Monday, May 31, 2004
Why the love affair with “THE UNITED NATIONS?”
I don’t get it. The way that most politicians and all liberals act, there is something sacred about The United Nations. This organization has to be something very special indeed. Just look a few of the amazing things this organization and this organization alone is capable of:
1) The United Nations knows better than the President, the US Congress and the US Military what is and is not a national security threat to the United States. We should only be allowed to take military action if The United Nations approves of the action.
2) The United Nations has meetings all over the world where representatives from all across the globe meet to pass important treaties that tell us what we can and cannot do and, most importantly, how much of our money we need to send to them. A recent such event was held in Kyoto, Japan. If we choose to disagree with their important treaties, through our constitutionally elected government, we are not only wrong but somehow evil.
3) The United Nations, alone among all organizations in the world, is capable of managing other countries affairs for them. Examples of UN successes here abound. Look at the UN success in managing the “Oil for Food” program in Iraq or in turning Kosovo into an independent, self ruled country.
Say what you like, the evidence is clear that after all the cash that was skimmed off the top by Saddam, the French, the Russians and the United Nations bureaucrats like Kofi Annan’s son, at least some of the remaining money from the “Oil for Food Program” actually was used to buy some food. It may have been food used in banquets celebrating Saddam latest palace or newest weapon, but it was food, damn it. As for Kosovo, all my research indicates quite clearly that they are on track to achieve true independence by the end of the next century, assuming there are no further setbacks.
Kosovo, in particular, highlights the true magic of The United Nations. The UN has been running Kosovo since 1999, preparing it for a “gradual handover of responsibilities to local government.” There is, after five years, no end in sight to the UN’s management of Kosovo. In fact, the fourth head of the UN Mission in Kosovo just resigned in disgrace for his failure to control the crime and ethnic violence there. Kosovo has become, under UN management, a complete basket case. At the same time, it is said that the US must achieve a fully functioning Iraqi democracy within 15 months, or we will be abject failures in our endeavor and must recognize that we should have left it up to, of course, the wildly effective United Nations in the first place.
Given the obeisance that most world leaders, and all liberals, pay to The United Nations, I could come to no conclusion but that I had to be wrong somehow. So I took it upon myself to do a little research. Just who makes up this wonderful body? Here is what I found.
The UN is made up of 191 member states. Think about that, 191 different countries. I’d bet that most Americans could not name 20 countries without a globe in front of them, and the ones they could name would all be in Europe or South America. Unaided, one out of 3 would probably remember China and Japan. These 191 countries include such well-managed, models of freedom, economic strength and democracy as Bangladesh, Albania, Algeria, Chad, Cuba, Ghana, Libya, Haiti, Tonga and France. All are sovereign states, all equal in the eyes of The United Nations. In fact, of the 191 Member States, most have far more in common with Algeria than with us. Most of the countries that make up The United Nations are small, backward nations run by some kind of dictator. Why then is it that so many Americans feel we should bow to the greater wisdom of representatives from countries who cannot manage to run their own countries well enough so that their own people can eat?
Aha, you say, I have fallen into a typical logical trap. When politicians talk of The United Nations, they don’t actually mean The United Nations, what they mean is The United Nations Security Council. OK. Let us then take a look at The Security Council. What is their story?
The Security Council is made up of 15 members. These are divided into five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members. Currently the non-permanent members are Algeria, Angola, Benin, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Romania, Pakistan, Philippines and Spain. Quick, how many out there thought Germany was a permanent member? Wrong. Oh, and does anybody know where Benin is? The permanent members of the Security Council are China, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States and, in what was probably the worst mistake of the founding of the organization, France. What makes the five permanent members special is their ability to veto any resolution unilaterally, a power that France has used to its advantage since the beginning. It is also this fact that has allowed France to continue to pretend that it is still an important country in the world.
