Please Remind Us — Why Keep the UN in New York?
When Moammar Gaddafi came to speak as one of the stars of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual opening debate in 2009, he complained about the rigors of traveling all the way to New York, and offered to move the UN to Libya. That offer may now be off the table. But it was one of those very rare moments in which the deranged dictator had a good point. It gets ever harder to justify keeping the UN in New York.
This year, as the UN General Assembly wends through its annual opening at UN headquarters in Manhattan, the tone, theme and starring characters are distinctly Middle Eastern. The new president of the General Assembly is from Qatar: His Excellency Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser. The country presiding at the Security Council this month is Lebanon. One of the most powerful voting blocs in the General Assembly is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference), headquartered in Saudi Arabia. One of the major meetings organized by the General Assembly will be the Durban III “commemoration” of the 2001 Durban Conference, which centered on that Middle Eastern specialty of bigotry and discrimination toward Jews and Israel. The focal issue of the entire Assembly this year has become the bid by the Palestinian rulership to abrogate years of “peace” agreements by seeking from the General Assembly a statehood the GA cannot confer — but which it is prepared to promote regardless. And, of course, there will be the annual main stage appearance by Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
What part does the U.S. play in all this? Well, New Yorkers get to navigate the security barricades and the traffic gridlock. American taxpayers get to foot roughly one-quarter of the tab, both for the UN budget and for the current $2 billion renovation of UN headquarters. And the American president and his diplomatic corps get to plead with the Palestinians to wave off, while readers of the New York Times get to peruse such stuff as the not-so-veiled threats from Saudi Arabia that America had better kow-tow to the Palestinian godfathers and their pals, or else…
Seriously, why does the setting for this have to be midtown Manhattan? At far less cost to Americans and their allies, this entire performance could more easily be staged in Doha. Or Beirut. Or Riyadh. Or Tehran. Or, for that matter, Ramallah. If the UN is going to function largely as a vehicle to serve the demands and agenda of the Middle Eastern gang now dominating the doings of the General Assembly in New York, then why should America grant the UN right-of-way in Manhattan, and pay to put fuel in the tank? Ship the whole caboodle to the Middle East. Save American taxpayers roughly $8 billion per year by letting the UN enthusiasts in that part of the world pay for it. And let the new UN patrons know that if they’re willing to play nice and pay for the tickets, American diplomats might perhaps be persuaded it’s occasionally worth the bother to drop by.
I’ve often thought that the new NATO headquarters in Brussels could be re-purposed for the new UN. One of Parkinson’s laws holds that a shiny new headquarters building is the sign of a dying organization, which suggests that NATO won’t be needing it.
Brussels is, after all, the capital of the free world (Biden, 2010) and home to another large international group of busybodies, so it would be the perfect fit.
Ms. Rosett: The title of your column has three extra words. It should have been: Why Keep the UN?
I have the perfect place to move the UN- Jerusalem.
Nothing would more foster the cause of peace in the world and fix the biggest problems.
Think about it!
That the United Nations headquarters should leave NYC is only obvious. Firstly, it is a corrupting influence on NYC and it is too expensive. Some, not I, think Jerusalem should be an international city, whatever that means. Would the UN also corrupt that treasure that is Jerusalem ?
Without American Taxpayers’ support, this “United” Nations oxymoronic organization will cease to exist. Those seated at the San Francisco Peace Conference at the close of WWII with the grand idea of expanding those nations united against the Axis powers into a World Body must be spinning in their tombs.
I say let’s create a closer “English Speaking Union”, and let those other nations whose literal survival depends upon Americans buying their petroleum products trade with us with the knowledge that we’re going to drill and exploit our own reserves.
We can then trade for electronic goods and other such stuff of world trade among those who’re more amenable. We Americans have no moral responsibility to be the world’s “Peacekeepers”…..it’s past time we “wised up” and recognize that we’re being played for fools while others stand by and hold our coats.
The answer as ever depends on the question.
Why keep the UN in New York is a hedging question. The appropriate question is WHY Keep America in the UN? A supra-national body most of which members are neither citizens, allies nor champions of American public ethos. Answerable to the American People ONLY through politicians and bureaucrats. Some of which members representing nations only in imagination, who are known to murder their own citizens en masse, while remaining honoured members of that UN. Without a squawk about that membership from the US delegates.
American professional politicians have shown minor activity to serve the interests of the People of the US in the presence of this “royalty”, in effect bending the knee/bowing to them. In contrast to their aggressive protection of their own status/privileges in America among their defrauded electors.
Do Americans really care so little that they are the most privileged,in their individual freedoms and honourable history, persons on the planet that they won’t remove this flesh-eating parasite from their body politic?
Actually, I think we ought to move the UN to Guantanamo Bay. It is high time we stop adhering to the notion that little thieves get hanged and big thieves get pardoned.
Let’s put up a new UN building where all the real terrorist puppetmasters and other assorted world criminals can assemble and we don’t have to break a sweat rounding them up.
The travel costs for us are negligible, 90 miles from Miami. We don’t tie up traffic in New York and I suspect that revoking diplomatic immunity might be a tad easier somehow.
We could perp walk the big fish right from the podium to Gitmo’s main gate, smoke a cigar and let the Communists foot the bill for once.
One simple reason:
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
Speaking from the experience of having worked with Unicef, WHO, UNDP, and the World Food Programme [sic], the UN and all of its agencies are nothing but sinecures for parasites. Why hard working Americans are funding this lavish lifestyles in New York, Geneva, Rome, and in compounds surrounded by tall walls that enclose bungalows and tennis courts (think the Others compound in Lost), is beyond me.
The best justification I ever heard for the UN was from a senior State Dept guy who said it is the one thing the world has agreed upon. If the UN is what we can agree upon, vive la desagrement!
I used to think people were crazy for wanting us to pull out of the U.N.
But over the last few decades the U.N. has steadily turned into an anti-American, anti-Semitic/anti-Israel, anti-Western-Civilization, anti-Democracy hate machine.
The U.N. has long been taken over by third world countries and the OIC. Most of the influential countries are serious violators of Human Rights. It no longer serves the purpose that it was originally created for.
So, I think its time the U.S. and other democracy loving Western countries withdraw from the U.N. and form a new organization. One that ONLY allows membership to democracy loving Western countries. Oh, and forget Nato. That has been a disaster as well.
But, yes. KICK THE FREAKING U.N. OUT OF NEW YORK AS A VERY MINIMAL START!
Ms. Rosett, drop the other shoe, please. The real question shouldn’t concern why the U.N. remains in NYC, but why the United States should remain in the United Nations at all. Long the dream of progressives like Wilson and FDR, the U.N. was a utopian fantasy in 1945, albeit one with all the trappings of success, i.e. a fancy headquarters, staff from nations around the world, etc. However, the U.N. has become what our enemies have long-hoped, a forum in which they can excoriate the USA, and place geopolitical parlor games at our expense.
It is past-time that the U.S. throw the UN out of NYC, and immediately withdraw from it. We can form or join a new alliance, this time with genuine allies, as we see fit.