By Alan Caruba
There was a Washington Post news report in late March that the United Nations had “presented its top donors with a request for nearly $1.1 billion in additional funds over the next two years—boosting current U.N. expenses by 25 percent and marking the global body’s highest-ever administrative budget, according to internal U.N. memos.”
Since I am no fan of the United Nations, my first thought was to ask why the U.S. and other “top donors” would toss more money at this bloated and morally corrupt international bureaucracy when it is manifestly unable to prevent wars—its primary mission—and remains a platform for belligerence, bigotry, and intolerance?
According to the report, the request for more money is blamed on the Bush administration’s “demands for a more ambitious U.N. role around the world.” That seems a rather convenient explanation given the poor performance of most of the U.N.’s so-called peace-keeping missions, some of which degraded into the rape of the women it was supposed to be protecting; its 60-year support of the Palestinians, making them the oldest refugee group in history; and its deplorable environmental program, a platform for the most appalling lies about the climate.
We have the final years of the Roosevelt administration for the creation of the United Nations as World War Two wound down. The failure of the League of Nations to prevent the war should have been sufficient reason not to go down that path again, but perhaps it was seen as the very reason to create a new, international organization to prevent wars?
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Posted by Walt as Anti-US, Corruption, Finances at 10:00 PM EDT
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Although this post was written in August 2002, the UN is still trying to get their hands on more of our money via taxes.
By Alan Caruba
www.anxietycenter.com
When I took the oath of duty for my service in the United States Army, I swore to uphold and protect the US Constitution. It was made clear to me that I was not to serve any foreign kings or potentates. My sole allegiance was to the United States of America.
One of these days, if the United Nations' potentates have their way, I am going to receive a tax bill that will include a portion of my earnings allocated to the UN. Their taxation powers will have been imposed as a new layer on top of those paid to the United States.
As it is, my tax dollars and yours already contribute to the dues paid by the US; a full 22% of the entire bill to maintain the UN, but not including the money we give to UNESCO, nor the millions to fund the many military missions we undertake for the UN, but for which we rarely, if ever, receive compensation.
In 2001, the US was voted off the UN Human Rights Commission, a seat it held from its beginning in 1948. It has lost its seat on the UN International Narcotics Board and now comes word that it may lose its leadership role with the UN World Food Program where we contributed $24 million last year, more than any other nation. The General Accounting Office is about to release a report that former President Clinton diverted $24 billion, meant for our military, for UN peacekeeping missions around the world from 1995 to 2001. The "official" amount we are said to have contributed is $3.45 billion.
The notion that this nation owes any dues to the UN is a fraud. Had I any choice, not one cent of my money would go to the upkeep of the UN.
For Americans and others around the world, if the UN's High Level Panel of Financing Development has its way, this global octopus will spread its tentacles of power to impose global taxes.
On the surface, the Panel's conference will be passed off as being about boosting foreign aid to needy Third World nations. They are needy because they are mostly run by despots who siphon off aid into their Swiss bank accounts or spend it on military hardware instead of roads and bridges, hospitals and schools.
They are needy because they oppress their own people and destroy their ability to create any kind of a middle class who might unite to demand freedom. In socialist regimes, they are provided with enough "free" services to keep them (in theory) content.
The treaties and protocols created by this "Development" conference will be added to the more than 175 that already directly affect the internal policies of the United States of America, its individual States, and your local government.
(1) They intend to create an International Tax Organization. My Father was a Certified Public Accountant. Every year, until he retired, he wrestled with an increasingly complex tax code issued by the Internal Revenue Service. I learned to keep receipts for everything from him. Can you imagine trying to deal with a United Nations tax code?
(2) They intend to levy global taxes and they have their eyes on those that would affect every single financial transaction (currency) and on all energy use. These taxes would most affect industrialized nations by redistributing the funds to those for whom capitalism is an anathema. It isn't taxation. It's theft.
(3) They are calling for something they call "tax harmonization." This would permit high-tax nations, Socialists, to require their system be imposed on all income earned in the United States. Thus, the welfare states of Europe and the corrupt Third World nations would bring all their economic woes to bear on the citizens of the US. Right now, the President is calling for lower taxes in order to stimulate our economy. Under the rules being proposed by the United Nations, this nation would not have their power.
