Monday, December 27, 2004

Here it comes - the UN weenies are complaining that the US is "stingy"

While the USA and other nations are sending in relief supplies, emergency workers, and funds for the aid of the tsunami victims, back at United Nations headquarters in New York, Jan Egeland, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, opened his piehole:
In a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York, Egeland called for a major international response -- and went so far as to call the U.S. government and others "stingy" on foreign aid in general.

"If, actually, the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of the gross national income, I think that is stingy, really," he said. "I don't think that is very generous."
It's a massive natural disaster and the kleptocrats at the United Nations want to whine about foreign aid "in general."
Egeland said that in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, politicians 'believe that they are burdening the taxpayers too much and that the taxpayers want to give less. That's not true. They want to give more."
What's stopping them from making private contributions? And when you write that check to United Nations, don't forget to add some extra for handling, because they love to handle it.

UPDATE: Here's the UN News Centre report. It was a regular herd of bloviating bureaucrats! Ruud Lubbers was even there and hopefully kept his hands off female staff members. And while the report tactfully doesn't mention the "stingy" remark, it does have this gem:
Adding his condolences to those of other UN officials, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States Anwarul K. Chowdhury said the catastrophe “highlights the vulnerability” of such nations to these events.

Mr. Chowdhury, who is Secretary-General of next month’s UN International Meeting on Small Island Developing States, which will be held in Mauritius, urged affluent countries to work together to support small island States as they try to recover from natural disasters such as the tsunami that struck southern Asia and to cope with the effects of climate change.
He managed to work in Global Warming! But I would like to have a title like Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.