The article might be over a month old, but parts of it caught my eye. Myself, I love the "idea" of the United Nations, but am sorely disappointed in the reality I see today.

From "On Being Disliked"

The United Nations has sadly become a creepy organization. Its General Assembly is full of cutthroat regimes. The Human Rights Commission has had members like Vietnam and Sudan, regimes that at recess must fight over bragging rights to which of the two killed more of their own people. The U.N. has a singular propensity to find flawed men to be secretary-general - a Kurt Waldheim, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, or Kofi Annan. Blue-helmeted peace-keepers, we learn, are as likely to commit as prevent crimes; and the only thing constant about such troops is that they will never go first into harm's way in Serbia, Kosovo, the Congo, or Dafur to stop genocide. Even worse, the U.N. has proved to be a terrible bully, an unforgivable sin for a self-proclaimed protector of the weak and innocent - loud false charges against Israel for its presence in the West Bank, not a peep about China in Tibet; tough talk about Palestinian rights, far less about offending Arabs over Darfur. So U.N. anti-Americanism is a glowing radiation badge, proof of exposure to toxicity.

A bit pointed, surely, but interesting points they are. The UN had recently reaffirmed its lack of teeth when it refused to do anything about its own violated sanctions. Soon, the reasons why France, Russia and China objected so sternly became transparent.

From "Iraq and the Importance of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Scandal"

The scam worked through a process of kickbacks. Hussein would sell oil at the low market price, which naturally attracted many investors who wanted to re-sell the oil at higher price. Hussein chose those with whom he would do business and those people in turn would give Hussein a slice of the profits. Accordingly, the money earmarked for the humanitarian needs of Iraqis went instead to whatever Hussein wanted. Hussein used some of this money to buy political influence in the Security Council and secretariat. Some of Hussein's biggest business partners were from China, France and Russia.

On the humanitarian side, Hussein would overpay for goods and the supplier would then kick back some of that money to Hussein. Consequently, the corruption involved in the program led Iraqis to receive only a fraction of the humanitarian supplies intended for them.

By 2002, the US and UK put contracts on hold as a result of concerns over covert Iraqi weapons programs and corruption over oil-for-food. However, the U.S. and U.K. did little about the corruption. Annan retained complete control of processing humanitarian goods and he approved all of the humanitarian contracts, many of which were over-priced. This program might have continued indefinitely if not for the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. It is likely that oil-for-food corruption led to three Security Council permanent members voting against deposing of Hussein.

How to we deal with this? How do we reconcile the ideals that we strove for when we helped create the United Nations… with what we have today?

From "Iraq and the Importance of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Scandal"

The U.N. has used diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecutions. There is such a tradition of secrecy in the U.N. that it is hard to achieve reform. The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Negroponte, was not assertive enough in the U.N.

It appears that this is exactly what the Bush administration is setting out to do by nominating John Bolton as our US Ambassador to the United Nations.

From the Washington Post

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who announced the nomination, alluded to Bolton's reputation when she noted that "some of our best ambassadors" to the United Nations have been those with "the strongest voices," such as Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Bolton would replace John C. Danforth, who resigned after barely six months as ambassador. An aide to Rice, calling the appointment a "Nixon goes to China" move, said the secretary recommended Bolton to Bush several weeks ago. Rice told reporters Bolton was selected "because he knows how to get things done."

Another card that we are good at playing: Money. After all, a great portion of UN activity is, ironically, donated by the American taxpayer.

From the World Peace Herald

"The option of withholding money immediately sets you off from all of your allies in this fight," Mark Malloch Brown, Mr. Annan's recently appointed chief of staff, told a House International Relations Committee hearing.

"It would be seen as the United States once again acting alone," he said.

But several lawmakers expressed unhappiness with the United Nations' cooperation in the Iraq oil-for-food program, a $65 billion humanitarian program that has become the largest financial scandal in the body's history.

Really, Mr. Brown. It is actions taken by the UN and attitudes such as this that Americans lean more and more towards "once again acting alone"

Posted by Michael at June 11, 2005 11:56 AM