Reform at the UN

According to a Wall Street Journaleditorial, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is planning to reform the UN this September.

Isn’t that fantastic? Perhaps billion of dollars in kickbacks, the rape of minors by UN peacekeepers, and a general lack of accountability will be against the rules now.

The interesting thing is, Annan has reformed the UN before, and the institution we see today is the result. The reforms currently under proposal—“a culture of greater openness, coherence, innovation and confidence … more stringent standards for judging the performance of peacekeepers, in the field and at headquarters”—were taken straight from a UN dossier released in June 2002. Anyone can see how much good those reforms did the first time around.

Since the last time reform revolutionized UN headquarters, the oil-for-food scandal has cost billions of dollars—some of which may have ended up in the hands of terrorist organizations; in terms of dollars, this was quite possibly the biggest con job in the history of mankind. Even more sickening, the Congo sex scandal continued for over a year even after UN officials had knowledge of allegations that their peacekeepers had raped children as young as 12 along with numerous other sex crimes.

Yes, it is time for reform. Perhaps the ineptitude of the UN in solving such problems would be less glaring if this vaunted institution had actually proved itself capable of preventing war. Instead, its 60-year history stands as a testament of failure to everyone on Earth.

Recognized and respected by leaders around the world, Herbert W. Armstrong attended the San Francisco Conference in 1945 at which the UN was formed. Mr. Armstrong wrote that at this conference, he heard chiefs of state “ring out the warning that this was the world’s last chance.” He went on to write, in his booklet The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like, “But it has failed. The United Nations has no power over the nations. It has no power to settle disputes, stop wars or prevent wars. … Man has failed his last chance! Now God must step in—or we perish!”

By now, the problem should be obvious: Mankind simply cannot rule itself! The choices that even the highest leaders make are generally based on greed and a way of life that cannot bring peace or happiness. The UN, built on a mandate of peace, is still at its core deceitful, greedy, and crippled by the evil influence of human nature. The UN might be designed to keep the peace between national governments as an international authority, but how sickening its failure is! What a powerful demonstration of the complete inability of man to rule successfully over man.

As Mr. Armstrong said, “God must step in—or we perish!”