Doc's Talk: The UN's Gravy Train to Iran

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The UN's Gravy Train to Iran

Joseph Klein
FrontPageMagazine.com
6/17/2008

The United Nations Development Program (“UNDP”) is the largest of the UN’s bureaucratic programs, controlling as much as $5 billion of the $20 billion plus budget of the entire UN system. The U.S. is the biggest contributor to the UNDP, with annual contributions of over $100 million. However, since the UNDP coordinates the funding of many other UN development-related programs as well, the actual amount of U.S. funds controlled by the UNDP is much higher. At the same time, the UNDP is one of the most scandal-ridden of the UN’s agencies, which takes some doing. There is simply no transparency in how the United Nations Development Program spends our money. The UNDP has an administrative procedure that allows for cash transfers directly to governments to implement much of its programs, with some cash transfers going to some of the world’s worst human rights abusing and terrorist sponsoring states. For example, an investigation of the UNDP’s activities in North Korea, which the UNDP first commissioned and then tried to hobble when it was getting too close to the truth, just recently concluded that the UN agency was in bed with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong II to a far greater extent than it had previously acknowledged.

The UNDP has refused to cooperate with any truly independent audit of its activities in North Korea. Nevertheless, even the internal investigation it permitted managed to find that at least $20 million was transferred from the UNDP directly to the North Korean regime for so-called development projects – more than twice as much as the UNDP had previously owned up to. The report also found that the UNDP had enabled North Korea to use UN-affiliated accounts to launder money and to import dual-use technology involving items that were “controlled by the U.S. for national security and anti-terrorism reasons” without obtaining a required U.S. export license.[1]

This report follows on the heels of other troubling investigations. One involved the UNDP’s operations in Russia, where an audit found extensive fraud at the UN office in Moscow. Another audit of the UNDP’s global procurement practices found no real controls with respect to vetting of the firms the UNDP is doing business with. For example, the UNDP does not ask new vendors for the identity of their owners or other corporate ties. It does not have an effective system for cross-checking its vendors with UN terrorist sanctions lists.

In light of this scurrilous record, it is shocking to find out how much the United Nations Development Program is currently involved in supporting the rogue terrorist sponsoring regime in Iran. The UNDP alone has been directly providing the Iranian regime with an average of $7 million per year of largesse for the last three years. Including both the regular and extra budgetary resources of the UNDP and all of its partner UN agencies, funds and programs coordinated by the UNDP under the umbrella known as the United Nations Development Assistance Framework, the targeted amount of resources expected to be made available to the Iranian regime during the 2005 – 2009 timeframe is $177 million.[2] And this is just what the UNDP admits to in its public documents!

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Iranian government, manages all external aid and carries overall responsibility for the coordination of the UNDP’s program in Iran. This is the same ministry whose chief told the UN Security Council last year that no UN sanctions can make the Iranian nation retreat from its nuclear enrichment program. The United Nations Development Program is helping to make his words come true.

While Iran flouts the current UN Security Council sanctions resolutions meant to deter its nuclear ambitions, the United Nations Development Program is actively aiding Iran to obtain potential dual-use technology. It is doing so by enabling, in its own words, the “transfer of knowledge in science and technology through technology-based services”, programs to “improve technological capacity in industries”, and “joint international research projects”. The transfer will include “advance processing technologies and innovative system design.”[3] There is no mention of any limitations on the types of technology eligible for transfer under the UNDP’s auspices, nor of any mechanisms that the UNDP has in place to effectively monitor whether the technology is being used by the Iranian government to enhance its military capacity or whether Iran will further share the technology with the terrorist organizations that the regime sponsors.

For example, the United Nations Development Program, the World Health Organization and UNESCO have partnered with the Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology, an innocent sounding scientific group. However, it turns out that, according to Iran Watch, the Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology has been listed by the Japanese government as an entity of concern for biological, chemical and nuclear weapon proliferation. It was identified by the British government as having procured goods and/or technology for weapons of mass destruction programs. And it has reportedly acted as a front for the purchase of fungus from Canada and Netherlands for producing toxins.

