Say Anything Blog

This would be an ineteresting strategy.

The US should immediately pledge a very sizable amount of money to the UN for tsunami relief. (The first three thoughts I had were half a billion, a billion, and to match dollar-for-dollar the amounts three or so leading US charities raise privately for the cause, just to show what the American people can and will do on their own.) Just take the money and give it straight to the UN, then quietly sit back and watch like a hawk just what happens to that money.

If virtually every penny goes to helping the victims, that's wonderful. We will have shown the world that we can work with the international community, and taken a huge lead in helping recover from this tragedy. We will have shown that we can rise above our previous disputes with UN officials when the need is there and done what few other nations have both the ability and inclination to do.

But if the UN reverts to its kleptocratic nature and healthy portions of the money are skimmed off, disappear into corrupt individuals' pockets, is channeled into favored parties and corporations, is flagrantly wasted, or is in any other way used for anything BUT helping the tsunami victims, we will have been handed a huge moral club to beat the corrupt swine that currently hold the reins of the United Nations. Those who are pushing for reforms at the UN will be strengthened with irrefutable proof that the UN is little more than an effete gang of petty crooks.

And those bomb-throwers who want the US out of the UN (and the UN out of the US) --� whom every day I find less and less extremist, and more and more pragmatic --� will be given the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

Of course, we'd have to make sure that the US politicians who are charged with watching the UN "like a hawk" are trustworthy as well. Perhaps if we used the same US politicians who are heading up the oil-for-food investigation"

Regardless, it would definetly put us in a "win-win" situation where the UN is either forced to acknowledge that the US does plenty to help the rest of the world or show us just how corrupt they can be.