Just what is wrong with you people? No matter how much time,
trouble and federal tax money your betters expend trying to pound
sense into your heads, you can’t seem to absorb the most basic of
political lessons. Why can’t you understand that unreformed
Talibans deserve a Yale education, why global warming is a bigger
threat than terrorism, or why the UN is the last, best hope of
mankind? All of you, especially those who live in Middle America,
should pay more attention to the greats who walk among us such as
UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown.
Brown’s patience with us is running out. But, like the UN gave
Saddam another last chance and another and another, Brown is giving
us one. A couple of weeks ago, Amb. John Bolton suggested that at
the end of this year, when Kofi Annan leaves, his hand-picked
staffers should leave with him. Sounds pretty reasonable. When Al
Capone left, Frank Nitti, Ralph “Bottles” Capone and Jake “Greasy
Thumb” Grizik also, ah, left. Last week, in apparent response to
Bolton’s comment, Brown went on a safari to preach to the ignorant
serfs he believes make up America.
In a speech to a bunch of UN supporters, Brown delivered himself
of the opinion that because the Bush administration is seeking to
use the UN as a diplomatic tool, it has a duty to defend it against
American critics, saying that if Bush didn’t, “You will lose the UN
one way or another.” As if we had it to begin with. Brown said not
only that the Bush administration was failing to lobby Americans to
support the UN, but that its silence was misleading America. He
claimed that the UN was “constructively engaged” on everything from
Lebanon to Afghanistan to Syria, Iran and the Palestinian issue.
But, he said, “that is not well known or understood in part because
much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has
been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush
Limbaugh and Fox News.” We of The American Spectator take
umbrage at having been left off that list.
The best thing that you can say about Brown’s speech is that his
condescension went over his audience’s heads. They’re Democrats,
and ever eager to feel bad about America. They know that all you
denizens of fly-over country don’t count. You’re too dumb to
understand. None of them cares that you Heartlanders feed half the
world and that your sons and daughters spend their lives in defense
of freedom whenever they’re called to do so. The UN is only
concerned with rank, privilege, and expense accounts which you have
a duty to sustain with the sweat of your brow. It’s really a pity
that when Kofi came to his pal’s defense he didn’t use the line
perfectly suited for it: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a
job.”
Brown said that the U.S., like other nations, “is beset by
problems that defy national, inside-the-border solutions: climate
change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, migration, the management
of the global economy, the internationalization of drugs and crime,
the spread of diseases such as HIV and avian flu.” And what, pray,
has the UN done about any of these things? Nothing, except its best
to prevent American action to solve the most important problems
facing civilization. Brown thinks UN control of the U.S. action is
the benefit we get: UN management of global security issues meant
“the give and take of multilateral bargaining, but any dilution of
American positions was more than made up for by the added clout of
action that enjoyed global support.” It would have been very useful
for Brown to list the occasions of that support we enjoyed, because
none come to mind.
Amb. Bolton — in the first remark from him I recall disagreeing
with — demanded Brown apologize. It would be much better if Brown
didn’t, because what he said was obviously both sincere and
heartfelt. It’s time for us to take seriously what Brown said and
act upon it.
Shortly after 9-11, the UN claimed jurisdiction over the problem
of terrorism. And in the nearly five years since, the UN hasn’t
even agreed on a definition of terrorism because the terrorist
regimes are members in good standing. Algore’s fave, the Kyoto
global warming treaty, exempts some of the world’s biggest
polluters (such as Communist China) and puts the burden on the U.S.
economy. Nothing — absolutely nothing — has been done by the UN
about nuclear proliferation. The UN’s only achievements are
scandals great and small ranging from the largest financial rip-off
in history (“Oil for Food”), child abuse in the Congo (UN
peacekeepers raping young girls) and the millions of dollars stolen
from the training budget of the World Meteorological Association.
(Apparently even the UN weathermen are crooks). When we demand
action to remedy problems, nothing is done. That, to Brownie, is
our fault because of “the widely held perception…that the U.S.
tends to hold on to maximalist positions when it could be finding
middle ground.” Compromise your principles and you can do very well
at the UN.
The UN budget is a horrific compilation of global
pork-barreling. Its staff is at least twice the size it should be
and their salaries are — by design — the highest of any
government organization anywhere. And that’s not nearly the worst
of it. Our $3.5 billion in “mandatory” dues to the UN goes for such
essentials as the General Assembly at which terrorists enjoy equal
rights and privileges accorded civilized nations, million-dollar
meetings of committees that want to create UN control of the
Internet and every other anti-Western, anti-civilizational activity
imaginable. We pay about another $3 billion in “voluntary”
contributions to a long string of unaccountable UN agencies and to
UN “peacekeeping” missions. Brownie, of course, insists that we’ve
abandoned the UN because we’re not donating even more money. “But
the only government not fully supporting the project is the U.S.
Too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years
— manifest in a fear by politicians to be seen to be supporting
better premises for overpaid, corrupt UN bureaucrats — makes even
refurbishing a building a political hot potato.” Unchecked UN
bashing? If he could, Brown would end UN bashing by repealing the
First Amendment. Brownie wants us to repent by picking up the
multi-billion-dollar tab for the reconstruction. A much better
solution would be for us to pay for construction of a new UN
building anywhere outside the U.S. they want it.
Mark Malloch Brown’s remarks were an honest expression of his
deepest beliefs. He, like the rest of the UN’s overpaid diplocrats,
has only disdain for Americans and everything we stand for. Enough
is enough. It’s time to cut off the money to the unserious,
uncapable, and unaccountable UN.
TAS contributing editor Jed Babbin is the author
of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are
Worse Than You Think (Regnery, 2004) and, with Edward
Timperlake, Showdown: Why China Wants War With the United
States (Regnery, May 2006 — click here to obtain a free chapter).
