Time to get rid of the US or the UN
Regional, Analysis, 9/15/2003

The time is perfect to get the US out of the United Nations. The US has always dominated the United Nations and its Security Council, while at the same time, and on the rarest occasions, when it did not get fully its way, the US showed utter and total lack of regard for the United Nations. The US said the United Nations is irrelevant. The US will do what is in its interest whether the UN approves or not. etc.

Now the US is having problems, that it caused, in Iraq and wants the rest of the world to clean after it, and of course, provide soldiers and money to help. The world's largest economy, by far, and its citizens that proclaim love of liberty and democracy seem to boil down their arguments when they want to attack someone to love of liberty and democracy, and when it comes down to spending the needed money for civil purposes, the liberty and democracy loving citizens cringe at such extravagance. Implementing democracy in Iraq costs money, and implementing democracy at the UN costs the US -- how much? The US should keep its values and feel-good rhetoric to itself, as she seems well determined to do.

But the past is past and we have to move on in a positive way despite the best efforts of the US to dominate the world. First we had the League of Nations, and it fizzled away, and then we got the UN, and it showed us all too well that it is an ineffective institution in the area of conflict resolution, and that the UN was in effect a little more than a cover and an instrument of US foreign policy. The UN in short, and looking at the major conflicts was little more than a stooge for the US; anything positive about its role in major conflicts, seems to have always been marginal, at best, despite some people's desire to give a different impression.

The US is not to blame for this. They had the military and economic power and played great defense and offense, and did well for themselves; and they deserve to be learned from in their effectiveness that outmaneuvered the Soviet Union, outflanked and still do the Europe Union, and held the levers in critical areas through out the world. Their interest was their interest -- and not that of the world, even if at times coincided with the world's interests.

Now we are before a critical fork in the road. The US needs the UN, but more importantly and unrelatedly, the UN needs to free itself from the US, and the Security Council, an institution that gives five countries in the world the power to forever obstruct the progress of the United Nations into a democratic and legitimate institution. The UN has been a helpless institution because of the paralyzing effect of the veto structure, that gives the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China, the winners of the Second World War, eternal rights to obstruct international political progress.

Why the rest of the world puts up with such thinking is anybody's guess, other than even serfdom seems normal to people after a while and adjust to living under it. Clearly, the UN General Assembly, and its multitude of members lack any degree of self respect, as they show no will or definite energy and effort to change this status quo. Or they must feel utterly helpless, and paralyzed by fear, or by habit, from taking a single and resolute stand: Either the the Security Council goes, or we go and start a new world institution.

The UN General Assembly should promptly move to issue a resolution, that "we are going to rent an office complex, somewhere in the world, and Switzerland, or Belgium are as good as any place to do this, and declare that we are moving the UN, without the UN Security Council to this location. And start anew. The US can come or stay." It will be a historic day indeed. From Africa, to the Middle East, to Asia, to South America; problems that have defied solutions, will have to come to the General Assembly and its courts and melt away under the authority of respected and authoritative democratic institutions.

In a short period of time, a democratic UN, can impose solutions on the multitude of problems afflicting the world -- the Irish problem, the India-Pakistan problem, the Arab - Israeli problem, and every other conflict that has and continue to retard maximum political, economic development and drain the world from great wealth. The effects that democracy and rule of law have had in revolutionizing political stability and economic development at the domestic level, will do the same at the international level. Conservatives and liberals alike should understand this much.

Either the US does the world a favor and leaves the UN, as many in the US always claimed they want; good riddance. Or the US agrees to a complete overhaul of the UN Security Council with the complete elimination of the veto rights. This state of affair should be absolutely unacceptable. The UN member countries as from today need to take advantage of this opportunity, and regardless, energize to immediately transform the UN into a credible and genuinely democratic place for conflict resolution. Nothing less should do. We need a fresh new start where the world controls its own destiny. Either the UN gets rid of the US, or it is most definitely time to get rid of the UN.

By,
Jamil Kazoun

Previous Stories:
  The US should not be supported at the UN   (9/6/2003)
  The rationalization of governments: concrete measures of every law, program and department   (6/7/2003)
  The politics of terrorism is very bad politics   (6/2/2003)
  The UN is a fundamentally flawed institution   (4/26/2003)
  The practice of lending to developing and underdeveloped governments should end   (5/25/2002)
  The foundation for tomorrow's international politics   (10/18/1999)

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