Fraud, Rape, Prostitution and Ignoring Genocide Not Enough? UN Ignores NK Refugees

[Overpaid Slacker]

(Yes, it's a cut and paste, but I think it speaks for itself and the Thread Title conveys my sentiments...)

The Real Refugee Scandal
It's a matter of life and death, not sex.

BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, February 23, 2005 12:01 a.m.

So prolific in scandal has the United Nations become that it's getting hard to keep tabs. You can surf the channels, from rape by peacekeepers in the Congo, to theft at the World Meteorological Organization, to a Human Rights Commission crammed with despots; from inadequate auditing to botched management to wasted money to running the biggest heist in the history of humanitarian work--the Oil for Food program in Saddam's Iraq.
An aggrieved Secretary-General Kofi Annan has chosen to describe the reporting of such outrages as "attacks on the United Nations"--as if the problem lay in the reporting, rather than the scandalous behavior that is the real threat to the U.N.'s peace-and-human-dignity mandate. But at least a little daylight has prompted some acknowledgement from the U.N. Secretariat itself that there is a need, as Mr. Annan's new chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, just wrote in London's Sunday Times, for reform at the U.N. "through deeds, not words."

Fine, let's look to the deeds. One test of that promised reform will be the next move at the U.N.'s refugee office, where High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers resigned Monday over allegations that he had sexually harassed a woman who worked for him. The allegations were not new. The U.N.'s internal auditors concluded last June, in a secret report, that Mr. Lubbers had engaged in "misconduct and abuse of authority" by way of "unwanted physical contact with the complainant." This report was submitted months ago to Mr. Annan, who ignored the findings, and kept Mr. Lubbers on, until the press last week got hold of the document. In the ensuing flap, Mr. Lubbers resigned.

But that's hardly the worst outrage that's been bubbling at the UNHCR. If you believe in the U.N. charter's promise to promote "justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties," along with "the dignity and worth of the human person," then the real scandal--less racy, but colossally more devastating in human cost--has been the UNHCR's failure in recent years to stand up for refugees fleeing North Korea. The problem here is not, as far as I am aware, one of embezzlement or fraud. Nor is it on a par with any amount of sexual harassment in the comfortable Geneva headquarters of the UNHCR--however upsetting that might be. The true horror is the way in which the well-mannered nuances of U.N. bureaucracy, structure and management have combined to dismiss demurely the desperate needs of hundreds of thousands of human beings fleeing famine and repression in the world's worst totalitarian state.

The situation, by U.N. lights, is of course complex. For more than a decade, North Koreans have been fleeing their country by the only avenue even partly open to them--past the northern border patrols, into China. An estimated 300,000 North Koreans are in hiding in China today. They have a well-founded fear of persecution, should they be sent back. Testimony has stacked up high and wide--much of it over the past four years, on Mr. Lubbers's watch-- that if returned these refugees would likely end up starved or worked to death in the labor camps of Kim Jong Il. Some are murdered outright. One recent dispatch from a South Korean private aid group, the Headquarters for the Protection of North Korean Defectors, reports that according to sources inside North Korea the regime there just last month executed some 60 North Korean would-be defectors sent back by China, killing at least eight in public, in the northern city of Chongjin--to deter others from making a run for it.
Such would-be refugees have been dying faceless, nameless and scarcely even remarked upon by the world community. But these were human beings. They had faces and names. From what we know of conditions in North Korean detention centers, it's a good bet they were freezing, famished and quite possibly tortured in the hours before they were then murdered in public due to the combined and systematic state policies of China and North Korea.

Where is the U.N. in all this? Under the U.N. Refugee Convention--which Beijing has signed and the UNHCR, with its $1.1 billion budget, is supposed to administer--these North Koreans refugees had rights. The convention promised them not a return to their deaths, but at least safe transit through China to a place of asylum.

The UNHCR keeps an office in Beijing, with a budget this year totaling $4.4 million, to which asylum seekers have no access. Four years ago, a family of North Korean refugees actually stormed the premises and gained asylum after threatening to eat rat poison from their pockets if forced back out onto the street. Since then, the UNHCR has allowed China's security agents to better defend the compound against further visits by the people the UNHCR is supposedly in China to protect.

