Reader Mail
UNESCO: Love It and Don’t Leave It
In defense of the UN’s “rogue agency” — letters from the U.S. ambassador, and others, with a reply by Joseph A. Harriss.
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Ambassador Killion argues, as anyone in his position must, that engagement in such an organization is the only way to influence it. The unfortunate reality is that most of the time, it’s a losing game for the U.S., as the vote on Palestine admission and the corruption of the World Heritage Convention decisively demonstrate.
His argument that UNESCO has programs that promote democracy fails to pass the test of results. UNESCO, as I have pointed out in the article, has many high-flown programs with impressive names, and indeed programs within programs. The problem, as the thoroughgoing British evaluation last year says, is showing convincing results. I see very few, as do the British.
Yes, there is the promise to review the disastrous decision to include Syria on the committee that treats human rights. Nice try again, Ambassador, but Syria’s appointment to that committee would never have happened if UNESCO were not dysfunctional. The whole episode illustrates its systemic failure.
Lastly, Ambassador Killion argues with some heat the need of American participation and engagement to keep UNESCO from becoming a rogue agency. Dear Ambassador, it is already a rogue agency, as anyone who reads my article can see. The U.S. can do nothing useful about that except to make the ultimate protest of withdrawing. History shows that only that will concentrate UNESCO’s collective mind on the root and branch reform that could make it, once again, a worthwhile enterprise worthy of American support.
Jack in Wi.| 2.10.12 @ 8:12AM
Post American: Amen.
Whitey O'Carr| 2.10.12 @ 9:08AM
What we have here, other than an example of that famous line from "Cool Hand Luke" ("What we have here, is a failure to communicate"), is all the evidence to convict UNESCO of RICO violations. They operate just like the General Court and Democrat party of Massachusetts. Get us out of this organization now!
John786| 2.10.12 @ 9:32AM
The UN is clearly acting to curtail US freedom to act. The honest and correct policy is to defund the whole organisation and leave. Let them get on with their own affairs without the US. A lot of precious money will be saved.
Occam's Tool| 2.10.12 @ 10:56AM
The UN are a group of terrorist supporting, pro-jihad states who seek to abuse children wherever possible. Screw them. Defund, and place the UN in Mecca, where it belongs.
Timothy L. Pennell| 2.10.12 @ 10:59AM
Pop Quiz: Name the last time the Oil For Food Guys at the UN, did ANYTHING that was worth a Shit, and didn't involve Rape, Murder, Standing around while people were being Massacred, or making Under the Table Deals with Dictators that reap Million$ for Their Pockets, while enabling their Benefactors to circumvent any kind of Punitive Sanctions?
Take as long as you need.
Occam's Tool| 2.11.12 @ 7:02PM
1950s--Korean war, TLP. So, the answer is: not in my lifetime or yours. Defund it, and use the money to refurbish NFL stadiums.
Ron| 2.10.12 @ 12:28PM
Across the board there is nothing "good" about the UN period. Just ask anyone who was in The Mog back in the 1990s, or Serbia/Croatia during the same period.
Food riots and seizures of medical supplies were not even protested by the vaunted UN...Warlords just got away with confiscating whatever they pleased.
UNESCO by jumping on board with the "Palestinian Homeland" BS just serves as a puppet for the Jihadist nutjobs...Put them right in Israel even more...Uh, I should be quiet now, because here comes Jack in Wi. with his anti-Jew slurs, and clint will not be far behind with some crap about "chicken hawk, war hawk, whatever hawk" comments about us veterans, and how great Ron Paul will be in pulling everyone out from everywhere...Ron Paul would leave it up to the UN, and we would be royal screwed!
J.C.Eaton| 2.10.12 @ 3:36PM
Mr. Cameron, et al.: Mr. Harriss OWNS you!
david singer| 2.11.12 @ 3:36AM
Mr Neil Ford misleads your readers when he states:
"The old UNESCO tried to stifle media through the New World Information and Communication Order. The new UNESCO defends media freedom by protesting every time a journalist is killed in the line of duty."
Rot - the new UNESCO has not changed at all.
Mr Ford has personally refused to comment on a detailed submission by me to UNESCO claiming the vote to admit Palestine was unlawful.
I had been asked (by another UNESCO information officer) to detail for whom I wrote - which I duly complied with.