While space does not permit a detailed description of all 15 members of the Security Council, here are a few highlights. Algeria is a socialist, Islamic republic with a population of 32 million, a per capita income of $5,400 per year and a 31% unemployment rate. Angola has been in a constant state of civil war since it achieved independence in 1975. It has a population of about 10 million, almost one-half or which are under the age of 15. It has a per capita annual income of $1,700 and an unemployment rate that is too high to measure. Angola is probably the worst run country in the world, if you don’t count Kosovo. Benin, a small country in western Africa, shaped roughly like a dildo, has a population of about 7 million, an annual per capita income of about $1,000 and an economy based on subsistence agriculture. Get the picture?
Armed now with these facts, I again asked myself, why the United Nations? The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that trusting this group with any important decision is not only unwise, it’s downright crazy. What person in their right mind would trust a group of unelected, poorly educated people with nothing at stake to make any important decision in their lives? The American public needs an education here. I propose we set up a local equivalent of the UN.
Here is how it would work. We would randomly divide every major city into about 100 different neighborhoods. True, some cities are already divided into historic neighborhoods but we would ignore these as the artifacts of prior colonial imperialism that they are. We would create new ones for our purposes. Each of these new neighborhoods would hold a strong man competition. This would basically be a bare knuckled fist fight, open to all comers. The fight would end when there was one man left standing. The winner of the neighborhood strong man competition would be designated the neighborhood president for life. Each of these leaders would then choose a representative, probably a relative, to the United Neighborhood Association. This association would have the power to tell everyone in the city how to live their lives including, how much tax to pay, where they were allowed to live, where they could work, whom they could marry, etc. In other words, they would run the city the way the neighborhood strong men were able to run the neighborhoods. One of two things would happen as a result of this experiment. Either we would all learn that the United Nations approach is truly the wonderful thing that so many politicians and all liberals claim it is, or most of us would learn (I exempt liberals here) that the United Nations is a fraud and the public would create enough pressure on the politicians for us to withdraw from this outdated, overrated and dangerous sham of an organization.
You know, it might even be worth it.
I don’t get it. The way that most politicians and all liberals act, there is something sacred about The United Nations. This organization has to be something very special indeed. Just look a few of the amazing things this organization and this organization alone is capable of:
1) The United Nations knows better than the President, the US Congress and the US Military what is and is not a national security threat to the United States. We should only be allowed to take military action if The United Nations approves of the action.
2) The United Nations has meetings all over the world where representatives from all across the globe meet to pass important treaties that tell us what we can and cannot do and, most importantly, how much of our money we need to send to them. A recent such event was held in Kyoto, Japan. If we choose to disagree with their important treaties, through our constitutionally elected government, we are not only wrong but somehow evil.
3) The United Nations, alone among all organizations in the world, is capable of managing other countries affairs for them. Examples of UN successes here abound. Look at the UN success in managing the “Oil for Food” program in Iraq or in turning Kosovo into an independent, self ruled country.
Say what you like, the evidence is clear that after all the cash that was skimmed off the top by Saddam, the French, the Russians and the United Nations bureaucrats like Kofi Annan’s son, at least some of the remaining money from the “Oil for Food Program” actually was used to buy some food. It may have been food used in banquets celebrating Saddam latest palace or newest weapon, but it was food, damn it. As for Kosovo, all my research indicates quite clearly that they are on track to achieve true independence by the end of the next century, assuming there are no further setbacks.
Kosovo, in particular, highlights the true magic of The United Nations. The UN has been running Kosovo since 1999, preparing it for a “gradual handover of responsibilities to local government.” There is, after five years, no end in sight to the UN’s management of Kosovo. In fact, the fourth head of the UN Mission in Kosovo just resigned in disgrace for his failure to control the crime and ethnic violence there. Kosovo has become, under UN management, a complete basket case. At the same time, it is said that the US must achieve a fully functioning Iraqi democracy within 15 months, or we will be abject failures in our endeavor and must recognize that we should have left it up to, of course, the wildly effective United Nations in the first place.
