Is there anything that the U.N. does right?
I noticed a story earlier this week, Apology for UN refusal to stop Rwanda genocide. The context for the apology is the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.
Former New Zealand ambassador Colin Keating issued the rare apology during a council meeting to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the genocide and examine what has been done since to prevent new genocides.
The open session elicited praise for the U.N.’s stepped-up commitment to put human rights at the center of its work but widespread criticism of its failure to prevent ongoing atrocities in Syria, Central African Republic and South Sudan.
Keating was the President of the Security Council twenty years ago.
Of course, another U.N. official was in charge of peacekeeping operations at the time one million Rwandan’s were killed. His name is Kofi Annan. Despite his failure to prevent the genocide he was promoted to Secretary General of the United Nations. (There is even a Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre in his native Ghama. It’s as if he actually succeeded at his job. The job he’s good at is funding vanity projects.) To be sure Annan apologized for his failure ten years ago.
Two months ago, U.N. diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi also apologized:
“I am very, very sorry, and I apologize to the Syrian people that…we haven’t helped them very much,” said Mr. Brahimi, the United Nations/Arab League Joint Special Representative, telling a press conference that while no date was set to resume the talks, he presented both sides with an agenda for the next round, “so that we don’t lose another week or 10 days as we have this time.”
And of course, the U.N. continues to do nothing to stop the carnage in Syria as the death toll continues to rise.
In addition to apologies, the U.N. is also good at condemning Israel, by appointing the likes of Richard Falk to judge and condemn the Jewish state. Falk’s successor has not been selected yet, but reportedly it will be Christine Chinkin who decided that Israel was guilty before being appointed to the Goldstone Commission. Though a vetting committed had unanimously recommended an American academic, Christina Cerna, for the post, the Arab League objected to Cerna, because she had not established her anti-Israel bonafides. United Nations Human Rights Council’s president Remigiusz Hencze deferred to the Arab League’s protest and rejected Cerna’s candidacy.
[Photo: WorldIslandInfo.com / Flickr ]
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The UN is multiculturalism squeezed into a box of Lucky Charms. It is time to send the whole shebang to Belgium (ergo, the EU) where indecision reigns.
Belgium would be too good for them, though I’d enjoy seeing the Belgians pay (King Leopold never suffered enough for the harm he did in the world).
But the right place for the new seat of the UN is simple —
— Mogadishu.
I’d like to see a movement to declare the UN a hate group.
It gets worse since the UN, through UNESCO and other entities, is the main driver of the nature of education reform globally. They see it as described here http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/decreeing-the-interdependence-of-environment-economy-society-and-cultural-diversity-in-the-21st/ as having the same function that revolution had for Marx. It’s how you get the desired transformations to collectivism.
Guided there by people who are repeatedly deceitful with power and plan to use this noetic assault on the West for their own personal benefit.
Did you know the so-called Third World now calls itself the majority World in anticipation of a majority rules and demands redistribution process through the UN?
And Obama just keeps creating more initiatives that make the UN the final arbiter we need to be cooperating with for “a just and sustainable society.”
The UN is a whore.
That can easily be confirmed by taking a quick look at the membership of its Human Rights Council.
A UAS, United Animals of the Serengeti, would make as much sense as the UN.
If you are going to have a “community” of democracies and dictatorships working together, why not a “community” of carnivores and herbivores working together?
If you can have a “community” whose members do not all embrace democracy, capitalism, human rights, liberty, free trade, etc., why not a community whose members do not all embrace grazing and browsing?
Walt Disney’s “It’s a Small World,” is more effective at promoting peace than the UN.
Put Palestinian children on the musical boat ride at Disneyland filled with singing dolls representing children in countries all over the world instead of teaching them to blow up Jews.
That will push the peace process towards fruition more than another UN resolution condemning Israel for some imagined crime in Fantasyland.
Nailed that one. It’s pretty sad that the best we can do is something done for a completely different purpose. Sort of shows the futility of humans trying to create heaven on earth.
In 1979 I set out to write my senior thesis (yes, private school) on the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Research tends to lead to a different path, and I submitted my paper on the United Nations…in all it’s feckless glory.
Hmmm. From reading the post, the answer just jumps out at me: the UN is fabulous at apologizing for their screwups.
They’re also very good at prolonging the suffering of the people they “help”, raping and killing the villagers where they post “peacekeepers” and enjoying the fruits of the US economy.
Excellent summation!
At the management level, the UN’s job is to dine well and stay in the best hotels. It does it very well.
Good for nothing. Evict’em.
“The job he’s[Kofi Annan] good at is funding vanity projects.”
Not to excuse the corrupt fool Kofi Annan, but isn’t funding vanity projects and nepotism what the UN is all about now? With that in mind, they should rename the UN building itself in Kofi’s honor.
The UN’s purpose is to funnel money to corrupt bureaucrats. It does this trough numerous agencies and funds but the favorite technique is to give them “jobs” as UN “diplomats.”
Any other activities it may undertake are merely for the sake of maintaining its cover story of being some kind of vague, touchy feely humanitarian organization.
Very few people actually believe this idiotic story and most of those few work for the New York Times.
Blue Helmets Inc. is only good for… nothin’. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Nil.
Am convinced that we need a League of Democracies. Keep the UN for the short list of things it does well, but as democracies tend not to wage war outside of defending core interests or provocation, we can bypass a lot of the crap that pretending that all nations share some core values entails. This is the premise of a United Nations, and it been proven to be both false and folly.
What a terrible waste of tax-exempt real estate. Time to evict them and put it back on the tax rolls–diBlasio’s gotta use for the tax moneys, I’m sure!
The UN has a use as a set for movies like The Art of War.
I’d like to see legislation introduced in this country to the effect that the US only recognizes those refugees that flee a conflict as having refugee status, not their children, grandchildren etc.
Is there any international peacekeeping effort initiated and maintained by the UN that has actually been effective?
[…] David Gerstman/Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – The UN: What is it Good For? […]