Jewish World ReviewDec. 1, 2004 / 18 Kislev, 5765
Jack Kelly
No UN would be an improvement over the one we've got now
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
The horse manure is piled higher than ever, and it stinks to high heaven.
But despite all the evidence to the contrary, many of us still think there
must be a pony in there somewhere.
The lingering support for the United Nations among Americans is a triumph of
hope over experience. The UN was (largely) the brainchild of American
liberals, who thought that if only the nations of the world had a place
where they could talk out their differences, we could put an end to war and
all sorts of other bad stuff.
This didn't work so well with the League of Nations, founded after World War
I to end all wars, but learning from experience is not something liberals do
much of.
It wasn't long before our creation bit us in the tush.
We want the United Nations to promote world peace. But for most of the UN's
members today, the primary purpose of the organization is to place shackles
on American power.
When a nation is as powerful as hours, it's understandable that the
Lilliputians would feel that they have a common interest in restraining
Gulliver. What isn't so understandable is why the United States should
continue to host, and (largely) to pay for, an organization that has made
frustrating us its raison d'etre.
Most of us would put up with a lot of frustration if it would lead to less
violence, hunger, poverty and disease in the world. But the UN today
doesn't do what we imagined it would do back in those heady, idealistic days
at Dumbarton Oaks.
Consider the UN's role in resolving the current political crisis in the
Ukraine. What role, you ask? Precisely.
Tens of thousands of African villagers in the Darfur region of Sudan are
being murdered by Arabs, with the complicity of the Sudanese government.
What is the UN doing about it? Just what it is doing to resolve the
political crisis in the Ukraine.
But it could be said that the Ukrainians and the Sudanese in Darfur are more
fortunate than those poor souls who have received UN "help" in the past. UN
peacekeepers idly watched genocide in Rwanda, and actually facilitated it in
Bosnia. UN peacekeepers in the Congo are known best for sexually molesting
women under their "protection."
The UN's Oil for Food progam has become the biggest financial scandal in the
history of the world. With the complicity of UN officials -- including the
son of Secretary General Kofi Annan -- Saddam Hussein took at least $21
billion that was meant to provide food and medicine for poor Iraqis and
spent it on palaces, weapons, rewards for terrorists and bribes for Security
Council members France, Germany, and Russia.
Oil for Food is the Mother of all UN financial scandals, but is hardly the
first. In a 1995 paper, Stefan Halper of the CATO Institute described the
organization as "a miasma of corruption." Former UN aid workers Kenneth
Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson describe how the UN "helps" people
in their book, "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures." With the
United Nations, the difficulty is not in finding corruption; it's finding a
UN program that isn't awash in it.
Hope is losing ground to experience. In a recent poll, 60 percent of
Americans said the UN is doing "a poor job."
Kofi Annan is aware he has a pr problem. He appointed a commission of big
shots to recommend reforms. The High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and
Change will make its report Thursday.
The panel will say that the UN must condemn all terror attacks on civilians
or lose its moral authority, the London Telegraph said Monday.
This won't sit well with the kleptocrats who control the General Assembly.
They've blocked for years a comprehensive UN convention on terrorism on the
grounds that it should exclude groups fighting "occupation" or
"colonialism," and likely will do so again.
We shouldn't stand for it. If the UN continues to turn its back on reform,
we should turn our backs to it.
We hold the high cards. The UN cannot survive without our financial
contribution (22 percent of its total budget). And few in the UN
bureaucracy would relish relinquishing the ambience of New York for the
delights of, say, Zimbabwe.
A UN that actually would promote liberty, democracy and human rights would
be eminently worthwhile. But no UN at all would be an improvement over the
one we've got now.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington
and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a
deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan
administration. Comment by clicking here.
Jack Kelly Archives
© 2004, Jack Kelly
|