Friday, June 29, 2007

Revenge served lukewarm

There is one crucial detail missing from this otherwise comprehensive New York Times story detailing the response of the United Nations Development Programme to charges that its aid program in North Korea has wasted money -- charges at least partially based, it seems, on fabricated documents.

Because the head of that program, Ad Melkert, has been in the sights of the neocons arising from his role as chairman of the World Bank's ethics committee when the dodgy Paul Wolfowitz deal went down (e.g. this tirade from, who else, Christopher Hitchens). Indeed many of the neocons believe that Melkert was the source of leaks to the media, and have made him the scapegoat for Wolfie's own lapses in judgement. Incidentally, Wolfie's new job is with the American Enterprise Institute. Birds of a feather.

Incidentally, the same grudge against the UNDP is evident in the emerging neocon War on Browns, triggered by Gordon's appointment of Mark Malloch Brown, former UNDP head, to a ministerial role (see also Mark Steyn).

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