United Nations corrupt, uncooperative, ineffective

The Leauge of Nations failed once, and it has failed again under new management; change is needed

By: James Mack, Jr.

Posted: 10/8/04

The United Nations began with a bang. Well, two big bangs. The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August of 1945 signified a beginning to a new world order of peace. Or, at least, an attempt at it. The League of Nations had already failed years earlier due to internal squabbling and legal bottlenecks. This was the opportunity for a new beginning and the possibility of one united planet, whose common goal was to promote peaceful coexistence.

As of today, this whole dream has faded into the wind, and failed miserably. As of today, the United Nations is nothing more than a combination of the League of Nations and a corrupt, for-profit charity organization. Granted, in the past, the United Nations has, as a whole, provided relief to certain countries in need. There are still many other countries that are on their proverbial "to-do" list, and others which have been flat out ignored. The past and present actions of the United Nations detail a laundry list of fraud, dishonesty, and devious practices.

After the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was allowed to sell his oil supplies to countries in exchange for resources to buy food for his citizens. The so called "Oil for Food" program generated $67 billion in profits to pay for food. While this sounds like a capital idea, it was a cursed project from the start. Saddam held the money in escrow and restricted it to French Banks. In turn, he gave oil vouchers, allegedly at lower-than-market prices, to certain high level individuals in the French Interior Ministry, the Russian Communist Party and President's office, the Ukraine Communist Party, and the U.N. Assistant Secretary General. The individuals involved still deny wrong-doing, but their involvement is key to understanding the problems with the program.

So imagine our surprise when France and Russia opposed the War in Iraq. Peace mongers, indeed. No longer would their governments be able to benefit from Saddam's cheap oil and payoffs. Not only did these officials receive cheap oil, but Saddam hid more than $10 billion, according to the Government Accounting Office, from the escrow accounts and redirected it to Iraqi assets. Also, Iraq managed to sell the oil through pipelines to its neighboring countries for a price markup sometimes exceeding 20 percent. And all of these profits went right back to Saddam's crippling regime.

Once this debacle became popularly know in the United States a few months ago, the United Nations ordered a review panel of the situation. Well, the most interesting fact might deter us from believing their results, considering the United Nations charged a 2.2 percent commission on every barrel of oil sold to be deposited directly to the United Nations. Well, thank goodness they are the ones launching a review panel of the Oil for Food program, especially when their Assistant Secretary General was on a list obtained by the Americans from the Iraqi Oil Ministry of beneficiaries of the voucher program. Also on that list were none other than the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine, two groups with ties so close to terrorism that they are the ones buckling the bombs to the chests of suicide bombers.

Oil is not the moral end to the United Nations impotence and moral obscurity. I am sure many of us are familiar with Hamas, the terrorist organization in the Middle East responsible for countless car bombings and suicide bombings in Israel. The head of the United Nations Relief and Work agency has admitted to hiring members of Hamas. The best part about this is that he not only hired these animals but also stated that there was nothing wrong with hiring them. He claimed that they are members of a "political organization" and the Untied Nations does not discriminate based on beliefs. Absolutely, positively, beautiful. In the global war on terror, we have the organization that represents the world hiring, and condoning, Hamas as simply a military organization. In turn for paying these employees, they can then cash their paychecks for the latest in men's and women's bomb-vest fashion.

Now, corruption aside, it seems that the United Nations also does not understand that when they say something, they should at least commit the action to back it up. For example, Saddam violated 18 Security Council Resolutions to let arms inspectors in or face dire consequences. Of course, Saddam would comply for a few months, then boot the inspectors out again, repeating the whole process over again. If you let a country as small as Iraq with such a potential to kill its own people and the people around them push around the United Nations, people are not going to take it seriously anymore. In March of 2003, President Bush and our allies finally superseded the United Nations and took care of the problem themselves. Like the war or not, people must understand that the United Nations should have taken action themselves to determine if weapons of mass destruction existed. They failed to act, instead opting to sit idly by and enjoy being treated as subservients by Saddam.

Similarly, Somalia in 1993 was a brewing pot for disorder and chaos, with innocent civilians caught in the middle. While the United Nations started sending food into the country to feed its starving citizens, greedy warlords intercepted this food and pillaged it for their own use. The United Nations was then attacked by the clan of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, and the UN immediately withdrew from the region, leaving only the Americans behind. Instead of being bullied and leaving with a black eye, the military decided to fight back to allow citizens access to food. It was our soldiers who paid the price for that food, and it was our soldiers who were dragged through the streets mercilessly by insurgents. The United Nations contributed nothing, and if it weren't for the United States and their willingness to act, the country of Somalia would have endured more pain, suffering and starvation than humans should ever experience.

The U.N. has their own little plan for the United States on their plate. They have repeatedly supported calls for the ban of small arms by all citizens in member countries. Never mind the 2nd Amendment implications domestically, but to force all citizens in the United States to give up their civil rights because the United Nations says so is ludicrous. Countries wishing to enslave and overpower their citizens have always demanded gun forfeiture and gun registration so that their population is controlled like caged animals. Look at Washington, D.C., a city where they banned all handguns from ownership and banned their sale. Their crime rate has increasingly become one of the highest in the nation, surpassing seven times the national average. Now, because the United Nations doesn't like firearms, we should disarm everybody in the country? Listening to the senile United Nations is not only directly contradicting our sovereignty, it's detrimental to our health and safety.

If you want to obey Senator Kerry's "Global Test," fine. If you want the United Nations to annex the United States of America, as their resolutions have tried, fine. But do not think for a second that we will ever be able to make decisions on our own again. It is a slippery slope to consistently bow to international pressure and make secondary our right to self defense. The United Nations employs Hamas, makes deals with Saddam and gets bullied around by him for 13 years, and they allow no room for sovereignty of respectful nations. Continuing our relationship and obeying their rules would violate our Constitution. Continuing our relationship would allow more corruption and under the table deals to flow through the United States. There is no hope for this organization. If we are to retain some dignity for ourselves, we must resign from this organization forthwith and let the thing collapse. It is the League of Nations, and the proverbial Old Yeller - time to put it down.

James Mack, Jr. is a junior majoring in criminal justice.