The UN: A failed organization

Rachel Neuwirth

The U.N. recently passed another blatantly anti-Israel resolution in support of extremist Arab Palestinian claims. There is no longer any point in entering into any serious dialogue with this organization. In countless ways, over many years, the U.N. has proven to be a discredited organization, with lawless elements, which can no longer claim to have any moral standing. Very few of its 191 members can be counted upon to put principle ahead of crass expediency.

The hopeful vision that accompanied its founding in 1945 has long since evaporated. It was the United Nations which recognized Israel in 1947. Therefore the U.N. has a duty to protect her from forcible extinction and to live up to and enforce the U.N. Charter. If the U.N. fails to protect any of her members including Israel, then all that remains is a stench along the East River.

Mass murder has taken place over the years in a number of places, with no timely response from the U.N. There has also been a U.N. failure to hold responsible human rights violators, and to oppose rogue states seeking the acquisition of weapons of mass murder. The self-interests of dictatorships, police states, anti-Western, anti-democratic and Arab/Islamic-driven theocratic hell-holes continue day in and day out to paralyze any possibility that the U.N. could ever encourage true justice.

Here are just a few examples of major crimes that were ignored by the U.N.

- Genocide in Cambodia in the 1970’s by the Khmer Rouge, estimated at 2 million poeple.

- North Korea starved to death about 2 million of its own people.

- Saddam Hussein gassed Kurds and slaughtered the Marsh Arabs, while devastating their fragile ecosystem.

- Failure to oppose the spread of WMD in Pakistan, North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya etc.

- Moslem genocide of about 2 million black southern Sudanese Christians over an 18-year period. Currently 1 million people in Sudan have been driven from their homes, with the threat of murdering another 400,000 by the end of 2004.

- Slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda.

- Constant terror attacks on Israel plus the usual calls from Arab and Muslims countries for the destruction of Israel.

- Failure to implement its own resolution for Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon following Israel’s exit over 4 years ago.

The membership roster of the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission says it all. Some of those stalwart, exemplary nations include Libya, Syria, Sudan, and other rogue states that support terror and daily commit major violations of human rights. It looks more like a line-up before a vice squad, or a ''Who's Who of Mass Murderers!'' It's the fox guarding the U.N. hen house.

In addition, it was recently revealed how Saddam Hussein figuratively ‘bought’ the U.N. under the U.N.’s 1995 Oil For Food Program. He was allowed to illegally divert 10% of all transactions to himself and apparently to officials of various collaborating governments including France, Germany and Russia. Also dipping his fingers into that "oily tithe" was none other than Kofi Annan's own son, one of those on the "Oil for Food" monitoring agency.

Entirely legally, the U.N. itself received a “commission” on all “Oil for Food” transactions. This became a major revenue source for the UN, giving it a substantial vested interest in continuation of Saddam’s regime, under lucrative (for the UN) sanctions.

In return for billions in bribes and legal revenues, the U.N. and some members of the Security Council opposed any U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein.

After all, why would they NOT want to drag on the search for a peaceful solution with more years of useless inspections. The Iraqi oil flowed out of the ground and the revenue from that oil flowed into secret bank accounts. Hungry Iraqi children became dead Iraqi children, and America became the ever-convenient "fall guy."

The record is clear. Too clear. It is time to stop the pretense that the U.N. is anything other than a hopelessly corrupt, ever mischievous, ever-conniving, ever anti-democratic, failed organization. It is time to stop looking to it for any honest brokering and to establish an alternative mechanism for dealing with the world's ills, and this time, let it be "by invitation only!"

The U.N. must be radically overhauled in a way that requires member states to be at least on the road to democracy and all voting rights to be restricted to established, representative democracies. If not, it is time to put the old slogan into effect: get the U.S. out of the U.N., and the U.N. out of the U.S.

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Rachel Neuwirth, an internationally recognized, political commentator and analyst. She specializes in Middle Eastern Affairs with particular emphasis on Militant Islam and Israeli foreign policy. She has been published in prominent news papers of Europe, Asia and the US. She is frequently quoted by reputable Media. Conversant in Arabic and French.

rachterry@sbcglobal.net