one UN Agency obfuscating?

Then you have this:

Candidate lists included mainstream Shiite groups, Sunni Arab groups, and Kurdish groups as well as representatives from other tribes and minority religious sects, showing that groups used the electoral process to form alliances and attract widespread support.

In which I'm fairly sure the UNF is trying to claim credit for Iraq's ethnic diversity. Next up, the UNF announces its plans for the future. Sort of.

The Future Role of the UN in Iraq: Beyond January 30 there is a possible 3-fold role for the UN, according to its mandate including; 1) continued political facilitation with the transition, such as encouraging full inclusiveness; 2) technical assistance in the constitution drafting process; and 3) helping, if asked, in a public information campaign.

A possible role. Yeah. And I might have a possible role in curing cancer. I could do it at any time. If I wanted to. I just haven't made up my mind yet. Finally, in case your intelligence hadn't already been sufficiently insulted, you have a list of three things that the UN has done to contribute to Iraqi "peacebuilding." (Interesting neologism there. I guess they figure they've failed at coalition building and at peace keeping, so maybe they can call it peacebuilding and fail at two things simultaneously. More efficient that way).

Post-War: In July 2003, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a handpicked team to Iraq led by Sergio Vieira de Mello to rebuild peace. Even after the horrific terrorist bombing of the UN building in Baghdad, Mr. Annan sent in his special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to Iraq when requested by the Iraqis and the Coalition Provisional Authority.

What they fail to mention is that after the terrorist bombing of the UN building in Baghdad, Mr. Annan pulled all UN personnel out of Iraq, and none had been back until just before the election--in the nick of time to try to claim credit for its success, but not sufficiently involved to be blamed were it a failure. Next:

Interim period: Under the guidance of Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN helped to build local consensus and form the necessary coalitions within Iraq for a peaceful transition of power from the U.S.-led occupying forces to the current interim government. The UN also played a lead role in the inter-governmental meeting on Iraq in Sharm El Sheikh, which helped strengthen international consensus in support of Iraq’s political transition.

Yeah, that left my head spinning too. The UN helped build a coalition? Gee, and all this time, I never realized that when Kofi Annan explicitly stated that the American led invasion of Iraq was "illegal" that he was actually engaged in coalition building.

Sorry if the sarcasm is getting a bit too strong, but it's necessary to keep my sanity intact while reading through this doublespeak. Finally:

Pre-election: The UN provided support for the formation of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq and the recruitment and training of 900 IECI staff. The Commission is comprised entirely of Iraqis, plus one UN expert who is a non-voting member.

Provided support for the formation. Translation: sat in on some meetings while the real work got done. And I love how they try to make it sound like the UN expert was somehow nobly passing on the right to vote, when the reality of the situation is likely closer to some guy talked his way into some meetings which he then didn't bother to attend.