For years now, the U.N. policy in dealing with North Korean refugees in China has been one of what its spokesmen call "quiet diplomacy." The hushed implication is that behind the scenes, the UNHCR is in deep and earnest discussion with the Chinese authorities. No doubt. And there has been some help for a small number, mainly by way of easing them quietly out of the country once they have risked their lives by storming foreign compounds other than the UNHCR's. But the broad picture, for the hundreds of thousands, is a quiet but dire absence of any help whatsoever.

Ask the U.N. to explain its procedure for processing North Korean refugees in China. There is none. The UNHCR's Beijing representative referred me to the organization's Geneva headquarters. There, a spokeswoman in the midst of dealing with the Lubbers sex scandal wondered why it would be of interest at this moment of crisis to discuss North Korean refugees. "Why today?"
Why? Because after more than a decade of what this spokeswoman described as "low profile" diplomacy, the UNHCR, has failed these refugees, and done abysmally little to alert the world. Two years ago, Mr. Lubbers finally designated them a population "of concern," and there the matter sits, as people quietly die. With the UNHCR's top job now open for new management, it is less the new office etiquette in Geneva that should serve as a yardstick of reform, but whether or not there will now be deeds to save the refugees of North Korea.

[creaturecat]

where is the part about fraud rape and prostitution - ignoring genocide?where is the genocide?
Genocide? Look up Somalia.Guess who turned their back on Somalia?
Oil for food? - Where is the oil now? Who has the oil now? Who is getting the money from oil now?
Escaping starvation? Anything to do with 50 years of US sanctions?
Is this the same UN that the US ignored regarding Iraq?
Cheers!

[gaijindabe]

The problem is, the United Nations is run about as well as the member states are.. Look around the world, average it out and you get the UN.

[Overpaid Slacker]

I've never before encountered someone so eager to declare to the world "Hi! I'm staggeringly ignorant of what I'm about to decry and I want everyone to know it!" Kudos for pushing that envelope.

Put down the hash pipe and do some research; learn some history, some context. The "part" about rape and prostitution has been in the news (even the MSM) for the past two months... prostitution rings run by the UN and rape of young women by UN personnel in Congo as well as other places within UN "control". Rosette refers to these things in general, as context for those who actually know anything about what she's discussing. Reading Comp. is not your strong suit, evidently.

The genocides (plural) in (1) Bosnia that the UN couldn't and wouldn't handle (the same one the Europeans called in the US to handle), (2) Rwanda that the UN did nothing to stop, (3) Darfur, Sudan that the UN has done nothing to stop -- DESPITE the US attempting to have the UN place forces in that region, which efforts have been stymied by Russia and China who don't want their economic interests threatened. Where have you been? Too busy with Anti-American screeds to notice what's going on in the rest of the world? And we're insular... yeah.

On the just-short-of genocide ledger, how about the UN's stunning successes in ending theocratic murder in Iraq or Afghanistan? Oh, they've had none; it was the US that put an end to that. OK, how about UN successes in ending sectarian murder and strife in Syria-occupied Lebanon? Oh, they've had none. North Korea? Nope. Even slowing down Mugabe's slaughter of whites and theft of property? Not even that. Hmmmm... What planet have you been on for the past few decades that these events haven't registered? Or do they fail to register b/c there's not a "blame America" angle to be played... like Somalia. Yeah; "nice try."

As for the serial stupid rhetorical questions -- the Iraqis have the oil now -- unlike under Hussein when HE had it and used it to grease every corrupt UNocrat that had their hand out (including Annan's son and number two guy)-- to the tune of more than $100 billion by even Volcker's estimate (you DO know who HE is and what HE's doing, right?; your having evidenced such staggering ignorance of the other issues, I feel I must ask.)

The democratically elected Iraqi government will have to determine what happens with their oil... too bad the whole "we're just in it to seize oil" crap didn't pan out; but the morons repeating that mantra aren't exactly the ex post self-examining demographic, are they?

Sanctions, speaking of context which you completely lack, were UN (that's "N", not "S") sanctions against Iraq brainiac, ... and had Hussein not siphoned off more than $100 billion (that's $100,000,000,000) there would have been plenty of money to feed the people ... oh, but regardless of money HE WAS STARVING them for his own political purposes (ever hear of the Marsh Arabs? he asks, expecting nothing). Even before there were UN (again "N", not "S" for the reading impaired)sanctions Hussein was starving, gassing, raping and starving (oh, did I mention that?) his own people.

Hussein stole his own peoples' money through oil-for-fraud, with the complicity of the French, the Russians and the UN. So yes, this is the same UN (meaning, effectively, France on the Security Council) that the US "ignored" b/c the UN wasn't interested in ending tyranny, suffering, mass murder or corruption on an unprecedented scale -- why? B/c it was complicit in all of them.

