To the United Nations: Time to Call it a Bad Day

[sayak83]

Usually these governments do not want aid "in kind." They want aid in more "fungible" form.

All I see here are unsubstantiated opinions without a single shred of evidence. Provide evidence that aid from UN is being significantly embezzled by corrupt officials or this discussion has no basis in facts.

 

[jbg]

All I see here are unsubstantiated opinions without a single shred of evidence. Provide evidence that aid from UN is being significantly embezzled by corrupt officials or this discussion has no basis in facts.

Tell me, what do you think happens? Do you think the aid is well-spent?

 

[Lyndon]

Tell me, what do you think happens? Do you think the aid is well-spent?

on israel, no!!

 

[sayak83]

Tell me, what do you think happens? Do you think the aid is well-spent?

Yes.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

OK that's fine, God can use whomever He wants for His purposes. That includes Satan in the book of Job and Nebuchadnezzar and the UN and the witch at Endor. But I bet you disagree that God could use the witch.

Which God/god? Sure, Satan the 'god' of this world of badness - 2 Corinthians 4:4 - deceives.

 

[Twilight Hue]

The United Nations was founded out of the ashes of World War II for the noble purpose of ensuring that the earth would never know war or genocide again. The embers of the Nazi gas chambers were still hot. The barely alive, near corpses of Holocaust survivors staggered in the camps of Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen Belsen, Treblinka and other such place. The Nazis had finished slaughtering millions of people for no other reason than that they didn't fit the definition of "Aryan" (as if Hitler was blond and blue-eyed).

Japanese had just concluded an epic slaughter of Chinese. Numerous Japanese were cremated in the fires of Tokyo, and died in the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world literally stank of slaughter and death.

The "solution" to the problems starting WW I hadn't worked. The French, Brits and US levied an oppressive "peace" on the Germans, which meant there was no peace. Not that the Nazis and Communists helped by taking it to the streets. The Middle East went from feudal satrapy under the Ottomans to a tinder box under the League of Nations mandates. Thus, progressives throughout the world united to form the UN out of the ashes of WW II.

Then things went badly wrong. Postage stamp nations were created at a furious pace after the implosion of the British, French, Belgian Portuguese and Dutch empires. The people in their former colonies were left in utter misery. With a few notable exceptions such as, eventually, India, "one man, one vote, one time" ensured that dictators sprung up, destroying whatever spunk and initiative these new nations possessed. Pakistan, much of Africa, and initially India degenerated into war and famine.

The formation of the UN did nothing to solve any of these problems. A corrupt crew of bureaucrats sprang up whose only mission was self-preservation. The dictators of these new countries picked "ambassadors" who got the cushy privilege of living it up in New York City, and running wild. Imagine the heaven of being supported by your own (corrupt) government, being able to amass thousands in unpaid parking tickets, and having as a "job" attending a debating society overlooking the beautiful East River of New York City. Simply irresistible. If is were only the waste involved, the UN would be inexcusable and in need of abolition.

Foreign aid is now largely administered through multilateral, faceless agencies. Thus, people in lands throughout the world can scream "death to the United States" with impunity. The United States is still largely funding the aid, but the check bears the name "United Nations". Thus, the US spends all of the money, receives all of the vilification, gets none of the influence that should come with aid.

Even worse, the aid does not reach the people. Do you really imagine that those pitiful people waving their arms in UNICEF posters really get a penny? No, the money is in their dictators' Swiss bank accounts or at best wasted in the not-for-profits' bureaucracies.

The Western nations get the distinction of being pilloried for relatively minor transgressions Meanwhile, unabated by the UN, slaughters continue in Rwanda, Sudan, Burundi, et. al. Mosques in Yemen explode. ISIS cuts off peoples' heads. The UN does nothing about Robert Mugabe's destruction of Zimbabwe, once a comfortable, middle class land. The UN grinds out a diet of one-sided resolutions against Israel, while ignoring the constant atrocities in Arab lands. Where is the U.N. when it comes to the continuing persecution of Christians in Pakistan, Libya, Syria and the Islamic State?

The UN is wasting money that ought to benefit the unfortunate. It is worse than the most reactionary conservative dreams that George Wallace or Ross Barnett could dream up.

I can't think of a single peace keeping mission the smurfs are engaged with.

