Kofi Annan has provided abundant evidence of what kind of man he is. He is not cooperating with the Oil—for—Food investigation, telling his employees not to testify before the US Congress, called the Iraq War "illegal" thereby interfering with President Bush's re—election effort. Now, he sends his pesonal envoy Lakhdar Brahimi (a man who has boasted that he has never shaken hands with a Jew) to pay homage to Hezbollah, the terror organization dedicated to killing Jews and exterminating Israel. The New York Sun's invaluable Benny Avni reports:

Secretary—General Annan's personal envoy yesterday paid his respects to Syria's and Iran's allies in Lebanon after attending the funeral of slain opposition leader Rafik Hariri Wednesday, which turned into a huge demonstration against the Syrian occupation.

The most controversial of Lakhdar Brahimi's courtesy calls was with the leader of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, Sheikh Mohamed Hussein Fadlallah, who was described yesterday by U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard merely as "a senior Shiite cleric."

The designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization has become part of the latest trans—Atlantic rift, with Washington pressuring the European Union to add the Iranian and Syrian—backed organization to its list of terror groups. At a meeting in Paris just prior to Hariri's assassination on Monday, Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom failed to convince President Chirac to do so.

Mr. Brahimi, a longtime U.N. aide and a former Arab League official, is no stranger to pro—Syrian politics in Lebanon. As the League's representative, in fact, he was responsible for securing the 1989 TAIF accord, which has served as Syria's pretext to continue its occupation of Lebanon ever since.

Why doesn the United Nations have any moral legitimacy in the eyes of any civilized people?

Ed Lasky  2 18 05