This latest UN travesty has demonstrated, beyond reasonable doubt, that the UN is itself a counter-productive institution. No organization that puts advanced constitutional democracies on a par with corrupt, dysfunctional Third World dictatorships can have any moral authority. No bureaucracy such as that which has sustained the inspections rackets of Hans Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei has any business entering into serious matters of life and death.
And while there is hardly space to review the whole comprehensive disaster of the UN's organizational efforts in social, economic, and cultural affairs — or the very mixed results of its humanitarian efforts — I can find no part of the main institution worth retaining. Such useful agencies as those which regulate civil aviation, intellectual property or cross-border mail delivery do not require the UN edifice to continue their work. Most such were founded long before the UN, and the only contribution from headquarters is to make them bloated, inefficient, and political.
But that is hardly the worst sin of which the organization can be accused. In the final view, the evil of the UN consists in its having appropriated to itself the very ideals of human co-operation and solidarity, our hopes for international order and peace. By making all effort towards such ends dependent upon an apparatus of bottomless cynicism and corruption, the UN subverts those ideals and hopes.
The most effective way to proceed is for the United States to lead, by withdrawing its membership and all support, including all diplomatic and even parking privileges accorded to delegations in New York. For all that it has achieved, the UN deserves to be reduced from an international, to a municipal problem.
Ouch. As usual, bang on the money. I was just saying yesterday that a year ago, the U.S. withdrawing from the UN was a fringe position, but if it happened today, most of the American public would approve. By letting Jacques rant on and obstruct at every turn, and by refusing to connive at hiding the venality and corruption of the system, Bush has let the UN discredit itself. I think Kofi's seen this pretty clearly, too. He's been mighty subdued lately. |