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Kofi Wants More UN Security Council Members
Slightly EFL
Hoping to use the Iraq crisis to get control of the oil fields once more kick-start the stalled process of overhauling the United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan today suggested enlarging the Security Council to make it more representative of 21st-century geopolitical realities. Acknowledging that this issue has been simmering for more than a decade, he said: "I think the Iraqi crisis brought this to the fore. But in tackling it this time, I hope we will be much more creative and much more daring, and look at the issue in a broader context."
We're relevant, really!
While more specific proposals will be unveiled in his speech to the General Assembly in two weeks, Mr. Annan indicated that he would favor expanding the number of permanent Council members, now five nations, each with veto power, and the elected membership, 10 countries serving staggered two-year terms.
"Besides, I've got these worthless idiot cousins I keep promising a job...."
In a report issued shortly before the news conference, Mr. Annan said the decisions of the Security Council increasingly "lack legitimacy in the eyes of anyone with a pulse the developing world, which feels that its views and interests are insufficiently represented among the decision makers." He added, "Legitimacy of action, which may include military action if approved by France, is essential to ensuring durable solutions to the security needs of our time." "Repetitive and sterile debates often crowd out the items that really matter," he said in the report. "Decisions can often be reached only on a lower-common-denominator basis and, once reached, command little or no attention beyond the confines of the General Assembly chamber."
For once, he said something hard to argue with.
| And then he proposed adding more people to chat? |
The backdrop of his report was not only the current Iraq crisis, but the sense that threats like terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, usually handled by the armed forces of the US, UK, Australia, Spain, Poland, Denmark Security Council, had unreasonably overshadowed threats like poverty and the lack of oil money going to the UN now that Sammy?s gone AIDS epidemic.
I hope I got all of the Coalition of the Willing's names in the last paragraph. My apologies if I missed one of them.
Posted by: Baba Yaga 2003-09-10 |