The UN development bureaucrats are also moving to prop up Iran’s economy, observing in the UN Development Report on Iran cited below that the relative wealth enjoyed by the country due to its vast oil and gas reserves needs to be “translated into stronger economic performance in the long term.” The UN development bureaucrats plan that “the UN system will lend its support to the Iranian Government” by working to improve Iran’s “economic performance and management.” The goal is to increase Iran’s real economic growth by 8% per annum and to increase gross investment by 12.2% per annum.

To achieve these objectives, the United Nations Development Program is working hand in glove with the Iranian regime to strengthen its export, import and production capacities and to help its accession to the World Trade Organization. The UNDP’s extensive activities on the Iranian regime’s behalf, and the hard currency being pumped into Iran’s economy by the UNDP and its affiliated UN agencies, are operating at total cross-purposes with the ongoing efforts by the UN Security Council and Western democracies to isolate Iran from the international financial community. They are sabotaging such efforts to apply increasing pressure on Iran’s economy as leverage to induce Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment program.

Another of the ways that the United Nations Development Program has said that it intends to help Iran’s economy is to partner with its biggest carmaker, Iran Khodro, which builds cars and commercial vehicles for domestic use and for export.

Khodro is doing fine enough on its own as the largest auto manufacturer in the Middle East, having forged lucrative partnerships with French, German and Chinese auto firms. Over the past ten years, Khodro has enjoyed an annual growth rate of 23 percent and has been manufacturing more than 650,000 cars.

However, it is not the fact that Khodro can prosper without any help from the UNDP that is so disturbing, although the European firms that are doing business with Khodro should reconsider how their private self-interest is conflicting with their governments’ stance against the Iranian regime. Rather, what is disturbing are Khodro’s reported links to Iran’s military and its relationships with two terrorist sponsoring rogue states, Syria and Sudan. These nefarious links and relationships should have given the UNDP pause if it were not intending all along to undermine the economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council, the United States and the European Union.

Iran’s Executive Director Manuchehr Manteqi was reportedly a Brigadier General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps during the 1990’s and has served as a senior official of Iran’s Defense Industries Organization.[4] According to Iran Watch, Khodro was listed by the German government as a risky end-user in warnings supplied to its exporters in 2004.

Khodro has publicly stated that it plans to use Sudan as a base for wide export of its products, working directly with Sudan’s defense ministry.

The United Nations Development Program hypes its ‘good governance’ agenda as a rationale for cooperating so extensively with the Iranian regime. Improved economic conditions will go hand in hand with measures to lessen corruption and increase openness, the UNDP propagandists tell us. The precise opposite has occurred. There is more political repression than ever in Iran. And when a member of the Iranian General Audit Office had the nerve recently to claim that “a mafia-style group of mullahs” is “plundering the country and sending the proceeds to foreign banks” he was promptly arrested by the secret police, presumably on orders from “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei.[5] There can be little doubt that the mullahs have their eyes on the UNDP-sponsored jackpot of $177 million flowing into Iran’s coffers.

The United Nations Development Program is aiding and abetting the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions and terrorist activities by enabling the transfer of potential dual-use technology to Iran. And it is strengthening the statist economy with unaccountable infusions of money to the regime’s government, and ultimately to the mullahs, to do with as they wish.

Except for the most limited form of emergency humanitarian relief, the United Nations Development Program and its partner UN agencies must be removed from Iran immediately. Their gravy train of money, technology and knowledge transfer to the Iranian regime must be stopped.

[1] The U.N.’s North Korea Chutzpah by Melanie Kirkpatrick, The Wall Street Journal (June 12, 2008).

[2] Islamic Republic of Iran United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2005-2009 (September 15, 2004) (“UN Development Report”).

[3] Id.

[4] Military Industries in the Islamic Republic of Iran: An Assessment of the Defense Industries Organization (DIO), Prepared for the United States Air Force Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio (May 1996).

[5] Jailed for Outing the Mullah Mafia by Amir Taheri, New York Post (June 13, 2008).
Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk