Andy Nicewicz
Mr. Schelle
Eng. 111
12/15/04
When the United Nations was first created in 1945, its main purpose was to maintain international peace and security ("Basic…"). Unfortunately, this admirable goal proved to be nothing but a dream. True, the UN has had some successes, but as of late, things have not been going so well. The recent Oil for Food scandal gave the UN a black eye from which it may never recover. One of the biggest contributing nations to the UN, the United States, is facing increasing alienation and resentment. Wars in the Middle East and Africa rage as innocents are mercilessly killed. Meanwhile, the UN continues to push its far-left agenda that doesn't necessarily benefit the world. Amid all of these serious issues, it can no longer be said that the United Nations is an organization that can enforce world peace.
A recent issue that has illustrated the UN's corruption is the Oil-for-Food program. This program started in 1995 to deliver humanitarian aid to people in Iraq. At that time, there were various international sanctions on Iraq, and as a result, much of the population was suffering. Thus, the UN started the Oil-for-Food program which would allow Iraq to export oil in order to buy food and medicine for the people (Gardiner).
It sounded like a good plan at the time, but unfortunately, it descended into corruption. The UN collected a commission on every barrel of oil sold, and various companies, especially ones based in Russia and France, benefited greatly from this program. However, they were not the only ones who benefited from the Oil-for-Food program; Saddam Hussein's government collected billions of dollars from kickbacks received by companies doing business in Iraq. In fact, the Iraqi government collected 67 billion dollars from the program. Instead of using that money to buy food and medicine, Hussein used that money to buy new palaces and weapons (Gardiner).
The Iraqi Oil Ministry recently released a list of 270 names of people who benefited from illegal dealings in the Oil-for-Food program (AKA: oil-for palaces, and oil-for-corruption program). Many on that list were of French and Russian nationality, and even a few were directly linked to the UN. Even Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, and his son were implicated in the scandal (Gardiner).
People are now accusing the UN, and specifically Kofi Annan, of ignoring the problems that were happening right under their noses. This scandal just proves that the UN is a corrupt organization with members who are acting only for their best interests. France and Russia are both permanent members of the UN Security Council and hold veto power ("UN Security..."). If these countries are acting only for their corrupt interests, how can they be trusted? China is also another permanent member of the Security Council, and with its appalling record on human rights, it seems unlikely that they would want to help promote human rights in other parts of the world (Endersby).
Besides keeping world peace, another duty of the UN, according to Basic Facts about the United Nations, is "to co-operate internationally in solving international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms." People who support the UN argue that it is acting for the best interests of the world, and sometimes the UN does do an exceptional job with their humanitarian efforts. However, sometimes the UN does get involved in matters that are either none of its business, or make mandates that are not really in the best interests of the world.
One example of the UN making unrealistic, unfair, and unnecessary attempts to change the world is the Kyoto Treaty. The Kyoto Treaty was a UN led effort to get 37 industrial nations to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gasses and stem global warming, but when the United States did not accept the terms of this treaty, it failed to pass. Much of the world criticized the U.S. for abandoning the treaty, but the fact is the Kyoto Treaty set unrealistic goals and would have severely damaged the U.S. economy ("Global Warming...").
The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimated that if the Kyoto Treaty was implemented, it would have cost the U.S. economy 400 billion dollars per year and raised electric utility bills by 86 percent. It would also put a 66-cent gasoline tax into effect, and considering the cost of gas lately, there's no telling how badly that would hurt the U.S. Not only that, but WEFA, an economic consulting firm, said that 2.4 million U.S. jobs would be lost as a result of the treaty ("United Nation's Meeting...").
The UN was willing to accept these downsides in order to stop global warming, at the expense of the U.S. However, more and more studies are suggesting that global warming may not even be happening, and if it is, there may be natural causes. NASA weather satellites, which are extremely accurate, have discovered that the earth actually stopped warming more than 20 years ago! Another organization studying climate change, the European Space Agency, believes that global warming is caused by the sun, not by man ("United Nation's Meeting..."). The UN needs to seriously consider all sides of an argument before it tries to force people into unnecessary treaties.
The UN also seems to have a habit of forgetting who is on their side. The United States is the leading contributor of funds to the UN. In 2001, the U.S. gave the UN 3.5 billion dollars, 22 percent of the UN's total budget. France contributes 6.4 percent, Britain 5.54 percent, China 1.53 percent, and Russia 1.2 percent (Gardiner). As you can see, the U.S. is relatively a huge contributor to the UN. Of course, it might be argued that the U.S. is the wealthiest nation on earth, so we should contribute appropriately, but then why should the US's vote on the Security Council be weighed the same as that of Russia's, since they hardly contribute at all?
The United States also has a huge amount of troops involved in peacekeeping missions throughout the world. However, according to some sources, the U.S. only contributes about 3 percent of the troops in UN peacekeeping missions, about 500-1000 soldiers in 1994-1998, but it turns out those numbers are extremely misleading. Those small numbers are just the troops directly under UN command, or so-called "blue helmets." In a report issued by the Pentagon in 1997, there were actually about 68,000 U.S. troops involved in international peacekeeping missions. There were about 1,000 U.S. personnel in "Non-UN Peace Operations" in the Middle East and Latin America, and approximately 67,000 troops "supporting the enforcement" of UN Security Council resolutions in Bosnia, Iraq, and Korea (Kincaid).
