U.N. Reaches out to Middle America

The United Nations has an image problem among many Americans.

Surprised? Of course you’re not. Despite its success as a political arena during the Cold War, a Coliseum for the diplomatic gladiators of the U.S. and the Soviets, the UN has long since strayed from its hopeful origins and purposes. At its best, it is bungling. At its worst, it is incredibly corrupt. In between lies the norm — spineless token gestures, misguided and half-hearted forays, hollow words and resolutions.

Now, the UN wants to correct its image in the eyes of Americans with a planned revamping of the UN Human Rights Commission.

The United Nations is out of touch with most Americans, who think the beleaguered organization has abandoned its mission to keep peace and protect human rights around the world, says U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s chief of staff.

“In a very real way, we seem to have lost touch with the great middle in America, a middle which very much believes in the aspirational ideas of the U.N. … and who feel that we’ve drifted away from a commitment to human rights, a commitment to help the poor of the world,” Mark Malloch Brown said yesterday.

The United Nations is under fire for several scandals including the oil-for-food program, charges of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeeping forces and the resignation of a top official accused of sexual harassment, which Mr. Malloch Brown addressed in an exclusive interview with “Fox News Sunday.”

The organization will propose changes in the coming weeks to begin repairing its reputation by revamping its “human rights machinery” to keep dictator nations off the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Governments making up the current membership include Cuba, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia. Libya is the outgoing chair of the committee.

The plan would “try and restore the credibility of this and have people on that commission who really are people of stature and reputation and record and come from countries of the same thing, with real human rights standing in the world,” Mr. Malloch Brown said.

Go give it a read, as it does a good job of listing the current hot-button problems — chiefly, the oil-for-food scandal, subsequent investigations, and the allegations of atrocities by UN peacekeepers. Noticably absent is any mention of the organization’s horrible track record of its treatment of Israel vis-a-vis the surrounding despotic Arab states, but that would require too much honesty in the face of too much hatred and opportunism.

How far has the UN fallen? They know they have a problem that they plan to address, and still I am sadly confident that they will fail to do anything more than change some window dressing.