Sadomasochism is beyond the comprehension of most people. How could anyone get pleasure out of voluntarily submitting to mistreatment or abuse, or being chained and whipped for the gratification of others?
Yet, the U.S. role in the United Nations could be described as cultural/national sadomasochism. We have eagerly submitted to letting our nation be tied down by one-way rules and then kicked around. We seem to rejoice in letting our national honor and values be flogged, month in and month out, while we are paying dearly for the pleasure.
Under the strange, perverted rules of UN procedure, it is acceptable for everyone to attack America, but it is not acceptable for us to defend ourselves — or to attack the Soviet Union. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick reports that the United States is routinely blamed for everything in the world while denied ordinary courtesies extended to all other member nations.
Country after country accuses us of precisely the crimes of which they are themselves guilty. For example, the Soviets accuse us of interfering in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, of disturbing the peace and using chemical warfare there.
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar complained to the General Assembly that the UN cannot play an effective role in settling world disputes. He candidly admitted that the UN has failed in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iran-Iraq, the Falklands, Cyprus, Central America, Cambodia, and Poland.
Rather than solving conflicts, it is probable that the UN actually exacerbates them — making them seem more important than they are, increasing tensions, and actually funding anti-Western terrorist organizations which disturb the peace.
The Soviets dominate the agenda, the votes, and the constant anti-American, anti-Western, anti-private-enterprise rhetoric. They insist on nonintervention in countries they control, such as Afghanistan, but advocate a maximum UN role in South Africa, Israel, Chile, and El Salvador.
The Soviet-UN attack on Israel is unremitting. The Security Council or the General Assembly have adopted more than 150 anti-Israel resolutions and even declared Zionism a form of racism.
Russian use of the UN as a headquarters for espionage is so well-known and accepted that no one even comments on it anymore.
In the mid-1960s, the Third World nations organized the “Group of 77” to try to steal economic benefits from the United States. More than 120 countries now belong to the Group. They agitate all the time for a “New International Economic Order,” which means forcing the U.S. taxpayers to give them direct handouts plus soft low-interest loans, and forcing us to turn over our industrial, space, and ocean-floor technology and patents.
The UN is the world’s leading opponent of a free press. The UN admitted giving $432,000 to 15 foreign newspapers to run propaganda articles advocating economic, social and political proposals to benefit the Third World. Disgusted scholars know that UN “research” is propaganda; the outcome and conclusions are prescribed in advance.
Nobody seems to know how much we spend per year on the UN. Our out-of-pocket costs are about $1 billion per year. Andrew Young estimates the real costs at twice that amount. It has cost us $10 billion since the UN was founded in 1946. The United States provides 25% of the UN budget, while the voting majority pays only 3X.
The Heritage Foundation reported in a recent study that the 1981 General Assembly votes were 84.9% favorable to the U.S.S.R. compared with 25% favorable to the United States. Tanzania received $37 million from us, but voted with us only 17% of the time, while voting with the Russians 87% of the time. Algeria, Angola and Mozambique, all of which received U.S. aid, voted with us only 14%, 17%, and 11% of the time, respectively.
Non-binding resolutions have passed by huge majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House to withdraw our country from the UN if Israel is denied participation. That would be the best thing that could happen.
The same conservatives used to demand passionately that we “get the U.S. out of the UN.” We’ve heard the depressing UN story so often that our capacity for indignation is exhausted. The UN has always been a ripoff of American interests and money, and it has now become a costly, embarrassing irrelevancy.