Apparently the journals that publish my articles were not thought sufficiently important enough for UNSECO to give a comment.
Would Mr Ford comment on my submission if I was published in The American Spectator? Can I be dismissed without an answer by an all powerful UNESCO because I apparently don't have any clout?
Mr Ford is spruiking spin.
UNESCO has put up a wall of silence on the legality of the Palestine vote - and I can only conclude that they refuse to comment because they agree with my submission - and I have told them so..
That decision has deprived UNESCO of 22% of its budget and is going to affect the lives of scores of millions globally as UNESCO programs are closed down or curtailed.
What press releases will Mr Ford put out when these poor people pay the price for UNESCO not wanting to even discuss a possible way out of the hole UNESCO has dug for itself because of its unlawful admission of Palestine as UNESCO's 195th member state?
Occam's Tool| 2.11.12 @ 7:08PM
The UN is a worthless organization, in general. I am not really interested in knowing the Ivory Coast or New Zealand's response to American action through it. If there is any freedom in the world today, it is due to America, and America alone.
POST American| 2.11.12 @ 10:29PM
"The UN was established by EUGENISTS
-----------------for EUGENICS-----------------.
Every world leader who signed that charter
in 1945 signed on for world government.
Every single one committed TREASON
against their people."
----------WHY DO WE STAND FOR THIS?----------
Tired Taxpayer PRM| 2.11.12 @ 11:01PM
I see no positive good and much evil that comes out of our "investment" in the UN. As a tired taxpayer I demand that we stop funding them, throw them out of New York and sell the building. I am sure Donald Trump could figure out something to do with that piece of real estate.
John Kettlewell| 2.12.12 @ 1:54AM
I gave it a chance. Started reading and then it looked like a defense of the UN and UNESCO. If I'm mistaken then so be it; but to suggest we either engage or 'take a seat on the bench' is a misnomer. It's either engage and pay the UN's bills to subvert sovereignty or be on the bench and no longer foot the bills. To suggest UNESCO is promoting or defending American values is laughable. That was my finishing point.
There is enough history on the UN, the 'masterminds', and the individual agencies to cause a global riot...this of course would require people to be informed. They are fairytale utopians with characteristics of narcissists, psycopathy, arrogance. Any UN article that does not deal directly with their attempt at tyrrany thru psuedo-democracy (or plainly stated, control) isn't worth the time to read. Global governance is the ends, agitprop and propaganda are the means.
If you wish to defend the United Nations, Inc., then you must speak of the control it seeks to impose, as well as the "redistribution" of assets. It's all very whimsical.
Pundit| 2.12.12 @ 9:15AM
I was a big enthusiast for the UN in its first decade. Then I reached puberty. Beside it being a center of bordom,I noticed that if any good came it was as a cover for the US. The idea that Mali or Chad should have a position on Iceland's fisheries is ludicrous. Over the years it has become malignant.
Sebrenica Massacre.Ruanda genocide. the skandels over food and fuel.Self serving beaureaucrats. North South dialogue (developed countries owe the kleptocrats), UN soldiers and officials smuggeling and procuring. UNESCO schools teach anti-semitism (Jews are apes and pigs). New Information order UN should censor inside and outside countries.
It's a farce whose expenses are mostly paid for by us. Ship it to Anwar Alaska.
POST American| 2.12.12 @ 9:48PM
Viz a viz the unelected, PRIVATE,
elite, corporate EUGENICS 'U.N':
"You KNOW this organization is
a PRIVATE, criminal, world plundering,
EUGENICS abomination. YOU KNOW
the elites it represents are psychopaths and creepy capstone EUGENISTS.
You KNOW its age-enda has destroyed
your nation's sovereignty, your culture
---and very soon, you yourself.
----WHY this continuing love affair
with FEAR of standing up to it. ----WHY?
---------------------WHY?----------------------
--Rockefellers --Huxleys ---ROT-childs and
ALLLL of them, even in their best days,
were nothing more than frauds --CON-men
--USURERS and PSYCHOPATHS.
----WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF THEM?
WHO are these characters? -----WHY is
NO ONE calling them out? ---WHAT is
this LOVE AFFAIR with FEAR?!"
Really kiddies ---time to CALL the Bluff
--and CALL for JUSTICE.
"--Let us ALL die --or let's DO it!"
-Thomas Carlysle
----------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012---------------
LET's DO IT