And when the great wave fell back, the UN stood revealed, Notably Useless

The Times (UK) ^ | 1/3/05 | Tim Hames

[saquin]

ADLAI STEVENSON once argued that a politician is a statesman who “approaches every question with an open mouth”. If the performance of Jan Egeland, of the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is an indication, the same is true of those paid by the United Nations.

A week ago, despite just one day having passed since the Asian tsunami, with the reported death toll one tenth of what it is now believed to be, and ignoring the fact that public holidays are never the easiest times to start organising an aid effort, Mr Egeland saw fit to dismiss the reaction of the international community as “stingy”.

By Saturday, however, he was announcing pledges of more than $2 billion in aid and acknowledging “the biggest outpouring of relief in such a short period of time”. His original comments were perhaps the most unfortunate by a public official since Hubert Humphrey, a former US Vice-President, responded to a failed attempt to shoot President Gerald Ford by saying: “There are far too many guns in the hands of people who don’t know how to use them.”

Yet such is the reverence displayed towards the UN that Mr Egeland will doubtless be hailed as the man who humiliated George W. Bush and Tony Blair into action. After all, when the US President declared that he had formed a “contact group” with Australia, India and Japan to co-ordinate aid, the response from the likes of Clare Short was to accuse Washington of deliberately undermining Kofi Annan and his colleagues. Mr Blair thus felt obliged to reassure us that he had spoken to Mr Bush about this and it had merely been an unfortunate “misunderstanding”. The President had made it “very clear” that he wanted the UN to be “in the lead” and he was “very much supportive of that”.

It is not merely the verbal ineptitude of Mr Egeland that makes one squirm. Wickham Steed observed of the Habsburg Empire that it operated on what he dubbed an “AEIOU” policy — Austriae est imperare orbi universo (to Austria belongs universal rule). There appears to be another AEIOU attitude towards the UN today; that, regardless of its competence, Anything Else Is Obviously Unacceptable. What has been eulogised, by Mr Blair among many others, as its “unique moral mandate” apparently awards it a sort of monopoly on political legitimacy.

It is a sacred-cow status that is rarely justified by the evidence. The blunt truth is that on international crises ranging from war in Iraq to the waters of the Indian Ocean, the UN is philosophically redundant, structurally irrelevant and bureaucratically ossified.

It is philosophically redundant because technology has eroded the need for a permanent global meeting place and the idea that it might serve as a prototype for “world government” has become laughable in practice and, surely, increasingly unappealing in theory.

It is structurally irrelevant because it relies on a Security Council built on the global order of 1945, which invites impotence through the veto and where decisions on whether or not to counter the atrocities of tyrants can be placed in the hands of those awash in blood themselves. It is more inconsequential still because the body does not have and could not have any serious role in macro economics — the matter that has most impact on the daily lives of humankind.

It is bureaucratically ossified because, as Rosemary Righter pointed out here last week, the UN has become essentially a holding company for agency upon agency, overlapping and competing, all of which prove that John Le Carré was correct which he noted that “a committee is an animal with four back legs”. Yet, this Tower of Babble is saluted for a “unique moral mandate”.

In so far as there is any rational explanation for this, it is the defensive retort that “this is the only UN we have”. In a narrow sense this is accurate. If the broader claim is that the UN is the sole organisation capable of global authority, it is not. For what the events of the past few years should have taught us is that there is an alternative that benefits from a looser structure, one that better reflects where world power lies and which is rooted in economics. With modest adjustment, it is the G8, the presidency of which Britain has assumed, that must be prepared to take on the mantle of world leadership.

If Mr Blair really wants to help the poorest of the world, then the more that he does to build up the G8 over the next 12 months the better. There are three reforms that he can champion which would allow it to provide the international leadership of which the UN is now institutionally incapable.

The first would be to move almost immediately from G8 to G10 by incorporating China and India. Within a decade, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa can also be invited. That would create a de facto Security Council of 15 members that was appropriate for the modern world and one that was flexible enough eventually to include Argentina, Nigeria and South Korea.

Mr Blair should also press for a careful expansion of a future G10’s activities. The finance and foreign ministers of the present members convene regularly. Those in charge of trade, international development and counter-terrorism should make similar arrangements. Finally, it makes sense to establish a modest secretariat to assist the country that holds the presidency. It might be diplomatically astute to locate it in Ottawa — Canada having (oddly) evolved into a Switzerland with Mounties.

A.J. Ayer asserted that “no morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine”. The cult of the UN for its own sake has become counter-productive. It has its virtues, but has neither a unique ethical merit nor unrivalled practical credibility. It is time to recognise reality. To fail to do would be, to borrow a word, profoundly “stingy”.

[Ladysmith]

Let's read that again!

It is a sacred-cow status that is rarely justified by the evidence. The blunt truth is that on international crises ranging from war in Iraq to the waters of the Indian Ocean, the UN is philosophically redundant, structurally irrelevant and bureaucratically ossified.

[Jean S]

What a fabulous title! Great article too, thanks for posting it.

[Ladysmith]

Check this out!

