CapitalistMarks

Ohhh, the United Nations.

Posted on 23. Sep, 2009 by scott in Social commentary, political munglings

The U.N. is going thru their annual ‘carnival.’  Leaders of various nations are given free hand to talk (generally limited to 15 minutes — and thank you President Obama for following this) about anything they want to.  Many are inspiring and offer hope in today’s difficult economic and political environment.

But . . .

Some of these guys are NUTS and give hateful and ignorant speeches.  And America provides this forum.  Something is wrong with this picture.

I don’t know where Gadhafi and Ahmadinejad come up with their ideas.  I know that at least Ahmadinejad has a real education (Ph.d. in traffic management — well qualified to run a country heh?).  Others have less than a highschool degree.  Gadhafi, probably the national leader with the LEAST to contribute in this international forum, went on for ONE AND ONE HALF HOURS today.  I listened to part of this (on various news channels) and found nothing worthwhile, intelligent, or even realistic in his rambling and boring diatribe against western culture.

I just don’t get why we let this UN anti-American agenda go on in New York for crying out loud.

Many of the leaders are dictators, at best, and tyrants or worse in reality.  They do not represent their people (at least I hope not).  Those who speak who are elected in legitimate democratic countries generally have more intelligent and worthwhile speeches.  Those with less legitimate claim to leadership are usually paranoid idiots.

So, why do WE permit the dredges of the world’s leaders to get so much time (or any at all) in this forum that grants them TV and radio coverage throughout the world?

Why do WE allow UN diplomats to run up thousands of $ in traffic or parking tickets?  Why are they immune from civil or criminal prosecution while they are on our soil?  Why do we allow a killer (Gadhafi — as an accessory at least and probably directly if we were to know the facts) to erect his stupid and egotistical ‘tent’ anywhere on our soil?

The U.S. — the primary funder of UN operations for decades — has little or no real impact in the UN general assembly.  Small, insignificant and/or dictatorial nations have a completely unbalanced and far to significant impact instead and they contribute almost nothing to the budget.

If the UN is to continue there has to be someway to balance the status, population and contribution of the larger nations to UN decisions.

If I get a vote I would suggest we let the UN move to some other country and turn their campus into something worthwhile like an international University.  The money we spend on the UN and ancillary services (our regular assessment for UN operations is $425 million a year — but the cost to New York and the federal government for the hidden costs of having the UN here is probably twice that) to support operations and ‘bail out’ the diplomats that are part of it could be better spent elsewhere.

The UN in a perfect world could do a tremendous amount for world peace and diplomatic resolution of international disputes . . . but right now it is not even close to achieving that.  I think WE are better off dealing with nations on a direct basis and leaving the UN entirely.  Perhaps things can change but the one thing we should NOT do is give the UN so much credibility unless it is willing to alter the way they do business.

When it was created, the idealistic charter might have made sense.  However, today with instant communications from phone and TV to internet and teleconferencing makes the original format of the UN obsolete.

I am sure some other country would jump at the chance to build a whole new UN campus and I would love to see it happen (just not at our expense — we pay about 25% of the total Un budget).  There are many reasons I would like to see this move but one is that I just don’t like having knuckleheads like the leaders of Libya, Venezuela, and Iran show up in New York and take advantage of our hospitality to ‘rail’ on our political, economic, and social system.

Let ‘em do it in someplace hot and uncomfortable like say . . . IRAQ!

thanks to flickr’s stevecadman for the photo

Tags: ahmadinejad, gadhafi, obama, UN, united nations