US blackmails UN on reforms

November 23rd, 2005 at 08:35 Björn Hallberg

Little Johnny Bolton is trying to blackmail the UN.

WaPo - Bolton Admonishes U.N. - In an effort to prod states into action, Bolton proposed delaying the passage of the United Nations’ $3.6 billion 2006-07 budget until the United States-backed reforms have been adopted. He suggested the General Assembly could pass a temporary budget to finance the organization’s operations through the first three to four months of 2006.

“Americans are a very practical people, and they don’t view the U.N. through theological lenses,” Bolton told reporters outside the General Assembly hall. “They look at it as a competitor in the marketplace for global problem-solving, and if it’s successful at solving problems, they’ll be inclined to use it. If it’s not successful at solving problems, they’ll say, ‘Are there other institutions?’ . . . that’s why making the U.N. stronger and more effective is a reform priority for us: Because if it’s a more agile, effective organization, it is more likely to be a successful competitor as a global problem-solver.”

What he meant to say was of course that the UN had to be more in line with US policies and acting with more agility on those. Also, this isn’t like the no bid deals that you and your cronies hand off to Halliburton and later call free market capitalism. Just like there aren’t two governments in any one nation, there aren’t more than one UN. “Are there other institutions?” What is Bolton talking about anyway? NATO, the US controlled terror network? Unilateral action by the US? Americans may be practical, but they sure aren’t very intelligent. Perhaps they should leave these issues to those that understand them.
And besides blocking the budget, there is talk in the US of freezing U.S. dues, as they did in the late 90s, if reforms are not passed. It is obvious that we cannot give in to terrorist and bullies such as the US and as such we should prepare to take over their dues as well as exclude them from further budgetary considerations. Now that would be a swift and agile move to reform from the UN that would inspire me with confidence.

The UN situation is best summed up as follows.

GPF - But after the fireworks, the same problems regularly persist – because the shortcomings of the UN are primarily rooted in the dysfunctional global order and the conflict-prone state system, not in the UN’s institutional arrangements. Few reformers are willing to admit that the UN’s complex and inefficient machinery results from deep political disagreements among its members and between other contending forces in the global system. Yet the United States, military superpower and transnational corporate headquarters, clearly wants a weak UN with an impossibly small budget and scarcely any voice in economic matters. Many other nations, to the contrary, want a stronger UN and more effective multilateral policy making. Whose “reform” is to prevail? And how will any newly-devised UN institutions be paid for?

In the meantime, the US has already begun the search for a new, more sympathetic secretary-general for next year’s election. This is obviously reason to be wary. The best one can hope for is a backfiring on the scale of Dag Hammarskjöld. I.e. the election of someone who looks sympathetic and dull at first but later turns out to be a crusading bureaucrat with unbreakable convictions (and that eventually has to be murdered).

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