 

[jbg]

I can't think of a single peace keeping mission the smurfs are engaged with.

They may be engaged in some. Those missions are heavily laden with rape and other atrocities. Typically the nations providing the “peacekeepers” get paid huge amounts by the United Nations, and the soldiers performing “services” are rewarded by the “services” of local women.

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

They may be engaged in some. Those missions are heavily laden with rape and other atrocities. Typically the nations providing the “peacekeepers” get paid huge amounts by the United Nations, and the soldiers performing “services” are rewarded by the “services” of local women.

It might help to provide links to support these assertions. (Apologies if you'd already done so in a previous post that I maybe missed.) I'll provide a few here.

Criticism of the UN doesn't just range from diplomats' abuse of their immunity privileges (what we have seen of diplomats abusing NYC's hospitality), to bureaucratic inefficiency, waste, and corruption...

United Nations, Criticism

...It also extends to the peacekeeping missions (that JBG mentioned above), with far more serious charges: "UN peacekeepers have also been accused of child rape, soliciting prostitutes, and sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan and what is now South Sudan, Burundi, and Côte d'Ivoire. Scientists cited UN peacekeepers from Nepal as the likely source of the 2010s Haiti cholera outbreak, which killed more than 8,000 Haitians following the 2010 Haiti earthquake."

Lynch, Colum (16 December 2004). "U.N. Sexual Abuse Alleged in Congo". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.

"UN troops face child abuse claims". BBC News. 30 November 2006. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.

"Peacekeepers 'abusing children'". BBC News. 28 May 2007. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.

Watson, Ivan; Vaccarello, Joe (10 October 2013). "U.N. sued for 'bringing cholera to Haiti,' causing outbreak that killed thousands". CNN. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.

While I don't doubt that there are many sincere and empathetic people working in the UN to aid and assist other nations, there also does seem to be some very serious problems -- particularly with how some of these peacekeepers prey on vulnerable populations.

The United Nations clearly needs to clean its own house.

 

[jbg]

Thank you. Those are what I had in mind. I had heard about them on media reports, and was going to try to track them down.

I have a busy day at work and just got back from donating blood.

I don't know if donating blood is OK under Halacha.

It might help to provide links to support these assertions. (Apologies if you'd already done so in a previous post that I maybe missed.) I'll provide a few here.

Criticism of the UN doesn't just range from diplomats' abuse of their immunity privileges (what we have seen of diplomats abusing NYC's hospitality), to bureaucratic inefficiency, waste, and corruption...

United Nations, Criticism

...It also extends to the peacekeeping missions (that JBG mentioned above), with far more serious charges: "UN peacekeepers have also been accused of child rape, soliciting prostitutes, and sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan and what is now South Sudan, Burundi, and Côte d'Ivoire. Scientists cited UN peacekeepers from Nepal as the likely source of the 2010s Haiti cholera outbreak, which killed more than 8,000 Haitians following the 2010 Haiti earthquake."

Lynch, Colum (16 December 2004). "U.N. Sexual Abuse Alleged in Congo". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.

"UN troops face child abuse claims". BBC News. 30 November 2006. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.

"Peacekeepers 'abusing children'". BBC News. 28 May 2007. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.

Watson, Ivan; Vaccarello, Joe (10 October 2013). "U.N. sued for 'bringing cholera to Haiti,' causing outbreak that killed thousands". CNN. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.

While I don't doubt that there are many sincere and empathetic people working in the UN to aid and assist other nations, there also does seem to be some very serious problems -- particularly with how some of these peacekeepers prey on vulnerable populations.

The United Nations clearly needs to clean its own house.

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

Thank you. Those are what I had in mind. I had heard about them on media reports, and was going to try to track them down.

I have a busy day at work and just got back from donating blood.

I don't know if donating blood is OK under Halacha.

Of course donating blood is okay -- it's a mitzvah, in fact, because donating blood saves lives. You did a good thing. Jews just can't consume blood (human or animal -- which is why meat has to be drained of all blood for koshering).

The Jehovah's Witnesses interpret that Biblical law differently, and believe that the prohibition against consuming blood also applies to transfusions. That's why Jehovah's Witnesses will neither donate blood nor permit blood transfusions for themselves.

And here I am, "thread-drifting" again.