by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
A<\/strong>mericans grew up with kind feelings toward the United Nations. Many remain nostalgic about their childhood UNESCO Halloween buckets and UNICEF Christmas cards. Such goodwill explains why we host the organization and cover a quarter of its operating budget.<\/p>\n The U.N. arose out of the ashes of World War II and was the dream of Western idealists who sought to enact liberal notions of human rights and jurisprudence on a global scale.<\/p>\n Only a humane transnational body, it was felt, could avoid a repeat of the 50 million lives lost in World War II. A Security Council of great powers was to add muscle to resolutions\u2014avoiding the irrelevance of the defunct League of Nations, which had proved impotent in the face of fascist aggression. And this time, the world body would be located right smack in Manhattan, symbolizing the American commitment to world arbitration in lieu of our prior isolationism.<\/p>\n Well, here we are in 2005 with nearly 60 years of the U.N.\u2014and more people have been lost in wars since 1945 than during World War II itself. Americans now distrust the U.N.’s record as much as they might applaud its idealism in theory. Why?<\/p>\n A half-century of Soviet bloc politics poisoned the body. Dictatorships that had killed millions of their own won an equal say to many Western democracies. Third-World countries were silent about the 80 million butchered by Stalin and Mao\u2014and the millions more lost in tribal and religious wars in Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n Instead, over 400 U.N. resolutions gratuitously targeted tiny democratic Israel\u2014without equal condemnation of its autocratic neighbors or commensurate concern for China’s annexation of Tibet or Russia’s absorption of the disputed Sakhalin Islands.<\/p>\n The terrorist Yasser Arafat addressed the General Assembly with a holster\u2014to applause. Autocratic Cuba, Iran, Libya and Syria sat on or even chaired the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. U.N. blue helmets could not do anything to save innocent millions in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans and Darfur.<\/p>\n Elected governments replaced autocrats in Panama, Nicaragua, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq only because of American action\u2014not U.N. resolutions. The multibillion-dollar Oil-for-Food disgrace dwarfs the Enron mess but shares the same symptoms of influence peddling, shredded documents and funny insider accounting.<\/p>\n Any council is only as good as its membership; thus allowing a Sudan, Cuba, Iran or North Korea into the General Assembly de facto gave them as much legitimacy as a democratic Brazil, Holland or South Africa.<\/p>\n If the United States nearly 150 years ago fought a war to end slavery, why does the U.N. still welcome in a country like Sudan that will not? Many delegates vote only when they come to the U.N. They would never offer their own people the same rights that their spokesmen take for granted in New York.<\/p>\n Redistributing, rather than fostering, wealth seems to be the U.N.’s prescription for world poverty\u2014as if a poor Mexico, Nigeria or Venezuela is without natural riches, or a rich Japan or Switzerland is endowed with oil and land.<\/p>\n The hallowed Western liberal idea that collective reason should trump force works with democracies, but how does one persuade a Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il or Saddam Hussein to stop murdering his own and others, without some credible threat of forceful deterrence? And if the American legislative, judicial and executive branches check one another, who or what watchdogs the U.N.?<\/p>\n Why not insist upon a democratic constitution as a prerequisite for a nation to qualify for U.N. membership? Why should France deserve a Security Council seat and not Japan and India\u2014especially since the creation of the European Union should equate to a single European veto? And why promote lifelong U.N. apparatchiks like the stained Kurt Waldheim or Kofi Annan, when outsiders of real accomplishment and proven integrity like Vaclav Havel or Eli Wiesel would make honorable secretary-generals?<\/p>\n Then there is the location itself of the U.N. headquarters in Turtle Bay. Diplomats live the Manhattan high life a world apart from the crises that they are supposed to be addressing in Africa and Asia. Global media coverage from nearby studios\u2014”live from New York”\u2014tends to provide an electronic megaphone for fashionable anti-Americanism on the cheap. Never have so many delegates wished to live in a place for which they profess such a public dislike.<\/p>\n The U.N should move to a Bolivia, Congo or West Bank where hunger, war and strife could be monitored and addressed firsthand.<\/p>\n Yes, the United States should still retain its membership and pay it dues, predicated on a whole series of radical structural reforms. But in the meantime, to restore their lost symbolic capital, let these well-heeled utopians practice their craft where the world’s crises\u2014rather than its easy rhetoric\u2014reside.<\/p>\n \u00a92005 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Americans grew up with kind feelings toward the United Nations. Many remain nostalgic about their childhood UNESCO Halloween buckets and UNICEF Christmas cards. Such goodwill explains why we host the organization and cover a quarter of its operating budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[790],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-19u","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5242,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lo-the-u-n-by-what-name-do-we-call-thee\/","url_meta":{"origin":4432,"position":0},"title":"Lo, The U.N. By What Name Do We Call Thee?","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 9, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Failed, useless, dubious, impotent, pernicious, morally exhausted . . . by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Every crisis is an opportunity, a time when the fissures and cracks of received wisdom and worn-out habits of thought are exposed. The years since the terrorist attacks on 9\/11 have been such a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5239,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/unprincipled-and-inert\/","url_meta":{"origin":4432,"position":1},"title":"Unprincipled and Inert","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Why the United Nations is sinking fast. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers A review of\u00a0Tower of Babel. How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos\u00a0by Dore Gold\u00a0(Crown Forum, 2004: New York). The current dispute in the Senate over John Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations strikes me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4943,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/war-has-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":4432,"position":2},"title":"War Has Come","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 18, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Next stop: the battlefield. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The president reviewed the history of disarming Saddam Hussein, and reminded us it is not pretty: violation of the 1991 armistice accords, obstruction of U.N. resolutions, sanctions, and inspectors, a record of aggression, hatred of America, and a propensity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2003"","block_context":{"text":"March 2003","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2003\/march-2003\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3726,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-is-annanism\/","url_meta":{"origin":4432,"position":3},"title":"What Is Annanism?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The triumph of the therapeutic over the tragic. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Everyone seems to take some\u00a0joy in listening to outgoing secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, especially during the holidays. But just as with other such ethicists as a lip-biting Bill Clinton or creased-browed Jimmy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2006"","block_context":{"text":"December 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/december-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5310,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/deconstructing-kerrys-case-against-president-bush-part-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":4432,"position":4},"title":"Deconstructing Kerry’s Case Against President Bush: Part Two","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 21, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The Kerry case against the President's invasion of Iraq is built on four components: the President misled the nation about WMDs and ties to al Qaeda; he failed to plan adequately for the aftermath of combat; he failed to bring our allies on board;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7889,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-incredible-lightness-of-being-barack-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":4432,"position":5},"title":"The Incredible Lightness of Being Barack Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Barack Obama\u2019s address to the U.N. 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