(4) If someone from another nation moved to the United States, the UN conference will propose that their earnings be taxed to ensure the payment would be made to the nation they fled!
The conference will also call for the United States to increase its foreign aid to "the annual equivalent of 0.7 percent of industrialized countries' gross national product." This means our current level of foreign aid would rise from $12 billion annually to more than $70 billion!
None of the language of the proposals that will be put forth at the UN conference make any reference at all to lowering tax rates, a vital element for economic development, nor will it discuss controlling wasteful government spending.
This conference is about DESTROYING the economic strength of the United States and the restructuring of our economic system to resemble the welfare states of England, France, Germany and nations whose governments take up to 70% ore more of the earnings of their citizens. They then redistribute it into programs such as socialized medicine that simply do not work.
The conference is about controlling all multinational corporations, all international transactions, turning them into cash cows for the United Nations.
The United States has exactly one vote in the UN General Assembly. The vast number of the other 185 nations would be the primary beneficiaries of this scheme to deprive Americans of the right to determine what their tax codes will be and how their tax dollars are spent.
Most Americans have no idea they are barely a month away from this act of global government grand theft.
A treaty begins life officially when the UN General Assembly or a special conference adopts the final draft of a proposed treaty. This draft is then circulated to member nations for their "signatures." Delegates from the participating nations "sign" the document, thus indicating their nation's intent to "ratify" it. The signature does not bind the nation to the terms of the treaty, but it does obligate the nation to "take no action contrary to the treaty."
Americans are being duped into accepting restrictions that can do nothing more than increase the cost of the use of all forms of energy by this nation. If there isn't a massive outcry against the forthcoming UN "Development" conference, we will all end up paying taxes to the United Nations.
There is only one solution. The United States must withdraw from the United Nations or it will be subsumed into its plan to determine every aspect of life here and in every other nation of the world. We will end up paying for our own enslavement. There can be no halfway steps toward accommodation. Wendell Phillips said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." We are about to lose ours.
This commentary is sponsored by We The People Foundation. The Foundation maintains an Internet web site at http://www.givemeliberty.org/.
© 2001 Alan Caruba.
www.anxietycenter.com
Posted by Walt as Finances, UN Taxes at 8:37 PM EDT
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Over one year ago, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 221-184 to withhold payment of 50 percent of our nation’s dues to the UN if the world body refused to cut back on its bloated budget and institute a series of reforms. Only a few weeks ago, proposals to reform the organization were defeated by a bloc of third-world nations. Will the 221 House members follow through on their 2005 insistence and severely cut our nation’s contribution to the world body?
The U.S. Constitution states: “All bills for raising revenues shall originate in the House of Representatives.” Each of the 221 — enough to block any expenditure of U.S. taxpayer money if they refuse to originate a bill to fund the UN — should be asked to put action behind the stand expressed in the June 2005 vote
Posted by Walt as Corruption, Finances at 4:44 AM EDT
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U.N. members do not pay a fair and proportional dues. For example Japan and the United States pay the brunt of the yearly dues while the other 180+ countries pay on the average of 1%.
The BBC reports:
Japan has proposed a revamp of United Nations funding to force some Security Council members to pay more.
Presently, Japan pays 19.45% of the yearly U.N. budget, second to the U.S. which pays 22%. Japan is not a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. While permanent members Red China pays 2.05% and Russia pays only 1.1%!
That is not fair!
The Japanese foreign ministry said in a statement that UN dues should "fairly represent member states’ economies as well as their status and responsibility at the United Nations".
Under its 3% proposal, Tokyo’s share of the budget would fall to 15.7%.
Germany, which has also failed to become a permanent member, would see a reduction - from 8.66% to 8.2%. Britain and France would see rises of less than 0.5%, while the US would be unchanged.
Japan’s attempts to get a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council has been blocked by Red China who does not believe Japan has atoned for her part in World War Two.
Just another good reason to get out of the U.N. before our economies are weaken by the U.N.
