Another U.N. scandal

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_647123.html

The United Nations' ouster of its No. 2 official in Afghanistan portends yet another fraud that Turtle Bay is far more willing to condone than confront.

It's also another despicable U.N. mission creep from the world body's goal, which in this case supposedly is to help ensure the integrity of Afghanistan's presidential election.

Preliminary results showed President Hamid Karzai won the majority of the Aug. 20 vote. But former Deputy Envoy Peter Galbraith, an American, charges that the U.N. acted irresponsibly in handling claims of widespread voting fraud.

In a Sept. 28 letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, he writes that the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan couldn't overlook such irregularities without "becoming complicit in a cover-up."

Mr. Galbraith wanted a full investigation.

Instead, he got the boot.

This, after the U.N. reportedly channeled more than $220 million to enable the "election."

A U.N. spokesman in Afghanistan insists "now is not the time" to deal with such bothersome accusations. Instead, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission is conducting a partial recount, which some observers expect will hand the election to Mr. Karzai and a corruption-ridden government.

Once again, it's the agenda that matters most at Turtle Bay, not necessarily the reality of a given situation — whether it's a bogus vote in Afghanistan or the junk science of global warming.