The United States does do a lot of work for the UN, but the UN still manages to alienate us. Some of the unfair measures include the Kyoto Treaty, failing to lend major assistance in the Iraq war, and being unfairly biased against a major U.S. ally, Israel (according to Garner Armstrong, 40 percent of UN condemnations are against Israel, one of the only democracies in the Middle East).
One argument that does support the UN, according to Endersby, is that "the world has avoided another devastating global conflict in which tens of millions might die, and for this the UN can take much credit." He continues, "It has also resisted aggression in regional conflicts in Korea and the Middle East, helping to deter future invasions, and acted as an intermediary in making peace in many other conflicts, e.g.: the Iran-Iraq war. Consider how much more violent the world might have been without the United Nations." It is true that the UN has averted another world war, and helped bring peace in various areas, but was that really the work of the UN? It should be noted that in both the Middle East and Korea, the U.S. did most of the heavy lifting. Additionally, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union never escalated into a full-blown war not because of the United Nations, but rather because of the menace of Mutual Assured Destruction which accompanied the buildup of nuclear weapons during the Cold War (Armstrong).
Besides, the United Nations' failures are just as numerous than its successes. Rwanda is one such failure. In 1994, about 800,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered in that country while the UN did nothing. Actually, according to Joe Mariani of American Daily, there were some UN troops in Rwanda, but when the killing started, they were actually ordered to withdraw!
After the mass genocide in Rwanda, you might think the UN would have learned its lesson, but unfortunately, that was not the case. Ethnic genocide is currently reoccurring in the Dafur region of Sudan. There, thousands are being murdered by Arab militias, and again, the UN does little, if anything (Mariani).
The list of UN failures in peacekeeping missions doesn't stop at just Rwanda and Sudan. Some more botched missions include what happened in the Congo, Somalia, and the Balkans. In these three areas, it can hardly be said that the UN was successful in its mission for peace. In Somalia, the UN intervened in order to stop a famine, however, resistance was fiercer than they anticipated, and they withdrew, leaving Somalia is chaos ("The United Nations: Introduction"). In the Balkans, even after five years of UN involvement, that region is still in chaos and racial violence is still a constant threat (Mariani). In the Congo, Mvemba Phezo Dizolele comments that "in eastern Congo, where rape and insecurity are the daily lot of hopeless civilians, the [UN peacekeeping] mission has, in fact, become the symbol of impunity ."
With recent scandals, unfair plans for the future, the alienation of the U.S., and countless failed peacekeeping missions, it can no longer be said that the UN is an effective organization for keeping world peace. Some people think the U.S. should leave the UN, and others believe that the UN should be completely dissolved, and still others think that the UN is just fine the way it is. The answer lies somewhere in between. The UN cannot continue the way it is now, but it does still serve some good purposes. The UN should be reformed, so where corrupt countries are punished, and the United States isn't always left with the hardest work. Then the UN can continue with its goals that it was founded upon.
Armstrong, Garner Ted. "Mankind's Last Hope for Peace?" 16 Dec. 2004.
<http://www.garnertedarmstrong.ws/GTA_Wordfroms/gtanews49.htm>.
Basic Facts About the United Nations. New York: United Nations, 1989.
Dizolele, Mvemba Phezo. "The UN in Congo: The Failure of a Peacekeeping Mission."
10 May 2004. International Herald Tribune.
<http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/congo/2004/0510failure.htm>.
Endersby, Alastair. "United Nations: A Failure?" 2 Nov. 2000. International Debate
Education Association. 2 Dec. 2004. <http://www.debatabase.org/details.asp?topicID=71>.
Gardiner, Nile, and James Phillips. "Investigate the United Nations Oil-for Food Fraud."
21 April 2004. The Heritage Foundation. 6 Dec. 2004.
<http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg1748.cfm>.
"Global Warming: U.S. Turns its Back on Kyoto." CNN. 9 Dec. 2005.
<http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/globalwarming/>.
Kinkaid, Cliff. "The United Nations Debt: Who Owes Whom?" 23 April 1998. Cato
Institute. 11 Dec. 2004. <http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-304.html#N_35>.
Mariani, Joe. "Exploding Liberal Myths 5: The Moral United Nations." 27 June 2004.
American Daily. 8 Dec. 2004. <http://www.americandaily.com/article/2330>.
"The United Nations: Introduction." eNotes.com. 12 Dec. 2004.
<http://www.enotes.com/united-nations/>.
"United Nations Meeting in The Hague Will See Demise of Kyoto Global Warming
Treaty." The National Center for Public Policy Research. 8 Dec. 2005. <http://www.nationalcenter.org/PRKyoto1100.html>.
"UN Security Counsil: Members." United Nations. 7 Dec. 2004.
<http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_members.html>.