Posted by Walt as Finances at 12:48 AM EST
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Cross-posted from the Sean Hannity website
UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has called for meetings this week in the Security Council on allegations of corruption and sex abuse in U.N. peacekeeping missions, reigniting a dispute between the world body’s power players and a group of developing nations.
The Group of 77, which includes 132 mainly developing countries and China, is accusing Ambassador John Bolton of encroaching on the U.N. General Assembly’s turf by holding meetings on the allegations in the Security Council, which has five permanent and 10 rotating members.
The Group of 77 maintains the allegations should be handled by the General Assembly, where its members constitute a strong majority.
The United States this month holds the rotating Security Council presidency, and Bolton is insisting on holding meetings Wednesday and Thursday on the allegations.
At the heart of the struggle is what Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday is the General Assembly’s feeling "that its power and its influence is being diminished." The dispute comes at a crucial moment when the 60-year-old United Nations is debating major reforms and investigating new allegations of corruption.
Last week, two U.S. congressmen, Republican Henry Hyde of Illinois and Democrat Tom Lantos of California, accused the Group of 77 of trying to mask corruption and block attempts to overhaul the world body.
While some angry members of the group refuted the allegations and were outraged at the sharply worded letter, South African U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, whose country chairs the Group of 77, said Tuesday it would not respond because the group deals with governments — not legislative bodies.
Nonetheless, Kumalo read a statement at a press conference expressing the Group of 77’s support for reform of the United Nations and stressing that "the voice of every member state must be heard and respected during the reform process irrespective of the contributions made to the budget of the organization."
He also told reporters "the notion that is implied in all these debates and letters, that somehow developing countries are tolerant to corruption, to theft, to fraud … is very far from the truth."
The Security Council has become the dominant U.N. body because it deals with issues of peace and security and its five permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — have veto power. In the General Assembly, the 191 members each have one vote and there is no veto.
In the reform debate, Bolton has repeatedly stressed that the United States pays about 22 percent of the regular U.N. budget and 27 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget, and he has a responsibility to U.S. taxpayers to ensure that their money is spent wisely.
But Kumalo shot back Wednesday that even though three countries pay more than 50 percent of the budget combined and more than 100 combined pay less than 10 percent, the United Nations is an intergovernmental organization, not a corporation with A stock and B stock — "and we are all assessed on our ability to pay."
Under the U.N. Charter, the General Assembly is responsible for the U.N. budget and oversight of the operations of the U.N. Secretariat, which Annan heads.
The letter from Hyde and Lantos was a rebuttal to a Feb. 6 letter from Kumalo to Annan protesting the U.N.’s handling of an audit that alleged widespread corruption in contracts for U.N. peacekeeping missions worldwide. The audit was leaked to the media in mid-January, prompting U.N. Undersecretary-General Christopher Burnham, an American, to brief the press.
Kumalo said Tuesday the Group of 77 was upset because its members called for the audit and asked that it be given to the General Assembly. He said its members still haven’t been briefed on it and Bolton has now called Wednesday’s meeting to deal with the issue in the Security Council.
"That’s encroachment," said Kumalo.
Bolton disagreed, saying the Security Council authorizes U.N. peacekeeping operations and has a right to hold meetings on abuses — as does the General Assembly.
"I think the Security Council is going to be the more likely body to take decisive action," Bolton added.
The U.N. corruption inquiry expanded last month to include more than 200 investigations and led to eight U.N. staff members being put on paid leave. Any criminal wrongdoing discovered in the inquiry will be turned over to federal prosecutors in New York.
The U.N. instituted a policy of zero tolerance of sex abuse and zero contact last year following an investigation that found U.N. peacekeepers in Congo had sex with Congolese women and girls. Sex abuse has been reported in peacekeeping missions from Bosnia and Kosovo to Cambodia, East Timor, West Africa and Congo.
Source: Sean Hannity website
Posted by Walt as Corruption, Finances at 12:09 PM EST
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Another good reason to get the U.S. out of the U.N.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton is know for his adversity against the U.N. Fox News reports that he said Saturday that the world body is hobbled "by bad management, by sex and corruption" and a lack of confidence in its ability to carry out missions.
