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Contributors
J.F. Kelly, Jr. - Contributor
J.F.
Kelly, Jr. is a retired Navy Captain and bank executive who
writes on current events and military subjects. He is a resident
of Coronado, California. [go to Kelly index]
 UN
Requires More than Minor Reform
Hyde UN Reform Act..
[J. F. Kelly, Jr.] 6/23/05
I actually remember the birth of the United Nations amidst
the hopes, dreams and expectations of a war-weary world. Alas,
the dreams soon faded and I watched as it descended over the
years into a bloated, incompetent and now corrupt bureaucracy,
staffed by third-rate diplomats and officials. The overpaid,
unaccountable and pompous windbags that populate its numerous
offices and chambers have made comfortable careers out of attending
largely unproductive conferences, participating in nearly useless
studies and issuing reports full of platitudes and pronouncements,
often based upon questionable science and usually in some way
critical of the United States.
The UN provides a veneer of respectability to the most despotic
governments on earth. It prattles on endlessly about human rights
while allowing the worst violators to enjoy membership and even
chairmanships in its councils and committees. It habitually settles
for talk instead of action and for toothless resolutions that
resolve nothing. Its diplomats seem to believe that by just agreeing
to disagree, they actually solve the problems the organization
was created to deal with. Its prevailing philosophy seems to
be that the strong must be humbled and the weak elevated while
seeking some common denominator of mediocrity in a happy world
without borders, governed of course, by the great world body.
The Iraq oil-for-food scandal finally revealed some of the
magnitude of the corruption and the complicity of its officials.
Now, Secretary General Kofi Annan actually expects to be entrusted
with the responsibility for self-reform of the organization that
he finally reluctantly concedes is necessary.
At the start
of his second term, President Bush annunciated a new policy
of giving greater emphasis to democracy
and human
rights and less to accommodating repressive regimes for the sake
of stability. Support of the UN as it currently operates is incompatible
with this policy without compromising the principles inherent
in it. In nominating John Bolton, a tough, outspoken critic of
the UN, to be our ambassador to that organization, Bush signaled
his intention to take a stronger stance in dealing with that
body. UN-loving liberals in the Congress bitterly fought the
nomination, arguing that it would send the wrong message to the
international community and that a more moderate (read “accommodating”)
diplomat was needed.
Meanwhile, up stepped a veteran Republican congressman from
Illinois, the eloquent Henry Hyde, to author a bill that would
automatically withhold half of U.S. dues assessed by the UN unless
it first implemented specific reforms numbering in the dozens.
These would include steps to suspend member nations for crimes
against humanity, waiver of immunity for UN officials implicated
in the oil-for-food scandal and provisions for making Iran ineligible
to receive nuclear material from International Atomic Energy
Agency members until Iran is in full compliance with IAEA requirements.
Other provisions would terminate U.S. support for new or expanded
UN peacekeeping missions if reforms were not enacted.
House liberals
reflexively condemned the bill, as did a platoon of former
ambassadors to the UN who told Congress
that withholding
dues would create resentment and build animosity (as if none
already existed). “We used to draw countries together,” whined
Connecticut’s Democratic Rep. Christopher Shea, who expressed
disbelief that Congress would actually go forward with this legislation.
Believe
it, Congressman. Even over the objection of the White House,
212 Republicans joined the venerable chairman
of the International
Relations Committee and passed the Henry J. Hyde UN Reform Act.
Hyde, who retires next year after 32 years of distinguished service,
clearly had had enough of the UN’s failures to reform itself,
saying “History shows that when Congress stands tough,
when it says that if you don’t reform we are not going
to pay, then change occurs.”
Commendable
words, to be sure, but don’t count on corresponding
action in a Senate that shied away from confirming Bolton because
he wasn’t pleasant or diplomatic enough. Here’s an
idea. Let’s not nominate anyone. Just leave the position
vacant. The UN is probably beyond reform anyway and eventually
may just go the way of the League of Nations.tOR
copyright
2005 J. F. Kelly, Jr.
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