My guess is that not too many people know that yesterday was the 68th anniversary of the adoption of the charter of the United Nations. The organization with its New York headquarters is over two thirds of a century old, and the big question we should all ask is this: what does the world have to show for all those years of seemingly endless talking?
When the UN was first formed, it quickly became enmeshed in the battles of the Cold War. Almost nothing ever made its way through the Security Council at which America and the Soviet Union were always at loggerheads. When the USSR collapsed around 1990, the UN had the chance to come into its own. After all, it would no longer be a prisoner to the all encompassing problems stemming from the Free vs. Communist fight. Think about it. Do you remember all those great achievements coming from the UN since the fall of the USSR? Neither do I.
The truth is that the main results of the UN are that restaurants in Manhattan are more crowded, traffic in New York comes to a crawl when world leaders visit, and a multitude of international bureaucrats get to pretend to do something meaningful while essentially doing nothing.
So far, the world has spent just about a trillion dollars to fund the UN. It is not that nothing has been accomplished; that is going too far. The truth, however, is that not much has been accomplished. We have collectively spent a trillion dollars and have gotten sixty eight years of not much.
When the UN was first formed, it quickly became enmeshed in the battles of the Cold War. Almost nothing ever made its way through the Security Council at which America and the Soviet Union were always at loggerheads. When the USSR collapsed around 1990, the UN had the chance to come into its own. After all, it would no longer be a prisoner to the all encompassing problems stemming from the Free vs. Communist fight. Think about it. Do you remember all those great achievements coming from the UN since the fall of the USSR? Neither do I.
The truth is that the main results of the UN are that restaurants in Manhattan are more crowded, traffic in New York comes to a crawl when world leaders visit, and a multitude of international bureaucrats get to pretend to do something meaningful while essentially doing nothing.
So far, the world has spent just about a trillion dollars to fund the UN. It is not that nothing has been accomplished; that is going too far. The truth, however, is that not much has been accomplished. We have collectively spent a trillion dollars and have gotten sixty eight years of not much.
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