Oh, and by "ignored" you of course mean "secured 17 Security Council Resolutions" including one authorizing force to implement the others, right?

You're really flagrantly unqualified to speak on any of these topics, having willfully blinded yourself to the facts, or being simply incapable of knowing them.

CHEERS!

JP

[Moneyguy1]

Whereas I think that the situation in some aras of the world needs adjustment, and there are horrible things going on, I wonder just how much one "Superpower" can do. Granted, the UN is far from perfect, and like most organizations that do not progress, has grown more toothless and senile. But, it is a base upon which to build.

I remember the series "Babylon 5" which was a futuristic allogory of international (in the case of the series interspecies) intrigue. Failure after failure, but small progresses that added up over time.

To completely trash the UN would lead to a situation of even increased isolation in the world, creating more distrust and suspicion. Kind of like tossing out the baby with the bathwater.

Remember the Arab proverb: Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer".

And, as hard as it is to swallow sometimes, true change in a country starts from within, not from the outside. The people themselves, (like a twelve stepper does but in this case collectively, you get the idea), must reach their ultimate low and then act; the point where there is nothing more to lose. It is not bloodless, it is not easy, and it is not instant. Aid can be given, but the "revolt" must be theirs. Ownership of the operation by the residents of the area is important.

[ed martin]

Hey Creature Cat, Are we talking about the same world here? I mean what are you talking about? Where is the genocide? How about looking in the present day Sudan? How about past day Bosnia and Rowanda. What did the UN do to stop those atrocities and a least in the case of Bosnia what country had to step in and actually do something? Somalia? What are you talking about? If I recall the Clinton administration tried to step in and quell civil unrest and our troops where dragged through the streets in the process. It was for that reason, the military failure in Somalia that Clinton was reluctant to take action for the genocide in Rowada. As far as where is the oil going? Who really knows the answer to that question? Who is rightfully entitled to it? Starvation in North Korea? Anything to do with a brutal dictator?

[Overpaid Slacker]

Bob -
Taking gajindabe's point a bit further, the UN is the sum of its parts ... and we fund what has become a virulently anti-freedom/anti-democracy/anti-American agency. Most of the Shytbag states' ministers and Abassadors in the UN enjoy rights of speech, voting and association at the UN that their own citizens do not enjoy at home.

I believe we ought to scrap the UN -- or move it to Brussels or Pyongyang -- and establish an organization of democracies. Why should our (collective, meaning the "West") efforts to promote free trade, democracy, liberty, human rights, etc. be burdened by the weight of fascists, theocrats, mullahs and other dirtbags whose interests are diametrically opposed to our own? The more freedom/liberty/rights there are in the world, the safer it is for us, and the more these dirtbag dictators/mullahs/theocrats are threatened.

And look at who chairs the UN Commission on Human Rights -- Syria and Iran? Why not North Korea or Sudan for God's sake. The esteemed statesmen on this committee evicted the United States from its ranks... interesting, no? The UN is a farce, and absolute inmate-run asylum. Do you recall that in 2002 (I believe) Iraq was supposed to chair the committee on its own disarmament? IRAQ?!? (I'd have more detail, but my UN notes are at home... so I might correct a date or name in here).

And I just don't go for the "nobody's perfect" rationalization for continued nonfeasance and malfeasance. It's correct to state "nobody's perfect" but I'm fully justified in saying in response "so what?!" Does that mean that we never call a spade a spade, acknowledge its utter lack of moral authority, or stare its corruption in the jaundiced, avaricous eye and say "no more"?

It's soiled its own reputation wherever its been -- running from Iraq, failing to provide even basic human rights for NK refugees in China, raping and putting young women to work for them; standing aside during mass slaughter in several African nations under UN care.... Who that has been the subject of the UN's tender ministrations would stand up today and declare that the UN is worth the effort? Even UNICEF has become a highly politicized feminist tool and scarecely effective.

