UNhappy times?

Technically speaking, even the World Bank and IMF are a part of the UN but they are of course functionally independent of their dysfunctional mother entity. Same for organizations such as the WHO, ILO, etc. Many of the best and most functional parts of the UN have nothing much to do with the ``UN`` of Kofi Annan, the Security Council and the General Assembly.

The UN is like the pre-Reformation Catholic Church in many ways, a dumping ground for useless but extremely well connected idiots. For every competent bureaucrat it also has four incompetent idiots on staff. A Mexican friend of mine, true blue social democrat and confirmed US-basher and UN-lover, spent a semester on sabbatical in Geneva working with various UN organizations. She came away wiser but sadder and, as she said, ``The whites were usually OK, at least they would return phone calls and seemed to know what they were doing, but the Third Worlders were the most useless and incompetent people I have ever met. I don`t think some of them even had a real college degree.`` Keep in mind that she is from Mexico City and knows something about useless and corrupt bureaucrats.

So combine grossly overpaid and underqualified bureaucrats with the type of political fighting and intriguing that takes place in the Security Council (US always vetoing everything anti-Israel; the French saying ``NON!`` to everything the US says; the Syrians chairing Human Rights panels, etc. etc.), is it any wonder that the US hard right wants to scrap the UN? It IS a dysfunctional mess. The only thing wrong with Bolton`s views on the UN is that he refuses to admit the US`s responsibility (major but faaar from total) in making it as dysfunctional as it is.

THE US found the UN as a useful organisation when it didn`t want to deal with problems across the World (Mozambique), and when it wanted to deprive the USSR of legitmacy. Now that the US rules the roost the neo cons see no purpose in it..the reasoning is simple Imperial arrogance..the UN deprives the US of a level of legitimacy when it`s actions are openly Imperial.

I`ve also believed the UN system of funding needs to be revamped..ideally through some form of international tax on weapons exports or some sort of global market turn over tax...the entirre UN budget could be tripled through international corporate taxes..

Good points Uma, I specially agree with what you said about the allied agencies falling under the UN umbrella. Without ITU we`d be in a mess for all telecom systems. But even more scary would be a world without WHO. Just imagine what the SARS epidemic would have been like if WHO hadn`t waded into China to more or less take charge.

Maybe what needs to be done is that the Security Council and General Assembly needs to be abolished. One is a rich boys` club that`s always hampered by a veto, the other is an old fogeys` club which is hampered by their inability to reach a decision and have even a semblance of enforcement.

BeeJay, thanks for your input. Regarding pt#3, the UN does not cost the US a lot of money - only 0.18% of its GDP - which may be a lot in actual dollar terms, but doesn`t make much of a difference to the US.

The UN is the playground and parking lot for effete satraps, illegitimate children of middle eastern potentates, butch feminists,vicious narrow-minded homosexuals and bleeding liberals.John Bolton is like a breath of fresh air that is being prevented by these selfish, self serving groups described in the above from entering.How long??.The world cannot wait for the UN to be what it was meant to be.A policeman, not a social servant.

The baboon dances well to the master`s tune. The tunes change. For his services, they let him steal a golden embroided tunic.

I agree that the UN cannot be blamed for not trying enough to stop the war in Iraq, but they definitely are to blamed for delaying troops to Rwanda and thereby causing more deaths, just like they are to be blamed for not sending troops to Darfur based on a silly report which says that the conditions are like genocide but not technically genocide. Also, what about the behavior of Jordanian troops sent to East Timor?

Uma, a good article! But a little one-sided!

The U.S. being critical of the U.N. is not a new phenomenon. Even during the Nixon administration, when Taiwan was booted out of the U.N. the favorite theme of “take the U.S. out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of the U.S.” was brandished about! It never happened (and probably never will), because on the whole, the U.N. still provides some value to the U.S.

The American Right, in particular, does not like the UN in its current form, because of several clear-cut reasons:

1) There is a philosophical opposition based on the concept of sovereignty –American armed forces (for example) must not serve under a “higher” authority, since they are to serve the U.S. constitution (and only the U.S. constitution).

2) There are a lot of bitter memories from the past. For example, a long time ago, the U.N. was the favorite venue for many (otherwise insignificant) third-world countries to beat up on Israel, even at one point passing a resolution putting Zionism at par with racism (a resolution that served no useful or practical purpose other than to antagonize). It is also remembered (not so fondly) how the (finally departed) communist countries used to use the U.N. (eagerly supported by their third-world lackeys (for example, the Indian administration from the seventies)) to gang-up on the U.S.

3) The U.N. costs a lot of money to the U.S. taxpayer. Many on the American Right don’t see any value in “investing” that money. (The “scandals” have not helped, either.)

Cosmetic changes or even wholesale revamping of the U.N. are not going to satisfy the American Right, because they only address part of (3). Incidentally, the initial U.S. support for Kofi Annan was due to even stronger feelings against his predecessor (Boutros Boutros-Ghali) and not necessarily due to Mr. Annan’s personal charm.

Other notes:
[ “We need to be able to organize outsiders to work with us to write to papers, to appear on television.” ]
A typical mindset - as pointed above, the problem is not with the public relations aspect of it!

[Beyond politics, the UN touches our daily lives in ways that we do not even think about. For instance, without the UN, we couldn’t watch all the TV channels we do]
Let us not kid ourselves. Setting communication standards was not the reason for forming the U.N. It is not as if the world of communications (and other standards) would come to a crashing halt if the U.N. were to go away!

[Then there are the better-known UNICEF, UNESCO, FAO, ILO, etc. that are all specialized agencies of the UN.]
Essentially all of these are funding channels. The source is always the same. And many Americans do not want to continue to pay, pure and simple! Whatever the merits of such thinking, it is the unfortunate reality at the moment.