Posted by
Patrick Baldwin on Saturday, March 14, 2009 1:00:00 AM
The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, on Wednesday called the United States a "deadbeat", while speaking with members of Congress. Ban stated that while the US is a major contributor, it is also a "deadbeat", being the largest debtor and owing nearly 1 billion dollars.
Let's remember that the United States is not a major contributor, it is the largest contributor, paying 22 percent of the organizations 5 billion dollar budget. That 22 percent does not include aid contributions that we volunteer during disasters, and the costs we incur for our part of peacekeeping operations. It also does not address the millions of dollars in associated costs to house the UN in New York, including being stiffed for thousands of unpaid parking tickets!
We should also make note of the fact that the primary reason that the US is in arrears is that our government's fiscal year runs differently than that of the UN, so payment has not yet been made. Another reason that arrears exist is for the commendable reason that previous administrations, and Congress, have at times withheld payment in order to pressure the UN to take action on reforms and for policy disagreements. You know, reforms like the investigation and overhaul of programs like the Oil for Food program, in which 10 billion dollars, yeah, ten times the amount of our arrears was siphoned off fraudulently by corrupt UN officials. Most of these officials walked away with not even a slap on the writst. We have also tried to pressure the UN to deal with serious problems concerning abuses by UN personnel, including repeated reports of sexual assaults and other criminal conduct.
Did this insult receive an outraged response from our elected leaders? No, the White House issued a "rebuke", saying that the, "word choice was unfortunate". Democrat Congressman Bill Delahunt and Senator John Kerry, made comments not attacking this slur, but supporting Ban's position, even going so far as to say that, "his argument was well stated". Republicans weren't much more vocal, with the strongest response coming from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, saying she, "took great umbrage", with his statement.
Wouldn't it have been nice to have someone stand up and ask the question that many of us have on our minds, "We are paying all this money, what are we getting for it?"
I cannot come up a good answer for that one, unless you believe it is okay for us to pay to be opposed constantly, and to have insults and slurs thrown at us and our closest allies. Or maybe the bang our buck is getting is in the vein of UN proposals in the areas of gun control and global warming, where drastic actions are being targeted directly at the United States.
I was told a long time ago that the skunk smells himself first, and I humbly suggest that this might better explain Ban Ki-moon's nonsensical slam.