GoofuS!! Wake up and pay attention!!

A look at the top 10 things the UN does well and why the UN matters.

1. Food Aid. This is an easy one. The UN's World Food feeds 104 million people a year in 80 countries. It feeds people in war zones, natural disaster situations, health emergencies, and just plain poor countries.   

2. Aid to Refugees. There were 17 million asylum-seekers, refugees and the like, in 2004 alone, who got help from the UN. It helps refugees directly and works to ensure that governments meet their responsibilities to these displaced persons.

3. Protecting Children. UNICEF has built a reputation as an advocacy and service powerhouse, with programs ranging from immunizations to AIDS prevention to education and protection against exploitation.

4. Peacekeeping. The UN has 16 active peacekeeping missions right now, in places like Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia and Burundi. If the UN wasn't there, no one else but the marauders would be and the peace or relative peace being kept would have disintegrated long ago.

5. Intervenor of Last Resort. In peacekeeping but also more broadly, the UN gets involved in messes when no one else will touch.   The meltdowns in Congo and Liberia are prime examples. When the U.S. and Europe have no interest in getting involved, and there's no regional player with the will and capabilities, the choice is often looking away from slaughter and mayhem, or throwing the problem to the UN.   The UN deserves credit for taking on these quagmires.

6. Running Elections. The UN has quietly built an impressive capacity to run elections under tough circumstances. This was put to the test in Iraq where, due to security concerns, the organization was able to deploy only a small fraction of the staff it thought it needed, yet it still managed to bring off monitored elections.   The UN also managed successful first-ever elections in places like East Timor—and Afghanistan.

[Perhaps we could use the UN's election oversight in the United States? Just a thought. . . .]

7. Reproductive Health and Population Management. The UN has built a great specialty in mother and childhood health, family planning, and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. The UN Population Fund is widely respected, and is credited with helping to drastically reduce infant and maternal mortality in more than 100 countries. Unfortunately due to its global gag rule designed to prevent health care workers from even talking about abortion, for a time, the Bush Administration deprived UNFPA of funds needed for this work.

8. War Crimes Prosecution. The tribunals it set up for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda have developed important case law on genocide and human rights, and have provided a measure of justice that is taken very seriously by the people of affected regions.

The UN deserves credit for the progress it is making in this area, in which no other country or body is taking the lead to the same degree.

9. Fighting AIDS. The UN is the leader when it comes to the global battle against HIV/AIDS. Between the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria the UN is at the heart of every aspect of dealing with the epidemic, from heightening awareness to raising funds to making sure appropriate programs for prevention and treatment are implemented. The UN has wisely recognized that the organization itself cannot shoulder this one alone, and has set up the Fund and other mechanisms aimed at drawing governments, other multilaterals, NGOs and corporations into the cause.

10. Bringing invisible issues to the fore. Were it not for the UN, an awful lot of suffering around the world would go even less noticed and addressed than it does today. Landmine victims, Marburg fever and cholera sufferers, child soldiers, modern-day slaves, lepers, and thousands of other populations beleaguered by one or another either visible or obscure plight have a place to turn to in the UN.

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NATO is composed of some 28 member states across North America and Europe, and during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was saber-rattling, the Soviet leaders had to be aware that if they attacked one NATO country, it would be the same as if they had attacked them all, because all of them would respond militarily. One never knows if it actually deterred a possible World War III complete with nuclear holocaust, but it may very well have. And the same deterrence exists today for any nation with bellicose tendencies (that's "warlike nation" to you, GoofuS. I don't want to confuse you with too many big words.).

Some folks are sufficiently ill-informed as to claim that the recent military activity in Libya was "Obama's war." But this was a NATO operation, to protect Libyan citizens who were protesting against the regime of dictator Muammar Gaddafi from being killed. Many NATO countries participated. The United States had no ground troops involved, but we provided air cover for other NATO countries' troops by enforcing a no-fly zone.

Only a Right Wing propagandist—or someone like Goofus, either through ignorance or deceptive intent—would call this "Obama's war."

Additionally, several NATO countries, including the United States, has deployed warships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean to deter Somali and other pirates from preying on shipping in those areas.

No. Withdrawing from the UN and NATO would NOT be a good thing.

Don Firth

P. S. By the way, there are a couple of billionaires whom I salute. Media mogul Ted Turner, worth three billion dollars, gave ONE of those billions to the United Nations (making it plain that he was NOT paying the dues of the United States, which was in arrears during the Bush Administration) to be used for various UN causes.

When criticized by other billionaires for his donation (they apparently felt he was setting a bad example by giving away some of his wealthy), he responded pithily, "Who the hell NEEDS that much money!??"

And Bill Gates. Worth, at one point, some $90 billion (!), was leaned on by his father, Bill Gates Sr., to do some good with his money (again, in the spirit of "Who the hell NEEDS that much money!??"), and when he got married, the Pacific Northwest's resident computer nerd was humanized by his wife, Melinda. They formed the "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation." The three board members are Bill and Melinda themselves--and Warren Buffet.

They've given billions of dollars to global health programs (including research to develop an HIV vaccine), financial services of the poor, worldwide agricultural development, contributions to public libraries, and funding for various educational programs.

Not official, but last I heard, Bill's fortune is down from $90 billion to something like $30 billion. They've given that much to various causes.

Yeah. I think they set a very good example for the other members of the 1%, no?