I was surfing though the morning news feeds, and read another in a long ling of “Israelis to pull out of Lebanon by end of September” type articles and, as is always the case, I wondered upon the effectiveness of the UN forces that are there to replace them. Where I Israel, I would not have much faith that the UN will lift a finger to stop another war as soon as Hezbollah is re-supplied from Iran and Syria.
This got me wonder on the overall effectiveness of the UN. Is the UN past its shelf life? Out in the Blogosphere there are many who believe it is.
When is the last time we heard of an effective UN Security Council resolution? The UN Security Council was ineffective with Iraq, is doing no better with Iran or N. Korea, and now we have UN “peacekeeping” troops in S. Lebanon who say there “rules of engagement” prevent them from taking an active role; These new UN troops there after a previous force was sent in 1978 with the task of disarming Hezbollah – and we see how well that worked out.
Add to the ineffectiveness of the international body, the rot of corruption as was made clearly visible in the Oil for Food debacle, UN funding of Palestinian propaganda, and several other noteworthy scandals.
All of this and the Congress just approved the 2007 budget which includes $1.15 Billion in support the UN. The US contributes ~22% of the UN’s budget, and is the highest contributing member. Why? All we get is a bickering group more interested in the grand process than any effective acts.
The UN, at the very least, needs a makeover, and perhaps needs to be scrapped all together. I am sure we could find quite a bit more worthy to do with our $1.15Billion. We are certainly not getting any value for money, and there is no sense throwing good money after bad.
At least we have John Bolton in the UN. While I may not like his style, I cannot fault his focus and tenacity. Bolton has bee historically critical of the UN for much of the same reasons I am. I hope Congress will have the good sense to confirm his position before they run off to the campaign trail – I certainly will not support any congressman who sees fit to vote down Bolton.
[…] We know that the UN has been very successful with its sanctions in the past. Just ask North Korea, Sadam Hussain, Syria, and Lebanon; to name a […]