UN: A Full Body Overhaul

Fire of Liberty

Here's a great piece by Glenn Sulmasy over at National Review Online on how the UN's is starting to show its aging 60 year old face. Sulmasy notes that after all of these years, the UN has turned into a behemothic bureaucracy that is a merely a debating society that talks but never solves any problems. He further noted that Ambassador Bolton will have a tremendous time promoting and passing the much needed reform that has been put to the wayside for way too long at Turtle Bay. Just look at a sample of Sulmasy's excellent examination of the UN:

The U.N.'s inefficiency is further highlighted by the rising influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. These virtually unaccountable watchdog groups, streamlined in terms of budget and staff, now fulfill the role of promoting peace and security once envisioned to be performed by the U.N. The ineffective and inefficient management of the U.N. workforce has created a vacuum for the NGOs to fill. In 2005, NGOs are more mobile, flexible, and operations-oriented than the U.N. Their rise in influence continues to render the U.N. irrelevant. This irrelevance is as dangerous for nation states as it is for the future of the U.N. organization, and it means that a real shake-up at the U.N. must occur within the next decade.

The U.N. has been touting the "changes" it will make as a result of meetings in late August and September. To date, though, I have heard only that several human-rights subcommittees have changed their names, and a few minor adjustments have been made to various programs. No substantive changes have been made.

Now is the time for a sense of urgency to be injected into these meetings. The U.N. must streamline its staff and take a hard look at its organizational outcomes, measures of effectiveness, and salary structure. It must become an goal-oriented, flexible organization with an objective means of promoting liberty, peace and security for all nations. The U.N. needs a secretary general who understands the status quo is failing, and that the times in which we live demand a tough, aggressive management style.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of the UN(I actually prefer the US taking the lead in most decisions, especially since we do all of the heavy lifting in most wars and disaster relief that the UN generally fails to get done.), but I feel that a more reformed entity that promotes peace and security rather than corruption, the yammering's of some of the most horrific tyrants of the world. When things get to the state that the UN has gotten itself in, the best solution is for a major overhaul.So, I wish Ambassador Bolton all of the best and hope through his bargaining skills and power of persuasion in getting this tinged body back into a better working condition.