An event in which the UN is most "capable" to provide some benefit -- tsunami relief -- it has been next-to-useless, and often hurt efforts. Though Annan will stand up and claim with a straight face credit for the work of the US, Australia (go Aussies!) and Singapore!! The UN did nothing to provide, coordinate or even assist in these efforts, but stands up and takes credit (oh, after "advising" relief personnel that they should wear the baby-blue UN tunics). Please, I beg you, don't take my word for this... go to http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/ and read first-hand accounts of guys that were there, on the ground, in tsunami affected areas and the stories of the UN Vulture Elite. His archives will go back to late Dec/Early Jan when all the really fun UN lying, duplicity and inefficacy were going on. Just check out his January 27, 2005 post (avail. at the above link w/o having to go into the archives) for a taste of UNhonesty.

We need an organization of democracies; let the dirtbag nations of the world form their own club b/c they don't listen to us in the UN ... and the GA is effectively a pulpit to smear the West and a forum for cutesy little things like calling for the eradication of Israel (read some of the records coming out of the General Assembly if you don't believe me).

JP

[stevepaa]

Sometimes what you say sounds great.

Couldn't we just expand NATO as the democratic union?

[Moneyguy1]

An excellent idea Steve, but I still want direct access to the "dirtbags" so I know what they are up to. Excluding them is like ignoring the bomb makers in the house next door. Imperfect intelligence is better than no intelligence at all. The groups of "evil doers" out there are by and large successful because they are not members of a forum of any type since they are not officially governments. I would respectfully submit that removing countries we "don't like" from the "club" could create even larger dangers.

I don't know what the answer is, or even if there is an answer. I said it before; this is a time in history that concerns me more than any other I have lived through, simply because the lines are not clearly drawn.

JP: I do not, as well, believe in the "nobody's perfect" excuses put forth by the apologists. I am concerned about the death of a thousand cuts that can result from continuing attacks here there and elsewhere by small groups, draining our resources in an attempt to keep up. Maybe I am slowly becoming more of an isolationist. Seal all borders, become energy self sufficient, ban future immigration, build enough defensive/offensive missles to take out any country IN TOTO that has the audacity to make a pre-emptive strike.

I do not believe we should be in the business of nation building either. It is, in my humble opinion, silly to assume that, when it comes to styles of government, "One size fits all".

Friend of mine once told me: "My wife and I have a great relationship. I make the big decisions and she makes the little decisions. I decide what we should do about the Middle East, North Korea, the economy and so on. She makes the little ones like what are we going to eat, where we go on vacation, where we are going to live".


Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, help me to change the things I can change

Accept the things I cannot change

And the wisdom to know the difference

[lendaddy]

Originally posted by Overpaid Slacker
I've never before encountered someone so eager to declare to the world "Hi! I'm staggeringly ignorant of what I'm about to decry and I want everyone to know it!" JP

Ouch......

[Overpaid Slacker]

Steve - NATO is an entity that has outlived its usefulness. We have no longer a shared strategic interest in Northern Europe, which is the predicate for NATO. Europe doesn't want us there and it makes very little sense for us to be there, militarily. Honestly, what has NATO done lately? Provide 900 troops and 3 helicopters to Afghanistan -- whoo!!! All of which helicopters have already returned to their home -- Turkey.

I believe we need a new institution, not tied to old, stale "Cold War" principles (like representation on the Security Council is -- FRANCE is a world power deserving of a Security Council veto, but Japan and India aren't. Yeah....). NATO is on its way out, and to try to graft new responsibilities onto a Northern European agency to try to salvage it is unwise. Especially in that this will not necessarily be just for Anglo-Saxon "whites". India must participate, as should Japan, Australia, Turkey, Mexico and Canada ... as equals. What we need is specifically not an EU-esque, anti-democratic, bureaucracy-for-bureaucracy's sake, self-perpetuating bloated deception with a 1000 page constitution. And, good news for all concerned, the EU should have one seat, as it purports to speak for all the interests of Europe, so it's relative "power" to move things toward Euro-centric pacifism and relativism would be tempered.

Bob - Do you really believe this "keep your enemies closer" pablum that we learn any more about what the dirtbags are up to just b/c of the UN? How, pray tell, do we find out more from the UN -- and I mean exactly the United Nations -- than we do from other sources? Maybe you know how, but I don't, so if you know specifically how, let me know. I'm not intending to be snide here; I'm willing to be educated on this point, but I'm very skeptical right now.

Strangely, you acknowledge that many of the evil (no quotes) doers out there are extra-statal entites; they're not governments and won't and don't have ambassadors or ministers. However, many members of the UN (including one or two on the Security Council, whose single opinions become de facto what the "UN" has to say to the small minded) want to treat these terrorist groups with the same protection and deference under international law that a soverign government of a real territory would receive. It's preposterous.

