United Nations

In My Opinion – by Bob Fogarty

Ever since its inception, any number of American citizens have opposed our membership in the United Nations for a number of reasons, some good, some erroneous, and some completely frivolous. In recent years the “get us out of the UN” movement seems to be getting stronger, and certainly a lot louder. Certainly the UN has it’s share of problems as it flounders about trying to settle international arguments in a world beset with problems. It’s an international bureaucracy, after all, laced with corruption, inefficiency, favoritism, and of course politics. Many claim that the UN is “Ineffective. Undemocratic. Anti-United States.” After the bitter debate over the use of force in Iraq, we might add “useless” to that list. Bureaucratic it certainly is, considering that UN employees are drawn from all member nations, and in many cases are selected by geography not ability. Ineffective? Well, the UN is a political organization after all, and how easy is it to get a consensus when there are 192 member nations, each with their own political agenda? Undemocratic goes without saying, as most of the member nations aren’t democracies either. The UN itself isn’t anti-United States anymore than it’s “anti” any other nation. However, there are plenty of member states that are anti-US, and they do make their presence felt. I will disagree with “useless”, as the UN does provide an international forum in which diplomats may air their national disagreements, before they start shooting at each other. And there currently is no other worldwide organization with that capability.

The UN had many forerunners, which attempted to unite the various countries of the world in a quest for peace. Some of the forerunners were the International Peace Conference (1899) held in the Hague to determine how to settle crises peacefully, prevent wars, and establish the rules of war. Others were actual organizations, including the League of Nations (1919). Some of these forerunner organizations became subdivisions of the United Nations.

The United Nations was founded in 1945 to replace the defunct League of Nations in the hope that it would intervene in conflicts between nations and thereby avoid war. The organization began with fifty countries signing the UN Charter. The five permanent members of the Security Council, each of which has a veto power on any UN resolution, are the primary victors of World War II, or their successor states. These are the People’s Republic of China (Red China, which replaced the Republic of China); France, the Russian Federation (which replaced the USSR); the United Kingdom; and the United States. Whatever your opinion of the UN, keep in mind that this veto power is a very important diplomatic tool for the United States whenever third world countries (or even “first world” countries for that mater), start getting to big for their britches. Consider that if any UN member nation (or group of nations) attempted to pass economic, political, or military sanctions against the United States, as long as we are a permanent member of the Security Council and hold that veto power, those sanctions can be stopped in their tracks.

The UN is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from member states. The General Assembly approves the budget and determines the assessment for each member, which is broadly based on the capacity of each country to pay, measured by their gross national income. The major contributors to the UN budget for 2006 were the United States (22%), Japan (19.47%), Germany (8.66%), the UK (6.13%), France (6.03%), Italy (4.89%), Canada (2.81%), Spain (2.52%), and China (2.05%). Some member nations are in arrears on their payments, most notably the United States. It might seem that the United States is paying a disporporatnate share, but that 22% is equal to about what the pentagon spends in two days.

Madeleine Albright, “Slick Willie” Clinton’s Secretary of State (and onetime US Ambassador to the UN), stated that “the United Nations is still the best investment that the world can make in stopping AIDS and SARS, feeding the poor, helping refugees, and fighting global crime and the spread of nuclear weapons”. She might have added effectively ending the worldwide threat of smallpox to her list, and an almost successful ending of polio as well.

The United Nations deals with nations in distress at their largest agenda, often calling on the use of other nation’s resources and time to help them—this is basically the revolving circle of foreign relations at the UN. In 1996, however, UN humanitarians sought to use the resources of the nation actually involved, Iraq. Because of Gulf War trade sanctions, Iraq ran out of food and medical supplies. Thus, the famed Oil-for-Food program began. However, once looked upon as a unique project, Oil-for-Food now sits as the source of arguments about its byproducts—sponsoring terrorism, promoting dependence on Hussein, and allowing smuggled oil to benefit corrupt private parties.

UN peacekeepers are sent to various regions where armed conflict has recently ceased, or temporarily halted, in order to enforce the terms of peace agreements and to discourage the combatants from resuming hostilities. These forces are provided by member states of the UN, and participation in peace keeping operations is voluntary, presently only Canada and Portugal have participated in all peacekeeping operations. The “Blue Helmet” peacekeepers have maintained order in such places as Namibia, El Salvador, Cambodia, eastern Slavonia, Mozambique, and Cyprus. The traditional U.N. mission is a confidence-building exercise, conducted in strict neutrality between parties that seek international help in preserving or implementing peace. Peacemaking however, is quite another matter. The tragic experiences in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Lebanon, and Rwanda showed that traditional U.N. peacekeepers lack the mandate, command structure, unity of purpose, and military might to succeed in the more urgent and nasty cases—where the fighting is hot, the innocent are dying, and the combatants oppose an international presence. Such weaknesses are inherent in the voluntary and collective nature of the United Nations, and really need to be addressed by the member nations.

The United Nations' authority comes from its members; it is a servant, not a master. The United Nations has no armed forces of its own, no power of arrest, authority to tax, no right to confiscate, regulate, or override treaties. The General Assembly has little power to do anything except argue, while the Security Council cannot act without the agreement of the United States and the other four permanent members. That means that no budget can be approved, no secretary-general can be elected, no U.N. peacekeeping operation initiated, no U.N. tribunal established, and no sanctions established, without the approval of the United States government. Questions about the efficiency of the UN and many of its specific actions are legitimate, but worries about U.S. sovereignty are misplaced… only as long as the United States remains a member of the United Nations Security Council, and our congress doesn’t give away that veto authority.