This is my first diary, so I must come clean at the outset! I am not a US citizen (but a Brit), and, as if that weren't bad enough I work as a Public Health Consultant for the much-maligned - in right wing circles at least - United Nations, or more specifically the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
Now I have got those admissions off my chest, I leave it to you to decide whether or not you want to read on. I hope you will!
I have watched with growing dismay the rise of extreme right-wing policies in Washington, which, if carried out according to the Rove agenda for the next four years will draw the rest of the World into a frightening situation that we want nothing to do with.
Furthermore, I believe that it is because the UN has at last shown some resistance to it's wealthiest Member State, that the Bush administration, the hawks in Congress, and several right-wing "special interest groups" are determined to so discredit the UN by half-truth and inuendo, that other Member States will be left with no forum to voice their dissent, and some of the World's poorest people will be further disenfranchised. Our card has been marked ever since Kofi Annan had the courage to declare the US/UK invasion of Iraq as "illegal".
Let me say clearly that every member of the UN staff has received a copy of the Volcker Report, and I know of no-one who does not accept that very serious breaches occurred in the UN's Code of Practice during the Iraq Oil for Food Programme. We want reform, as soon as possible. We also welcome constructive criticism (although not a witch-hunt). But anyone who has read the Report will know that the five permanent Members of the Security Council, including the US were making vast profits from the smuggling of oil during that period. Is it not flagrant hypocrisy therefore, to make the UN the scapegoat?
Especially when one considers that the Member leading the pack is the Member that has defaulted on its assessed contributions to the UN, and its specialized agencies, including WHO/UNICEF for many years?
I am particularly sensitive to the results of this refusal to pay up at the moment, because this afternoon I leave for duty travel (on behalf of WHO/UNICEF) to Ethiopia and Somalia, two of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa whose GDPs barely reach $100 p.a. This mission, to help re-build a basic health-delivery infrastructure in these two countries nearly didn't happen. Our programmes are so cash-strapped, largely because the US owes millions, that we never know until the last minute whether or not alternative funding has been found to enable them to go ahead.
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair (for all his faults, and in my eyes they are many) has iniated a bilateral donor/recipient Commission for Africa, which Nelson Mandela has hailed as Africa's "brightest hope". Yet even Blair, who has wantonly acted as a stooge for Bush throughout the immoral fracas that is Iraq, cannot persuade the US to join in.
To those of us on the outside, it seems that the America of today is pre-occupied with just two things: bringing us all to the brink of World War III in its obsession to deal militarily with "none-too-tangible" perceived threats from all over the World; and satisfying corporate greed, irrespective of the cost to the rest of us.
I was a post-grad student at Johns Hopkins, and I know from first-hand just how warm-hearted and generous American people from all walks of life can be. I certainly look back on my years in the Chesapeake Bay area with affection and thanfulness. So what has happenned? How has it been possible to whip up such a maelstrom of unjustified fear in the Nation's collective psyche that there is no longer a true party of the left in American politics? Nor is there a President who truly wants to engage with his erstwhile allies, as his whistle-stop tour of Europe has shown. Sure, he wants to coerce them into picking up the pieces in Iraq, put the frighteners on Iran and Syria, all the usual negative actions, but he is totally unwilling to work with those same nations through the UN, the International Court, the Kyoto Protocal, the Commission for Africa, in short any initiative which could genuinely make the whole World a safer place.
So in closing, I beg you, fellow members of the Kos community, to raise your personal sights beyond who is running for which congressional seat, and fix them rather on encouraging your fellow-citizens to aspire for an America which instead of alienating the rest of the World, regains its status as a beacon of light and hope to other Nations. I suggest this will involve strong support for a reformed United Nations, and strong support for those men and women running for office who have international vision, and who have not abandoned their Democratic principles. It's asking a lot I know, but for the sake of humanity, please try!