The author argues passionately that the United Nations has done nothing for world peace, and may actually subvert its original mandate by tending to the effects of war—including the practice of refugee warehousing, for example.
Modern Economists often look at Glob Sclerosis as the failure to solve serious world problems. I was observing the trends on the world scene since the end of Second World War, and pondering how serious world problems of the time have been tackled. I noted the fall of the Berlin Wall and how it opened the Iron Curtain; the Marshal Plan and how it bailed Europe out of its economic difficulties; the Truman rescue of Greece from communism; and the creation of NATO which spared western Europe from a total Communist takeover. Generally speaking, all these projects were a success.
But when it comes to wars, the UN was total disaster. We have totally failed to solve the problem of war on the world scene, and the only body to be held accountable for this failure is the UN. If we are to take a brief historical ride and recall how the two world wars plunged the entire globe into human misery, lawlessness, displacement and destruction; to recall how everyone yearned for a redeemer who would safeguard the world from further wars and embraced the United Nations as the custodian of that peace; and then to consider the very many wars that have occurred with the UN at the helm; then one cannot help but wonder why we still entrust a failure with our lives.
We have had more wars after the formation of UN than before it came into existence. This only means that more lives have been lost, most property destroyed, more people left homeless, and more groups ravaged by hunger and starvation with the UN around than without it.
The UN has failed to solve the problem of wars, the aim of its formation. Instead, the institution has occupied itself with trying to deal with the effects of wars, like getting the displaced into camps, providing them with tents and food, and then concentrating on collecting donations to sustain them. This leaves questions to be answered. Why is it that instead of the UN getting tough on the promoters of wars like arms manufacturers and suppliers, it concentrates on their victims, the refugees? Why is it that the UN is less interested in dealing with the causes of wars than with their effects?
To some extent I am tempted to think that this UN has a hand in promoting wars such that it benefits from their effects. Some possible benefits could include securing more donations which are not usually accounted for, or enabling goods like foodstuffs and machines to find a market where they otherwise wouldn’t have—unless, of course, the UN had not created a nice little niche for refugee encampment supplies and staff security measures. I suspect there may be many underhanded dealings that the world is blind to, because no one expects the UN to be a dirty body.
It is high time we put this UN under a microscope. If it was formed to solve the problems of wars on the world scene but instead we witness more wars, it is high time that we thought twice about its role. Let us act and advocate for a more peacefully-minded body with the cessation of war—and not the nursing of its aftermath—at the heart of its agenda.