What's the United Nations good for? Not much
By Alan Caruba
web
posted September 24, 2001
A friend of mine asked, "Just what wars and terrorist activities has the United Nations ever prevented?" It's a very good question.
The United Nations got blindsided by the Korean War in the 1950's (typically called "a police action" to avoid the obvious) and the United States had to fight it and bring about a settlement that has left our troops on guard there ever since. In a similar fashion, our troops have been in Europe since the end of World War II.
In the Middle East, the UN got out of the way every time Israel was attacked, often facilitating, not avoiding the constant conflicts there. The UN did nothing when Red China marched into Tibet and took over that nation. Earlier, in the 1950's, it did nothing when the Soviets put their tanks and troops into Hungary or Czechoslovakia. Its record throughout Africa has been abysmal. It stood by while the Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia into a killing ground.
You can tick off any number of conflicts in which it played no role in either avoiding or ending them; the Six-Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Turkish invasion of Crete in 1974.
The United Nations was useless in bringing about an end to the war in Vietnam. It was the United States that put together the Gulf War coalition to defeat Iraq. It was NATO that intervened in Yugoslavia.
 Not many solutions come out of the United Nations |
So my friend's question is worth considering and the answer is that the United Nations has served poorly since its inception and has probably contributed as much to initiating, condoning or ignoring these conflicts as bringing about any conclusion.
The hypocrisy and torrent of lies that come out of the United Nations conference on racism should, one think, wake up Americans and others in Western nations to the reality of this insidious institution. Unfortunately, in the affairs of men, it doesn't work that way. Only those with a passion for liberty and justice pay notice to its enemies.
After Tuesday, September 11th, one can only hope that Americans will think anew about the United Nations, a nest of vipers and a hotbed of anti-America activity. The United Nations should have be allowed to die of its own inertia and evil intentions. Merely withdrawing US diplomats from the conference was something akin to putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound turned gangrenous. The US needs to get out entirely and let it implode.
Much has been made of the racism conference's use as a podium for that most ancient of hatreds, the slanders heaped upon Jews. Fostered by a dozen Middle Eastern nations, this calumny had managed to drive other issues into the background, but there never was any need for the conference. Racism exists everywhere and not one thousand conferences will eradicate it. This UN conference was simply an excuse to advance anti-Semitism, the grievances of black peoples against whites, and comparable complaints.
Largely unnoticed is the xenophobia that exists on a daily basis at the United Nations. While the UN constantly hectors the US to send money that constitutes 25 per cent of its budget, Americans hold only 7.2 per cent of its more than 56,000 jobs. A study by the General Accounting Office determined that, at the senior, decision-making level, only 2,076 Americans, 9.5 per cent, hold such positions. This prejudice exists throughout the UN's operations. The World Food Program, for which the US provides more than half of its funding, is staffed by 90 per cent of non-American personnel who, every year, find it difficult to account for tons of food that simply goes missing.
Earlier this year, the United States lost its seat on the UN Human Rights Commission. The US had held a seat since its inception in 1947. A number of African nations where human rights are non-existent nonetheless hold seats on this commission, along with Cuba and that great paragon of human rights, the Peoples Republic of China. Rejection of the US should have signaled Congress that it was time to leave, but the only action it took was to vote to withhold $242 million in UN dues until the US seat is restored. It's time to inform the UN those dues will now be spent on rebuilding our military and other aspects of our national security.
Meanwhile, the UN continues its effort to ban several private human rights advocacy groups from participating as non-governmental organizations. Among them are Freedom House, the Baptist World Alliance, the Simon Weisenthal Center and the Family Research Council. The effort is being led by a 19-nation subcommittee of the UN Economic and Social Council.
In August, a spokesman for the UN Population Fund, Sven Burnester, told British reporters that "For all the bad press, China has achieved the impossible. The country has solved its population problem." This is consistent with the view that the world's real problem is the human race. Meanwhile, the forced abortions, sterilization, and the outright killing of new-borns, continues as a state-endorsed one-child-only program throughout Red China, though to the credit of ordinary Chinese, it is still widely flouted.
The attack on Western values never ends with these despicable people. The United Nations planned to hold a "Children's Summit" in New York in September, but the bombing of the Twin Towers caused its postponement until next year. The conference was intended to secure greater participation in a Convention on the Rights of Children, a treaty designed to steal the natural right of parents over their children and transfer it to the UN. One hundred and ninety-one nations have signed onto the Convention. The US and Somalia remain the last major holdouts. Ironically, the US finds itself allied with several Moslem nations in opposition to UN educational programs advocating abortion.
The drive toward a global "environmental governance" program continues. In the same way the UN conjured up the Kyoto treaty on Climate Control, an insidious instrument intended to force Western, industrialized nations to destroy their economies, the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) has convened an "expert consultants" procedure that always precedes the creation of yet another noxious treaty. This one would be introduced at the June 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. The goal of this treaty would be to turn the UNEP into the UN equivalent of the World Trade Organization, but one that would give environmental groups the opportunity to impose restraints on trade in favor of environmental mandates.
Americans remain blithely unaware of a vast matrix of United Nations treaties, some of which actually cede our national sovereignty in ways that would astound and appall them. For example, in 1972, the US signed the UN World Heritage Treaty. It created "World Heritage Sites" and Biosphere Reserves." Selected for their cultural, historical or natural significance, national governments are obligated to protect these landmarks. Since 1972, 68 per cent of all US National Parks, Monuments and Preserves have been designated World Heritage Sites.
Among those that fall under the ultimate control of the United Nations are the Statue of Liberty, Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello, the Washington Monument, the Brooklyn Bridge, Yellowstone National Park, the Florida Everglades, and the Grand Canyon.
When the Crown Buttes Mines wanted to mine for gold in Montana, that project to access this nation's valuable natural resource was thwarted by the United Nations at the request of the Clinton administration. The mine, it said, was too close to Yellowstone. The project would have employed 280 people and generated $230 million in revenue. This was a direct attack on the company's property rights under the US Constitution and ignored a US federal law prohibiting the inclusion of non-federal property within a US World Heritage Site without the consent of the property owner.
The United Nations has made no secret of its intent to be the sole government of the entire world. The report of the UN Commission on Global Governance, "Our Global Neighborhood", was published by the Oxford University Press in 1995. There you will find plans for the UN World Court endorsed by the Clinton administration, an independent military free to invade any nation that will not cede its freedom to the UN, and, of course, a system of worldwide taxation to fund this monstrosity.
The litany of the United Nations hypocrisy and its patient, creeping
effort to control the world could fill several books. The real question
is when, if ever, Americans will awaken to the danger it represents and
demand US withdrawal from this vile international institution? It took
the destruction of the World Trade Center and an attack on the Pentagon
to shake Americans to the realization that we have real enemies in the
world. 
Alan Caruba is a frequent contributor. He writes a weekly column, "Warning Signs", from which this is excerpted. It is posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center. (c) Alan Caruba, 2001.
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