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U.S. Must Give U.N. The Boot

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By JOHN HERBERT

From Where I Sit

Published: August 3, 2008

I've demanded it before, to no avail. Now, the U.S. should again consider getting out of the U.N., and the U.N. out of the U.S. What better timing than in a transitional election year? Nothing of lasting importance ever happens at the U.N. Why throw good money after bad?

The straw that broke this camel's back has been the U.N. refusal (or inability) to do anything about the brutal dictatorship in Zimbabwe where the annual inflation rate is now 2.2 billion percent, according to a credible financial newspaper I was reading recently.

The U.S., Europe and African countries neighboring Zimbabwe have been urging the U.N. to adopt arms, financial and travel sanctions against the regime of Robert Mugabe, whose hired thugs continue to kill off as many opponents as they can catch.

The U.N. prefers to stand aside in internal conflicts and just look at the bloody rampages in Zimbabwe. Or, wring its hands when Burma suffered through a devastating hurricane. Humanitarian aid? Obviously not the U.N.'s table.

Instead, the U.N. elected Zimbabwe to head its commission on finance and the environment. Can anyone name a more horrible financial role model than Zimbabwe?" As long as you're a dictatorship, you're qualified," the U.N. seems to be saying.

Excuse me if I sound cynical — "liked" the U.N.'s move to elect both Syria and Iran to its disarmament commission last year. Syria keeps Muslim terrorists well-armed and Iran promises to wipe out Israel and western civilization in general. And the U.N. has poured tens of millions of dollars into North Korea, another country illicitly developing and testing nukes.

The U.N. is forever producing experts who, in the name of the international organization, condemn Israel for "colonialism and apartheid." U.N. big-wigs continually defend Palestine, instead; maybe they don't really care all that much about human rights in the first place.

The flow of sick jokes from the U.N. never seems to ease up. Earlier this year, the U.N. General Assembly elected as its president a Nicaraguan who merited a Lenin Peace Prize 20 years ago.

As the Assembly's vice president? You probably guessed it. The "distinguished" delegate from Burma. Why do we allow embarrassments like these to happen on U.S. territory? I thought we were the world leaders; we didn't even throw an alternative hat in the ring.

Now, the U.N. has the gall to examine the human rights record of the U.S. By a leftist lawyer from Senegal. I suppose we had it coming. The Muslims have made too much noise about American racial profiling. Seems to me, Washington has gone to extremes to avoid racial profiling, even at the risk of another Sept. 11.

It evidently never occurred to the U.N. to review countries that really do violate human rights.

Although the U.N. has frequently stated it shouldn't be involved in the "internal affairs" of member states, that's exactly how the U.N. has deflected pressure to act firmly on Burma, Darfur and Zimbabwe. What business, then, has the U.N. examining America's limited application of the death penalty and her jailing of juveniles?

The U.N. should be better tuned to charges of hypocrisy. While the agency has set an admirable goal to cut the world's starvation rate in half, it still puts foie gras and lobster on the menu when it feeds the leaders of its food and agriculture unit.

There's something terribly wrong with this picture. We shouldn't be part of it and our hard-earned tax money shouldn't go to its financing, either. We can accomplish more by acting on our own or through regional pacts like NATO. Plus, giving the U.N. the boot would free up a valuable slice of real estate on New York's East Side.

A regular columnist for Hernando Today, John Herbert lives in Spring Hill.

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