In their long battle to prevent John Bolton from representing the United States at the UN, Democrats have repeatedly referenced his “quip” that if the UN building “lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference."
But it wasn’t a quip, nor was it intended as flip. In fact, as Bolton heads to the UN, it is important to understand exactly what he meant.
The place to start is a post that appeared late last year in Diplomad, by an anonymous blogger who had served at the UN. The post described the UN as “the purest of pure bureaucracy . . . the thirty-year single malt of bureaucracies” — with “VERY well-paying jobs” that have “lots of perks (first class travel; a generous pension; right to retire almost anywhere you want; tax free)” and “little actual work.”
[U]nfortunately, if you’re an American (or Israeli) you’ll have a hard time getting [one of those jobs] given the solid anti-Americanism (and anti-Semitism) of the UN Secretariat.
The post explained that 99% of UN "work" has nothing to do with high-visibility issues such as
Slightly simplified, this is how it often works. A UN bureaucrat gets hold of a delegate from a sympathetic country and gets that country’s delegation to propose some often innocuous sounding resolution — let’s make up a typical one right here, "The Effect of Deforestation on the Development of Sub-Saharan Africa."
It will have a few bland paragraphs expressing concern about deforestation in Africa, note the impact it has on the livelihood of Africans, especially the "most vulnerable sectors of the population," and then will have a little paragraph at the end calling on the Secretary General to submit a report to the next General Assembly on the impact of deforestation in Africa.
Normally such a resolution gets adopted by consensus by the appropriate committee, and then goes to the UNGA where it’s hammered through ASAP. . . .
So the resolution passes. The UN bureaucracy gets tasked with writing a report.
Usually these reports are short, based on pre-existing information that in the age of the Internet would take an intern a couple of hours to put together, but, nevertheless, for some odd reason seem to require lots of travel by UN bureaucrats.
The report will conclude that there is need for further study of this critical topic and might perhaps recommend the holding of a special conference or meeting on the topic.
It goes to the next UNGA which agrees that further work is needed and asks the UN Secretariat to go ahead and provide another report to the next UNGA, and so on and on.
The topic is now firmly embedded in the UN agenda — almost impossible to remove — and highly paid bureaucrats now have sinecures producing endless reports calling for more reports and conferences that will call for more reports and conferences.
The
US and a handful of other major donors pay for all this. Sweet.
Lest you think the post dealt only with the relatively unimportant part of the 99% of UN work it described, the post noted that:
Even the much praised UN technical agencies, such as those dealing with refugees, are bastions of waste and corruption. No need here to discuss the disaster that is called UNRWA and what it has done to set back peace in the Middle East for nearly 55 years, all the while providing lucrative employment for generations of UN bureaucrats.
If you go to the UN website, you will find that just last month (July 12-13, 2005), the UN held another of its “International Conferences of Civil Society in Support of Middle East Peace" — this year in Paris (last year’s was in New York). According to the UN:
The Conference drew on the positive results of the previous United Nations International Conferences of Civil Society and focused on the current situation in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem . . . A plan of action was adopted by participants at the close of the Conference.
The “2005 Plan of Action” called on participants to “rededicate ourselves to the work of . . . bringing down the Wall” (since the “disengagement” from Gaza is “a ploy . . . backed by the United States”) and proposed to work further with the UN “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” and the UN “Division for Palestinian Rights” in “mobilizing support for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes” and “campaigning for the release of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.” The plan looked forward to commemorating the annual UN “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" on November 29, 2005 and issued a “Call to Action” for a “global campaign” of “Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions” against Israel .
All this was a follow-up to the March 8-9, 2005 meeting in Geneva of the UN “International Meeting on the Question of Palestine,” held under the auspices of the aforementioned “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” — which followed up on the “Solemn Meeting” on November 29, 2004 at that year’s “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” (with “special events” at UN headquarters in New York and UN offices at Geneva and Vienna), which in turn followed up on the September 13-14, 2004 UN International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People at UN Headquarters in New York, at which (you’re not going to believe this):
The [2004] Conference drew on the positive results of the 2002 and 2003 Conferences of Civil Society . . . A plan of action was adopted by participants at the close of the Conference.
Then of course there was the June 29-30, 2004 UN “African Meeting in Support of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” and the July 1, 2004 UN “Forum of Civil Society in Support of Middle East Peace” — all this just in the last year.
No response in
Ten stories indeed.