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Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan

"If personal dignity and good intentions are enough to justify a long career, then Kofi Annan deserves all of the plaudits that he's received in the wake of his death at the age of 80.
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But the first line of The New York Times' lengthy and generally laudatory obituary, in which the paper noted that he 'projected himself and his organization as the world's conscience and moral arbiter despite bloody debacles that stained his record as a peacekeeper,' requires a response. The fact that Annan was far from the worst example of those who populated that moral cesspool makes his death an appropriate moment to evaluate the awful failures over which he presided. More than that, a serious discussion of what happened on his watch explains why the entire idea of global institutions has become discredited, despite the continued support it receives from much of the foreign-policy establishment and those associated with the Obama administration.
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Annan believed that his crowning achievement-and something that might perhaps justify the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize he shared with the United Nations as a whole-was a 2005 unanimous U.N. vote to accept the concept of 'the responsibility to protect.'...It was particularly ironic for Annan because it was during his time as the head of U.N. peacekeeping operations that genocides were allowed to happen without the world body or even Western governments that purport to care about the issue lifting a finger to help.
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Annan also was the man who presided over the 'oil for food' scandal-a shocking scam pulled off by his son, Kojo, who traded on his father's prestige in order to profit from crooked deals linked to humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of those who lived in Saddam Hussein's Iraq when it was being sanctioned by the international community for the regime's crimes.
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The same piece points out that Annan also believed he had reformed the United Nations by replacing the corrupt and blatantly anti-Semitic Commission on Human Rights with a new Human Rights Council. The fact that the council turned out to be every bit as bad (if not worse) as the commission it replaced may not be Annan's fault. But it does speak volumes about the illusions that the foreign-policy establishment continues to hold about international institutions of this sort.

That's the worst thing about the plaudits for Annan. Both the U.N. bureaucracy and most of those who claim to be experts on foreign policy tend to confuse their endlessly expressed good intentions about making the world a better or more peaceful place for actually doing things to effectuate those goals..."

Annan's failures explain why the U.N. remains a sad farce Article

"Right of peoples to self-determination," Report of the Secretary-General, A/73/329 Development

UNIFIL peacekeepers near the border between Lebanon and Israel

"The saying that 'insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results' has been attributed to several people over the years, including Albert Einstein. Now, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' latest report on the spectrum of options to help protect Palestinians seems like a perfect illustration of that statement.
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Over the years the Palestinians have been one of the major recipients of international aid; indeed, it has been argued that the Palestinians receive one of the highest levels of aid in the world.
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Needless to say, all the international organizations act as advocates for the Palestinians, and are extremely visible, despite what the UN chief may say.

The idea of civilian observers is also not new in our region. In Hebron, after the 1994 massacre of Palestinians by Baruch Goldstein, a Temporary International Presence in Hebron was established to guarantee the safety and protection of Palestinian civilians. Its mandate was revised over the years and its current one was determined in the Hebron Agreement in 1997, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The force was established to guarantee the safety and protection of Palestinian civilians, the same logic and goals as the one the UN is now suggesting for Gaza. The problems of the one-sided mandate of such organizations can be clearly seen following the recent reports of a TIPH observer slashing tires of an Israeli vehicle, or a video that circulated of an observer slapping an Israeli settler child.

Finally, the idea of a UN military or police force to deter or protect civilians is useless in the Palestinian arena due to the already highly politicized reality. Israel has learned that it cannot depend on international forces like UNIFIL and UNDOF for its security concerns. When things get tough, these forces seem to only focus on Israeli violations, repeatedly failing to gain Israel's faith or confidence in their contribution..."

The U.N.'s Insanity on Gaza Article