Reforming the UN
Posted by Moonage on 18 Jun 2005 | Tagged as: International Politics
It’s about time.
"I can’t believe that when our men and women are fighting in Iraq, that we would move forward with legislation like this when we need to draw countries together," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., who cosponsored the Lantos alternative.
The problem, Representative Shays, is that the UN did nothing to draw countries together in the first place. The reason our men and women are fighting in Iraq right now is 100% because of the failure of the United Nations to resolve the issue peacefully the previous twelve years. The reason Congress found it so easy to support demanding the UN resolve the accounting issues is because the United Nations failed to resolve the US-Iraq conflict the previous twelve years primarily because members of the United Nations were personally profiting from the conflict. Surely Representative Shays knows all that?
This legislation is dead on perfect. Open up the books and I doubt the US will have any further reasons to even want to withhold it’s money.
1 Comment »
on 20 Jun 2005 at 11:28 am 1.Bryan Kerwick
said …
Congress does in fact have the right idea. Now we need the Senate to confirm Bolton.
The Senate also needs to keep most of the House provisions in place with the minor change in making the funding cuts the President’s perogative and not an automatic trigger.
The reason I say that is based on Bolton being confirmed in the Senate. It is much better for America to give this bulldog some serious teeth when he goes to the UN demanding reforms.
There will be no question that Bolton speaks for the President when confronting that ilk in New york. The big benefit is that Bolton will be gruff and abrasive and directly to the point. He also will have a rather large stick in his hand to force reforms that all Americans, nay all Anglophones, are demanding. This can be acomplished without President Bush being the guy with the heavy hand that is required to make the needed reforms happen. Bolton is perfectly suited for this job and the threat of loosing half the current $440 mill and ALL new funding should turn some heads in New York.
The Japanese are hinting at some type of pressure as well. Remember Japan pays almost as much to the UN as we do. Threats of loosing money from Japan and the Anglophone Nations unless serious reforms are made will force the issue.
The UN will either snub their collective noses at our group being US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan and go broke since those countries provide most of the UN funding or accept the changes. They really have no choice.