January 03, 2005

I just found these guys over the weekend and they are doing the best blogging about the tsunami crisis!
(They say they're US Foreign Service officers who are secret Republicans and Bush-lovers!)
I happily added them to the blogroll and I'd bet you'll want to, too, after reading this typical reporting about ongoing U.N. snafus in tsunami-stricken Asia:
The Diplomad: almost fUNnny . . .

Day 9 of the tsunami crisis.
I know I had promised to lay off the UN for a bit . . . but I can't. As one reader commented on a previous Diplomad posting on the UN, "it's like watching a train wreck" -- you know it's horrible, but you've just got to look at it.

In this part of the tsunami-wrecked Far Abroad, the UN is still nowhere to be seen where it counts, i.e., feeding and helping victims. The relief effort continues to be a US-Australia effort, with Singapore now in and coordinating closely with the US and Australia. Other countries are also signing up to be part of the US-Australia effort. Nobody wants to be "coordinated" by the UN. The local UN reps are getting desperate. They're calling for yet another meeting this afternoon; they've flown in more UN big shots to lecture us all on "coordination" and the need to work together, i.e., let the UN take credit. With Kofi about to arrive for a big conference, the UNocrats are scrambling to show something, anything as a UN accomplishment. Don't be surprised if they claim that the USS Abraham Lincoln is under UN control and that President Lincoln was a strong supporter of the UN.
[This after an aborted attempt to get President Bush's Coalition of the Helpful soldiers to wear UN blue helmets!--Jen]
Maybe watching the UN flounder is not like watching a train wreck; perhaps it's more akin to watching an Ed Wood movie or reading Maureen Dowd or Margo Kingston -- so horrible, so pathetic, that it transforms into a thing of perverse beauty. The only problem, of course, is that real people are dying.
I hope soon to return to my habitual corner of the Far Abroad . . . far, far away from the UN.

UPDATE: More on "The UNcredibles": WFP (World Food Program) has "arrived" in the capital with an "assessment and coordination team." The following is no joke; no Diplomad attempt to be funny or clever: The team has spent the day and will likely spend a few more setting up their "coordination and opcenter" at a local five-star hotel. And their number one concern, even before phones, fax and copy machines? Arranging for the hotel to provide 24hr catering service. USAID folks already are cracking jokes about "The UN Sheraton." Meanwhile, our military and civilians, working with the super Aussies, continue to keep the C-130 air bridge of supplies flowing and the choppers flying, and keep on saving lives -- and without 24hr catering services from any five-star hotel . . . . The contrast grows more stark every minute.

I don't know who these Dimplomad guys are, but I'm in love!
And I want to give a shout out to all our fine men and women in uniform and Australia's, also, who are busy being part of the solution and not part of the problem for all those in need "over there," especially all you marvelous "swabbies" from our carrier group USS Abraham Lincoln!
(I love the carriers--and this was the one President Bush landed on, as well. Heh-heh!)
You are marvelous human beings and I'm proud and happy to have you represent my country!


U.S. Navy helicopter crewman at Indonesia's Banda Aceh airport carries an Acehnese man evacuated from a village on Aceh's west coast January 3, 2005.

An evacuated injured woman (C), escorted by her son, is assisted by Second Class Petty Officer Ralph Topete (R) of USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group as they arrive at the Banda Aceh airport, January 3, 2005. Aid workers struggled to help thousands huddled in makeshift camps in Indonesia's northern Sumatra, where two-thirds of the 145,000 killed across the region died, and to reach remote areas after roads and airstrips were washed away. U.S. helicopters began shuttling injured refugees, many of them children, out of some of the worst hit parts of Aceh province, where many towns and villages were wiped out after a December 26 quake and the tsunamis it triggered.

. Lt. Jody Weinstein (R) helps an injured Indonesian woman into a medical evacuation vehicle after she was transported from a coastal village at Banda Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia January 3, 2005. Medical teams from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), Carrier Air Wing Two and the International Organization for Migration set-up a triage site located on Sultan Iskandar Muda Air Force Base, in Banda Aceh. The two teams worked together with members of the Australian Air Force to provide initial medical care to victims of the tsunami-stricken coastal regions where more than 145,000 people have died from the devastating tsunami.

U.S. naval air crewmen assigned to the 'Golden Falcons' of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Two (HS-2), carry a seriously injured Indonesian woman to a waiting helicopter, for transportation to a medical facility, at Banda Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia on January 3, 2005.

As for the UN and any other useless NGOs who are there trying to look benevolent, better get to work or those starving, upset natives might eat you rather than set up the Le Cirque catering you seem to think you deserve!