Given the obeisance that most world leaders, and all liberals, pay to The United Nations, I could come to no conclusion but that I had to be wrong somehow. So I took it upon myself to do a little research. Just who makes up this wonderful body? Here is what I found.
The UN is made up of 191 member states. Think about that, 191 different countries. I’d bet that most Americans could not name 20 countries without a globe in front of them, and the ones they could name would all be in Europe or South America. Unaided, one out of 3 would probably remember China and Japan. These 191 countries include such well-managed, models of freedom, economic strength and democracy as Bangladesh, Albania, Algeria, Chad, Cuba, Ghana, Libya, Haiti, Tonga and France. All are sovereign states, all equal in the eyes of The United Nations. In fact, of the 191 Member States, most have far more in common with Algeria than with us. Most of the countries that make up The United Nations are small, backward nations run by some kind of dictator. Why then is it that so many Americans feel we should bow to the greater wisdom of representatives from countries who cannot manage to run their own countries well enough so that their own people can eat?
Aha, you say, I have fallen into a typical logical trap. When politicians talk of The United Nations, they don’t actually mean The United Nations, what they mean is The United Nations Security Council. OK. Let us then take a look at The Security Council. What is their story?
The Security Council is made up of 15 members. These are divided into five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members. Currently the non-permanent members are Algeria, Angola, Benin, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Romania, Pakistan, Philippines and Spain. Quick, how many out there thought Germany was a permanent member? Wrong. Oh, and does anybody know where Benin is? The permanent members of the Security Council are China, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States and, in what was probably the worst mistake of the founding of the organization, France. What makes the five permanent members special is their ability to veto any resolution unilaterally, a power that France has used to its advantage since the beginning. It is also this fact that has allowed France to continue to pretend that it is still an important country in the world.
While space does not permit a detailed description of all 15 members of the Security Council, here are a few highlights. Algeria is a socialist, Islamic republic with a population of 32 million, a per capita income of $5,400 per year and a 31% unemployment rate. Angola has been in a constant state of civil war since it achieved independence in 1975. It has a population of about 10 million, almost one-half or which are under the age of 15. It has a per capita annual income of $1,700 and an unemployment rate that is too high to measure. Angola is probably the worst run country in the world, if you don’t count Kosovo. Benin, a small country in western Africa, shaped roughly like a dildo, has a population of about 7 million, an annual per capita income of about $1,000 and an economy based on subsistence agriculture. Get the picture?
Armed now with these facts, I again asked myself, why the United Nations? The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that trusting this group with any important decision is not only unwise, it’s downright crazy. What person in their right mind would trust a group of unelected, poorly educated people with nothing at stake to make any important decision in their lives? The American public needs an education here. I propose we set up a local equivalent of the UN.
Here is how it would work. We would randomly divide every major city into about 100 different neighborhoods. True, some cities are already divided into historic neighborhoods but we would ignore these as the artifacts of prior colonial imperialism that they are. We would create new ones for our purposes. Each of these new neighborhoods would hold a strong man competition. This would basically be a bare knuckled fist fight, open to all comers. The fight would end when there was one man left standing. The winner of the neighborhood strong man competition would be designated the neighborhood president for life. Each of these leaders would then choose a representative, probably a relative, to the United Neighborhood Association. This association would have the power to tell everyone in the city how to live their lives including, how much tax to pay, where they were allowed to live, where they could work, whom they could marry, etc. In other words, they would run the city the way the neighborhood strong men were able to run the neighborhoods. One of two things would happen as a result of this experiment. Either we would all learn that the United Nations approach is truly the wonderful thing that so many politicians and all liberals claim it is, or most of us would learn (I exempt liberals here) that the United Nations is a fraud and the public would create enough pressure on the politicians for us to withdraw from this outdated, overrated and dangerous sham of an organization.
You know, it might even be worth it.