I like your friend's quote.

I don't believe, however, that we're trying to force a "one size fits all" government on the rest of the world. Iraq's government is not particularly similar to ours -- it's more Parliamentary than our system -- and we're not crying foul. Nor are we complaining that more muslim/islamist forces than perhaps we'd prefer will be part of that representative government. It is their government, after all. Afghanistan did their own thing and it's working very very well. How do I know it's going so well? B/c we're not hearing about it on the news. I'm not kidding. Good news is not news for MSM under this admin.

As far as "Nation Building", well its earlier, Clintonian iteration was a feel-good op for international support that, IMHO, received the minimum amount of commitment required in order to be able to "say" we were doing the "right thing", whether any "thing" got done or not. What we're doing today is unfortunately also called "Nation Building" though I think our motivation and commitment are vastly different, as are the results.

I can't change the dirtbag states through the UN -- that's for damned sure. Why does that wisdom elude so many folks?

JP

[stevepaa]

So who do we invite into this new world union?
Do the old Europenas belong?
Do we start with the major economic powers first, would that include China since they seem to have a big investment in us?

[stevepaa]

Sorry, missed that sentence on giving EU one seat. How about the other nations over there?

[Overpaid Slacker]

Steve -- My personal view is that we have a League of Democracies. Yes, I know there is something of a "spectrum" as to what constitutes a democracy, but that kind of thing can be worked out.

As far as China, it's not democratic by any Euclidian standard, so it's out. But size won't matter. The smallest, struggling African democracies would be welcome to join, as would any truly democratic (even if impoverished) nation.

As for EU members, I suspect w/o knowing that the EU would attempt to pre-empt their members from acting in any sovereign capacity such as this.

It's not exactly a secret that the EU is very anti-democratic (it does not like to have EU membership or the acceptance of the Euro put to public referendum, but prefers to have each country's legislature vote on such matters w/o each citizen-to-be having an opportunity to vote -- Where's the "Let Every Vote Count" outcry from our disenfranchisement industry?). I imagine the UK would still want a seat in this LoD; and many former Soviet Bloc countries might as well.

You can forget Fra and Ger even making overtures about joining b/c the scope of the conflict-of-interests between the EU's power centralization/aggrandization and the EU's two motivating forces joining an autonomous international entity would warp gravity.

Plus, France would see it as a US power-play, as they see everything as a US power-play...

We (the democracies) have the money anyway -- how much does Saudi Arabia or the rest of the Islamofascist world provide in dues to the UN? How much to they give to disaster relief --even disaster relief for MUSLIMs, for Mohammed's sake. Next to none. We democracies get things done, we innovate, we have goals and aspirations for the world (aside from conquest and united worship of Allah under some 12th century theocracy).

We're really the only nations that DO anything anyway, so why do we need the dirtbags right in our living rooms, eating all our food, drinking all our booze, consuming our culture, utilizing the technology that we -- and definitively not they -- developed, impregnating the domestic animals and then telling us how much we suck and how great they are.

Get out of our penthouses and go back to your moms' basement apartments, your squalor and filth, dirtbags. No matter how gracious or generous we have been or will be (witness Egypt for a prime example) you're going to blame us for your plight, steadfastly refusing to take responsibility for your own actions that keep you oppressed ... we don't need you doing it in our home any more.

JP

[Superman]

I'll bet you guys also think the Catholic Church is an organization of pedophiles that exists for the purpose of having sex with young boys. I'm not making excuses for the UN, but just saying that if you want to villify some organization, just get a list of its embarrasments and pretend that's all they do.

Also, the existence of a UN or NATO just gets in the way of a nation that just recently has found itself in the position of being the world's only superpower, and that has served notice on the rest of the world that its guns will be used to change the political structure of any and all countries it wants to.

In this case, the "administration" needed to make a fall guy out of the UN. Looks like the propaganda machine is getting NOX through a Paxton Supercharger, and you guys are falling right down that shaft. Sure, the UN has some embarrasments. Let's toss them out now, since we had to exit from that organization anyway in order to autocratically invade a sovereign nation.

Some of you know I protect workers. Sometimes that has involved enforcing regulations. I have always worked for organizations that are an "open book." That is, for the price of an envelope, stamp and slip of paper, you can get pretty much any record in my office. Not so with the private businesses I deal with. They whine about impending bankruptcy, but I've never seen or heard of them opening their books for overall inspection. In fact, I rarely see businesses comply with state or federal law in terms of producing payroll records. Do you guys think that government organizations are the only ones behaving badly? Or could it be that private companies have AT LEAST as many skeletons in the closet, but that they are simply not subject to public records laws?

