F...UN

When trying to broker a ceasefire between warring factions, do not follow The UN's M.O.:

U.N. official to East Timorese policemen: Ok, you guys give us all your guns and we’ll take them to our headquarters. Then, unarmed and under the UN banner, walk past those soldiers over there with guns. Don’t worry, they’re cool. Meanwhile, some of our staffers are going to go out and rape some 14 year olds in exchange for food and medicine. Cool?

Then, when the stupid Americans get angry with us, we’ll blame the U.S. government for not doing a good enough P.R. job for us. After all, it’s George W. Bush’s fault, right?

Redstate describes why the UN is a failed organization.

The fact that Malloch Brown blames the ignorance of the American public for the monumental failings of the UN is nothing short of stunning.

It wasn’t America who allowed the slaughter of Tutsi to go forward in Rwanda. Rather it was a direct act of his master, Kofi Annan, that permitted this certifiable case of genocide to occur. It wasn’t American peacekeeping troops and officials engaged in the sexual trafficking of Bosnia women and in the sexual abuse of African children. It was not American officials, other that Robert Torricelli, that is, who benefited from the scandalous Oil-for-Food Program: a program that allowed Saddam to rearm while simultaneously starving Iraqi children to death. It was not America who betrayed Muslims at Srbrenicia and who has dashed the hopes of the people of East Timor. America has not allowed Iran, Libya, Cuba, and Zimbabwe to monitor human rights on behalf of the UN.

The UN is a failed organization and the tragedy the members it is failing are those states who are either struggling or moribund. Money to buy food and drugs for the most vulnerable is raked off to buy cars and condos for the various relatives of senior UN staff. States such as Zimbabwe have the same vote as Sweden or even France. A Security Council based on World War II alliances has two Third World bullies sitting as arbiters of international order.

There is a place for the UN. As Winston Churchill said, “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.” But as the world becomes a place where the danger of a world war is being rapidly supplanted by the danger of failed and failing states, a sclerotic, passive organization dominated by kleptocrats and tyrants, two of which wield a veto, and staffed by people who at the senior level seem interested in nothing as much as feathering their own nests does not inspire a great deal of confidence.

The UN must substantially reform itself or it must go away. Mr. Malloch Brown and Mr. Annan are, sadly but incontrovertibly, part of the problem not part of the solution. An intemperate address such as that given by Malloch Brown demonstrates his contempt not only for the American people, the people who contribute about a quarter of his organization’s revenue and 100% of its spine, the American government, but the very idea that reform is necessary.

For that, and for the fact that we know about it because the UN’s New World Information Order never happened, we can be grateful.