UN deputy Mark Malloch Brown openly criticised US support for the UN in a widely publicised speech yesterday. Brown complained that the US is undermining the UN and using it as a political tool without defending the UN against criticisms at home. According to Brown, "The prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable. You will lose the UN one way or another." (Telegraph: US failing to aid the UN, says Annan's deputy.)
Lose the UN? Could we ever get so lucky? Like the League of Nations before it, the UN's best course of action would be to fade into the distant memory of a failed history. Idealistic at best, the UN is an exercise in incompetence and a recipe for corruption. It is not the US that is failing to aid the UN, it is the UN that is failing itself.
The United States currently spends over $3 Billion on the UN; more than any other nation on the planet. The US also provides more troops for UN missions than any other nation on the planet. When it comes to supporting the UN, The US and the American taxpayer do far more than any other nation and bear a far higher burden than any other taxpayer. What Mr. Brown seems to fail to understand is that without the United States there is no UN. Just as the League of Nations folded without US support, so too will the UN.
It's high time we drove that point home. It's time we stopped using American troops as the UN's military force. Let the rest of the world take up that burden for a change. It's time we stopped wasting $3 Billion dollars per year on a grand debating society. That money is far better spent at home. It's time we reclaimed some prime real estate in Manhattan. Let some other nation host this collective body of leeches who's sole purpose seems to be to prolong any given crisis. It's time for the UN to fade into distant memory.
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