Sunday, January 17, 2010

The Continuing Incompetence of the UN

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In the immediate hours after the devastating earthquake struck in Port-au-Prince, I paid close attention to how things ramped up and where the first response would come from. I knew the answer but thought maybe, just this once, the UN would actually live up to what their responsibilities. I was wrong of course.

The US military was put on alert and the USS Carl Vinson was dispatched to the region. The Marines and Army were tasked with the job of securing the airport so that relief flights could begin and the Air Force begin shipping supplies as soon as they could load. them. President Obama ordered a quick response and our men and women did what they've always done; left their families to help those in need.

NGO's such as Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross ramped up fund raising efforts to meet the costs and demands and urban search and rescue teams from cities such as New York were organized and sent to assist in rescue efforts. Church groups who do the grunt work mobilized with hands-on assistance and money to alleviate what suffering they could.

While all this was happening, not once did I hear the letters UN muttered or see a single blue helmet on the streets of Haiti. All I've heard is the UN telling the US they want more when they themselves have had a presence on the island for decades and things have gotten progressively worse. Ban Ki-moon is going today and will only get in the way much as Hillary Clinton has done with her ill-advised photo-op. I say to them; take a step back and let the professionals handle it.

We are starting to see a response from other nearby nations whose communist leaders are hailed by American leftists such as Castro and Chavez but nothing that could rival what we do. Where for that matter are the Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia and Indonesia who not long ago suffered a catastrophe on the same scale?

It's always Americans--our people, corporations and military--who respond without thinking twice. They give knowing that we can make a difference where no other nation can. It's events like this that just increase my level of pride in this nation and assuage the recently declining notion feeling that we are a country that is exceptional.

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