Nikki Haley Piles On Biting Criticism of WHO Director - 'So Much Suffering Has Been Caused'
Nikki Haley hasn’t gone away.
The former South Carolina governor, who put her own unique brand on the job of ambassador to the United Nations, stepped down from the job more than a year ago, but she’s still one of the best-known women in American politics.
And she hasn’t lost her touch for acerbic, accurate criticism of the world body she was once a part of.
Last week, Haley joined a growing group of bold-faced Republicans criticizing lawmakers and demanding an accounting from the head of the World Health Organization, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for why a group founded on the principle that health concerns should transcend politics has become a toadying front for the communist Chinese government.
The World Health Organization is supposed to represent the world. It can’t do that if it continues to bow to the Communist Chinese government. The United States should use the power of the purse to demand critical reforms. @standamericanow https://t.co/TKD7KWUrBa
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) April 3, 2020
“The World Health Organization is supposed to represent the world,” wrote Haley, who represented the U.S. in the U.N. from January 2017 until Dec. 31, 2018. “It can’t do that if it continues to bow to the Communist Chinese government. The United States should use the power of the purse to demand critical reforms.”
A good start for those reforms would be for Tedros to be forced to find another line of work – like maybe in the PR office of the People’s Republic of China.
However much Democrats want to attack President Donald Trump for problems with the country’s response to the arrival of the coronavirus on American shores after it traveled around the world from its origins in China, not even the densest critic can defend Tedros’ abysmal performance of his duties.
And it would take the most deranged of the Trump Derangement Syndrome segment of the population to argue that Tedros’ performance did not contribute to the death count the world has witnessed (surpassing 72,000 as of early Monday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins).
Maybe it’s because of the anti-American stance that seems endemic in officers of the U.N., maybe it’s because Tedros’ own communist background makes him sympathetic to the butchers of the Beijing dictatorship, maybe it’s because he was simply unqualified for the position in the first place, but the reality is that the WHO under Tedros consistently downplayed the deadliness of the threat posed by the coronavirus.
As Haley pointed out, as late as Jan. 14, after Chinese officials knew well that the coronavirus was a contagious killer, the WHO was tweeting out deceitful assurances to the contrary.
This was posted by the WHO on January 14th. The WHO owes an explanation to the world of why they took China’s word for it. So much suffering has been caused by the mishandling of information and lack of accountability by the Chinese. https://t.co/SooEnEPsjJ
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) April 3, 2020
“The WHO owes an explanation to the world of why they took China’s word for it,” she wrote. “So much suffering has been caused by the mishandling of information and lack of accountability by the Chinese.”
Other Republican critics were more direct.
Arizona Sen. Martha McSally, locked in a tight re-election race against former astronaut and anti-gun activist Mark Kelly, took to Fox News’ “Mornings with Maria” last week to demand Tedros step down.
“Dr. Tedros deceived the world,” she added in a tweet.
“At one point, he even praised China’s ‘transparency’ during its coronavirus response efforts despite a mountain of evidence showing the regime concealed the severity of the outbreak. This deception cost lives.”
It’s unconscionable that the WHO has helped China cover-up its mishandling of the coronavirus crisis for months, while thousands die globally. I’m calling on the Director-General of the WHO to resign. pic.twitter.com/f2TItzZcnh
— Martha McSally (@SenMcSallyAZ) April 2, 2020
Dr. Tedros deceived the world. At one point, he even praised China’s ‘transparency’ during its coronavirus response efforts despite a mountain of evidence showing the regime concealed the severity of the outbreak. This deception cost lives. https://t.co/ymmnCTeV8O
— Martha McSally (@SenMcSallyAZ) April 3, 2020
(It’s worth noting here that McSally’s reference to Tedros as “Dr.” wasn’t actually wrong, but it might be misunderstood. According to his WHO biography, he holds a doctorate in the philosophy of community health, he is not a medical doctor – the first WHO director-general to lack that seemingly crucial qualification.)
Other Republicans joined McSally in calling out the WHO, as the Washington Free Beacon reported, including Florida Sen. Rick Scott, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
“The World Health Organization has consistently bent to the will of the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of global health and of containing the spread of the coronavirus, from downplaying the extent of the virus to systematically excluding Taiwan,” a Cruz representative told the Free Beacon.
“Sen. Cruz believes that the WHO has lost the credibility necessary for it to be effective, and a reevaluation of its leadership is urgently called for.”
Sane Americans, who’ve watched the coronavirus leap from China’s Hubei province to Europe to the United States – and only God knows where else – while the WHO and its director-general patiently parroted Chinese propaganda know that, too.
But Haley, with the rare perspective of having dealt with the inept corruptocrats of the U.N. on a personal basis, probably knows it better than anyone.
Haley hasn’t gone away — but with her high-profile attack, supported by top lawmakers of the United States — the country that pays most of the United Nations’ bills — it’s possible that Tedros and his particular brand of benighted incompetence just might.
Even the U.N. can be embarrassed sometimes.
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