Posted on 03/15/2003 10:24:18 AM PST by forest
No matter what one thinks of the looming war with Iraq, most of us have to admit something good is developing out of the overall argument. The United Nations is demonstrating, conclusively, the same irrelevance the League of Nations did many years ago.
The United States foots a quarter of the bill for that U.N paper tiger, international debating society and what do the American people get in return? We get a derogation of our liberty through bogus agreements, the right to host hundreds of ill-behaved diplomats from third- world countries and a system that allows hundreds of communist and socialist political activists into our country to instigate problems we do not need.
The true irrelevance of the U.N. becomes quite clear when all those resolutions they promulgated on Iraq are considered. The U.N. has been passing resolutions concerning the blocking of trade relations and the disarming of Iraq for well over a decade. Yet, few are obeyed and none have ever really been enforced.
Now, when the United States demands that Iraq finally be disarmed, as the U.N. ordered many years ago, other U.N. members protest.
Kofi Annan, the U.N secretary-general (a position Bill Clinton covets) lamely attempted to explain the U.N.'s inaction to disarm Iraq last Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal:
"[T]he . . . most urgent aspect of that task is to ensure that Iraq no longer has such weapons. Why? Because Iraq has actually used them in the past, and because it has twice, under its present leadership, committed aggression against its neighbors -- against Iran in 1980, and against Kuwait in 1990. That is why the Security Council is determined to disarm Iraq of these weapons, and has passed successive resolutions since 1991 requiring Iraq to disarm."
Right. "The Security Council is determined to disarm Iraq of these weapons" and has been trying since 1991. Meanwhile, Iraq has rearmed and developed even new types of weapons. But, in eleven years, the U.N. has not done one thing, except talk, to stop Iraq.
Annan continues: "Let's remember that the crisis in Iraq does not exist in a vacuum. What happens there will have a profound impact on other issues of great importance. The broader our consensus on how to deal with Iraq, the better the chance that we can come together again and deal effectively with other burning conflicts in the world, starting with the one between Israelis and Palestinians. We all know that only a just resolution of that conflict can bring any real hope of lasting stability in the region."
Is there anyone in the world who still believes the U.N. could do anything about North Korea or the Israeli- Palestinian problems? Fat chance! That irrelevant debating society is no more than a useless gaggle of babbling diplomats with an excuse to live in New York City rather than their little third world countries.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was exactly correct when he said, "I think the United Nations is dangerous to our republic and therefore we ought not to participate." Today, others are agreeing with Rep. Paul.
For instance, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey said: "My own view is it's very, very tricky" to support the Constitution while sustaining ties with the U. N. "If you're a strict constructionist it becomes very difficult to reconcile [participation in the U.N.] with our Constitution. . . . I see the United Nations as having very little value to us for our interests. Their constant carping about being in arrears, in light of the fact we contribute 25 percent [of the U.N. budget] since its inception is a source of irritation."
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) seems to also agree: "I think they do have a lot of dictatorships in [the United Nations]. They're very anti-free enterprise and it shows in the way they vote."
Kingston criticizes the United Nations for being excessively bureaucratic and wasteful of U.S. taxpayer dollars. "I think most people who have a sense of the world order realize the United Nations has become a bunch of bureaucrats more concerned about the next state dinner than preserving world peace," he said. "What I don't like about the United Nations is that while the average taxpayer is out there working hard the U.N. people are out there enjoying American tax dollars and just nibbling away at American freedom."
Clearly, the time has come to seriously consider getting the U.N. out of the United States and the United States out of the U.N.
US foots a quarter of the bill for that U.N. paper tiger, international debating society. In return we lose our liberty by bogus agreements, and get hundreds of ill-behaved, 3rd world diplomats and communist/socialist political activists over here instigating problems.
Can anyone imagine the current arrangement with Bill Clinton as U.N. secretary-general? Where could we all go?
Ron Paul: Get out!
Dick Armey: Either US or UN!
Jack Kingston: Dictators are running the UN.
Clearly, it's time to get out.
That's pretty darn close to what I heard on FOX the other day...22% out of what, 187 countries?
I was also surprised to learn that the UN has it's own pension fund for it's members, along with all the other perks! I'm gonna BARF!
John Birch Society!!
Someone ping the tinfoil-hat crowd so they can post their "funny" pictures, and post their "clever," "witty" comments about the conspiracy theories. Hurry--ping them before the words "New World Order" are mentioned.....
After we're done in Afghanistan, we should relocate all the survivors into temporary housing and then rebuild the flatland into a new modern city. This city should be named United Nations City and become the new home of the United Nations. Then the UN can relocate out of New York City and into a region that is centrally located between Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the heart of an historically troubled region.
Either do away with Afghanistan completely and divide the land amongst the bordering countries, or create a new international United Nations zone that is independent of any nation and occupies the former Afghanistan. Either way, the UN moves out of New York City. Then turn the old United Nations building into either a World Trade Center annex (ot even has dock facilities) or low-income housing.
Think of jobs for the people of Afghanistan. They can learn the construction business like Bin Laden did, or they can learn service-related skills to support the new businesses that will emerge. Bringing the UN to that region will offer a wealth of possibilities to the locals, as well as create a new "World Diplomatic Center" that is more easily accessible accessible to many people.
And as an added benefit, would Bill Clinton still want to be Secretary General if the UN were relocated to Kabul?
-PJ
25% seems to be pretty accurate. Note that it was 40% at one time. Talk about suicidal...
The ceiling. The largest distortion to equity has traditionally been the ceiling, which has capped the United States to an assessment level below its share of world income since the U.N.’s creation. The ceiling was initially set at nearly 40 percent (when the U.S. accounted for more than half of world income); instead, member states agreed that the ceiling would be lowered in stages to the 25 percent level sought by the Truman administration as changing economic conditions and admission of new members allowed. The ceiling drifted progressively downward, reaching 25 percent in 1973—the year the two German states were admitted to the United Nations—after a strenuous campaign by the Nixon administration. Arguing for the final-stage reduction, then-U.S. permanent representative George Bush told Assembly delegates that, with the ceiling lowered to 25 percent in fulfillment of the 1946 agreement, the United States would never again seek a reduction in that cap.
That, of course, was then. In recent years Washington has begun calling insistently for a reduction in its assessment—first for peacekeeping expenses (set under the General Assembly’s peacekeeping formula at 30.4 percent) and then in the regular scale. One of the conditions for U.S. payment of back dues included in the aborted 1997 agreement on U.N. funding between the U.S. administration and the Senate foreign relations committee leadership was a demand for a reduction in the U.S. assessment to 22 percent in 1998 and to 20 percent in 2000.
The call for a reduction in the ceiling drew considerable opposition among other member states, which would of course have had to pick up the difference. The existing ceiling, they noted, already assesses the United States at below its share of world income (which is 26.16 percent, using the 6-year base period); any further reduction would be counter to equity3. Whatever may have been the prospects for such a rate reduction (and they were generally handicapped as slim for a 22
percent rate, and virtually nil for a 20 percent rate), they evaporated after the U.S. Congress scuttled even the promise of U.N. funding when it adjourned in November.
While declining to tinker with the ceiling, however, the General Assembly did give notice it would revisit the question once U.S. arrears were paid. Even the offer to reopen the scale once the rates have been struck and applied is unprecedented— indeed, in the international community the very offer is viewed as extraordinary.
Thhis and more here: http://www.unausa.org/newindex.asp?place=http://www.unausa.org/programs/scale.asp
Links page here: http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance/assessmt.htm
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