[Navy Patriot]

Why replace something that is less than useless? Just cut off all support and diplomatic immunity and they'll be gone in a month.

[isthisnickcool]

The UN is a criminal enterprise. None of our money should fall into their sticky hands.

[silverleaf]

UN Ping

[DainBramage]

Which makes the new Aide Relief Alliance Bush proposed with Australia, India, and Japan a necessity.

The U.N. is nothing more than an international cabal of thieves taking a cut of every aid dollar,

and every budgeted mission everywhere in the world. They are afraid to say it out loud,

but now they are reduced to just going around it and letting it survive hoping it will eventually change.

[68skylark]

The blunt truth is that on international crises ranging from war in Iraq to the waters of the Indian Ocean, the UN is philosophically redundant, structurally irrelevant and bureaucratically ossified.

The author has left out the part about the UN's sex abuse scandals.

New sex misconduct claims hit UN (Congo).

British Firm Accused in UN ‘Sex Scandal’: International Police in Bosnia Face Prostitution Claims.

[Ginifer]

It's a good article up until this point:

The first would be to move almost immediately from G8 to G10 by incorporating China and India. Within a decade, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa can also be invited. That would create a de facto Security Council of 15 members that was appropriate for the modern world and one that was flexible enough eventually to include Argentina, Nigeria and South Korea.

This would only make France and Germany, along with the rest of the EU a bigger counter balance against America, since we all know how the Euroweenies vote, except of course for Britain.

[Ladysmith]

ALL the UN scandals says it's time to pack up the house and sell it - once and for all. And if other countries don't agree, then the UN can move to one of them.

In fact!... Every 7 years or so, the whole lot should move to another nation and to every single nation on this earth!

[Ken H]

The UN is a criminal enterprise. None of our money should fall into their sticky hands.

Nailed it.

[Iscool]

Watching Goofy Annan on tv today, it was amusing to watch him trying to portray the UN as legitimate as he proclaimed that money was coming in... And when the dust clears over in Indonesia, his cronies will be able to identify the needs of the dying people...And at that time, will be able to determine what the damage is, and who needs what, where...

All the while, anyone who picks up a paper or turns on the tv knows that the US is already there with troops, logistical support and supplies...Goofy and UN are only relevant as long as the US says they are...

[Ladysmith]

Yep. I thought the writer was leaning towards dismantling it. Instead, he proposes to make it bigger. yeesh

[Ladysmith]

Goofy and UN are only relevant as long as the US says they are...

Exactly! And why we do is beyond me!

[oldbrowser]

The cult of the UN for its own sake has become counter-productive. It has its virtues, but has neither a unique ethical merit nor unrivalled practical credibility.

The Brits have way with words. The UN has outlived it's
usefulness, it is corrupt and ineffective.

[Ladysmith]

I posted this on another thread when some wench complained about the US helping out...

This combo photo taken 26 December 2004 shows (top-L) Phuket's Chedi resort staff preparing for the day as the first swell edges toward the lawn followed by the arrival of the second and third waves (top-R and bottom-L) respectively, which engulfed the hotel restaurant and its surrounding gardens and the final photo showing the water at its crest, flooding the whole area. Aid pledges for Asia's tsunami victims topped 1.6 billion dollars on a tide of New Year sympathy, but the United Nations (news - web sites) warned it would take weeks for help to reach many survivors and that the death toll would likely rise to 150,000.(AFP/Joanne Davis)

-------------

Hey, UN. Just get the he!! out of the way, we're on it!

[isthisnickcool]

The UN has countless programs they scam money from. I know of one called their "Flagship Technology Program" where in the past UN employees have made deals with high tech companies. The UN "blesses" the company product. Software or whatever while at the same time the UN employee is getting stock options from the company they are promoting. Which is always a publically traded company. Likely small and on the pink sheets or BBS and involved in pump and dumps.

What the difference between the head of the UN and his associates (even his sone) and some Nigerian doing a 419 scam? ANSWER: Nothing. They are the same types from the same part of the world.

The UN has been suckering the US for decades. It must stop!

[keats5]

I agree with you. Inviting China into the G8 is not a good idea. I'm undecided about India at this point.

[Billthedrill]

His original comments were perhaps the most unfortunate by a public official since Hubert Humphrey, a former US Vice-President, responded to a failed attempt to shoot President Gerald Ford by saying: “There are far too many guns in the hands of people who don’t know how to use them.”

ROTFLMAO! I remember that one - it would have been a wonderful double-edged comment if Hube The Cube had had a vindictive bone in his body, which he didn't.

It has been my painful duty occasionally to defend the idea of the UN here on FR, and one of its principal missions is the coordination of disaster relief in times such as this, or it would be if the UN could get over its structural and political inadequacies to cover it. It can't. And it isn't getting any better at it as time goes on.

Can somebody else do it better? Aside, that is, from the U.S. military, whose job it decidedly isn't but who has, time after time, stepped into the breach? This author thinks the G8 might serve that function. But it isn't really their job by design either.

In the meantime, of course, kids from Macon and Provo are going to be tossing boxes out of helicopters while somebody else squabbles for the credit. The world should be able to do better than that, but it isn't.