The world should respond to Annan's "emotional farewell" with tears of joy.
The astounding corruption, the human rights abuses, and the shocking incompetence of the UN during Annan's tenure is jaw-dropping.
UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for nations to unite against human rights abuses, religious divisions, brutal conflicts and an unjust world economy in an emotional farewell on Tuesday. But his remarks were overshadowed by a military coup in Thailand and the Iranian president's fiery defense of his country's nuclear program.
Annan's opening address to the 61st annual U.N. General Assembly hit many issues on the ambitious agenda that leaders of the 192 member nations confront — reviving a stalled Mideast peace process, curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions, getting U.N. peacekeepers into conflict-wracked Darfur and promoting democracy.
...Annan, whose second five-year term ends on Dec. 31, said the past decade had seen progress in development, security and the rule of law — the three great challenges he said humanity faced in his first address to the General Assembly in 1997.
But the secretary-general said too many people are still exposed to "brutal conflict" and the fear of terrorism has increased the risk of a clash of civilizations and religions. Terrorism is being used as a pretext to limit or abolish human rights, and globalization risks driving richer and poorer peoples apart, he said.
"As a result, we face a world whose divisions threaten the very notion of an international community, upon which this institution stands," Annan said. "The only answer to this divided world must be a truly United Nations."
That's hard to achieve when the secretary-general of the UN is an anti-Semitic, terrorist-appeasing, crook.
He also decried the continuing conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region, less than two weeks before the mandate for the African Union peacekeeping force there expires.
"The continued spectacle of men, women and children driven from their homes by murder, rape and the burning of their villages makes a mockery of our claim, as an international community, to shield people from the worst abuses," Annan said.
It takes a lot of nerve for Annan to be lecturing about human rights abuses, given the fact that under his watch the UN engaged in the very behaviors that he decries.
Read just a little about the human rights abuses, the corruption, and the incompetence of the United Nations and its peacekeepers.
UN Peacekeepers Gun Down Congo Civilians
UN Sexual Predators
Oil-for-Food
Food-for-Sex
...Annan's voice rose with emotion as he described his "difficult and challenging but at times also thrillingly rewarding" job.
"Together we have pushed some big rocks to the top of the mountain, even if others have slipped from our grasp and rolled back," the secretary-general said. "I yield my place to others with an obstinate feeling — a real obstinate feeling — of hope for our common future."
The presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, ambassadors and other diplomats in the General Assembly chamber burst into loud applause and rose to give their departing leader a sustained standing ovation.
They should be cheering, jumping for joy, over the fact that in three months Annan will be history.
Annan was less interested in bringing the world together than in advancing his personal agenda.
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