So, you have some choices. One is:

THINK.

The other is to light a torch and march up the hill to kill the monster you've heard about.

[cmccuist]

I like Mark Steyn's analysis about the UN.

Steyn on the UN

The UN is a waste of time and money. There are better ways to get things done worldwide.

One mark of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and hoping for a different result.

Hoping the UN will someday contribute is crazy talk.

[Overpaid Slacker]

"I bet you guys think the Catholic Church is..."

You lose. Now how about you stop trying to make us into "monsters" by this old, tired demonizing of those whom you oppose (do you have only THAT arrow in your quiver?), and deal with the arguments presented. The UN has no moral authority to do its "job" around the world and has shown absolutely no desire to straighten itself out and purge itself of corruption, no matter how often Kofi has said it's time for "actions not words" to clean up the UN.

Though Kofi's serial pledges to do better have worked as an extreme soporific, thoroughly mollifying the Left, who would rather flat-out ignore what's wrong with the UN, or excuse it in a "nobody's perfect" apologia such as your own, than take action to fix the problems.

Why no liberal/feminist screams of outrage about young girls being raped or forced into prostitution by the UN? B/c it's just a "problem" and everybody's got them?

The UN UNmade itself into what it's become today, including having a dirtbag like Mohamed alBaradei release false information on the eve of a Presidential election with the hopes of influencing the outcome of such election, having Kofi Annan sit on a report explict about one of his senior people sexually harassing a woman, calling the charges "unfounded" in spite of such report, having Kojo Annan complicit in the oil-for-fraud scandal at one of the entities responsible for auditing Hussein's compliance with the rules, etc. etc. etc. These things are matters of public record, they're facts. We Think, you IGNORE and DISSEMBLE.

JP

[CamB]

No matter how much it reflects the reality of the world's haves and have nots, it just seems a little rich to be proposing an elite group of countries charged with governing the world ... and including "Democracies" in its name. It couldn't be any less democratic.

The League of Democracies would simply divide the world into "us" and "them". I actually think this is what you want, but I think it is a terrible idea.

If not actively included, I would imagine a lot of the remaining countries would sorta shrug their shoulders and do things their own way. Actually, that's pretty much what they do now.

When the "League of Democracies" invited themselves in to "fix" the problems in these countries - sometimes (not always) - I think that the countries in question might resent it. Kinda like many countries resent the US meddling (good intentions or not) in their business.

[Overpaid Slacker]

Supe -- Look at it this way (forget Left and Right for a minute)... did you read the article? If what Rosett said about the UNHCR in China is true, the UN has abdicated its actual and moral authority on these matters... SOMEbody has got to pick up the torch.

Cliff Notes:
NK asylum seekers in China (who will likely be killed if sent back to NK) are not allowed into the UNHCR office in Beijing -- the UNHCR has "allowed China's security agents to better defend the compound against further visits by the people the UNHCR is supposedly in China to protect."

The UN refuses to administer the UN Refugee Convention (of which China is a signatory) which promises these refugees safe transit to a place of asylum.

How does that not infuriate you? How does that not break your heart? More to the point, how can you defend an institution that has ignored, violated, abdicated, profaned and defiled so many of its "responsibilities" around the Globe? And many of those "responsibilities" have names, faces and families.

I can't believe that I'm coming across as being more concerned about the plight of North Korean refugees and others over whom the UN claims stewardship than you are.

France, twisting the Security Council to suit its own geopolitical ends, is one thing. That's France, who's had no empire and been able to do nothing but obstruct others for more than 2 centuries (why do you think they helped us vs. the British during our Revolution?).

This goes way beyond that kind of political gamesmanship (though there is a LOT of that too). This goes to: why have a UN? Not why have international agencies, but why continue to allow the United Nations to exist when it doesn't do anything to justify its existence (except present France with a forum to play spoiler and the dirtbags with one to take shots at their host and source of foreign aid?).

Just name me five things the UN does and has done right, and, if you can, why those 5 things can't be done separately, privately, or under the auspices of a new organization.

JP

[CamB]

Just to add, I think it is the UN's inclusiveness that provides its legitimacy - and precisely why uni- or multi-lateral action without UN involvement lacks it. That the UN does a poor job isn't the point.