Mr Bolton also stated that two-thirds of its members pay only 20% of the total dues. The United States pays more than any other country. Yet the U.S. gets the lest benefit of the U.N.
"We find an organization that is deeply troubled by bad management, by sex and corruption and by a growing lack of confidence in its ability to carry out missions that are given to them," Bolton told an audience at a Columbia Law School symposium held by the Federalist Society, a conservative law organization.
Bolton, a longtime critic of the U.N., has been leading U.S. efforts to reform the United Nations after the oil-for-food scandal and sex scandals involving U.N. peacekeepers.
The oil-for-food program, established in 1996 with Iraq’s economy crippled by sanctions, allowed Saddam Hussein to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods meant for his people.
An inquiry by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found that Saddam sold oil to foreign countries in hopes of getting their support for lifting U.N. sanctions, and enriched himself by $1.8 billion through a kickback scheme. Companies and politicians essentially paid him for the right to do business, circumventing the U.N. program.
I agree 110% with John Bolton’s observations but I do not think reform will work within the U.N. No amount of reforms will change the way they do business.
Bolton — who has a reputation for brilliance, obstinacy and speaking his mind — said in 1994 that it wouldn’t make a "bit of difference" if the United Nations lost the top 10 stories from its 39-story headquarters.
If we can get the U.N. out of New York and out of the United States, they would not need any of the 39 floors.
Posted by Walt as Corruption, Finances at 10:55 PM EST
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The IMF has granted a $685 million loan to Iraq even though the terrorist violence continues. This loan signals to the world business community that it is alright to start investing in Iraq through business deals.
The 1944 United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in Breton Woods, NH, that led to formation of the International Monetary Fund. And most of the money it supplies to the world countries in loans comes from U.S. taxpayers. Very little of the loaned money is ever paided back. The money keeps going out and hardly ever comes back.
Even though Iraq is getting a major loan, most of its present loans were canceled. In today’s Washington Times:
Iraq announced an agreement yesterday with Germany canceling the equivalent of $5.6 billion of Iraqi debt. Debt-forgiveness deals were announced earlier this year with Canada, Italy, Belgium, Japan, Austria, France, Denmark, Switzerland and Spain. The U.S. canceled 100 percent of its claims against Iraq in December 2004.
The unfortunate taxpayers are the end losers in this deal. This is another good reason to get the U.S. out of the U.N.
Posted by Walt as Finances at 11:41 AM EST
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The United States has agreed to pay at least 6 months of its dues as long as the U.N. incorporates the recommended financial reforms, which include a $900 million dollar cap. Many of the countries have agreed, but not all of the 191 General Assembly members have cast their vote. The United States funds about 23 percent of the regular U.N. budget. Yet we have only 1 vote.
The U.N. is notoriously known for mishandling funds, over spending and waste spending. The U.N. is still trying to recover from their "Food for Oil" scandal.
The United States had refused [to pay their dues] because the world body has failed to enact a series of financial reforms — an effort made more urgent by recent disclosures that Saddam Hussein had used a U.N. oil-for-food program to receive bribes and pay kickbacks amounting to billions of dollars.
Source: Washington Times
I do not think any reform the U.N. promises will ever go forwarded. They have always been know as fat cats and spend over 75% of their budget on salaries. We would save billions of taxpayer money if we would get out of the U.N.
Posted by Walt as Finances at 8:34 AM EST
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Remember the U.N.’s infamous "food for oil" scandal? The report is just out and it is a stunning indictment of the U.N.’s current leadership to properly lead and their ineptitude.
Of course the timing of the report’s release could not have been planned better. With the political turmoil of Meirs stepping down from her Supreme Court nomination and the pending indictments of high ranking White House officials it is guaranteed that the report will get very little attention.
From the news report on Investors.com:
The first news accounts of the so-called Volcker Commission’s final report emphasized that 2,200 out of 4,500 companies that were involved in the U.N.’s $67 billion oil-for-food program — set up to let Saddam Hussein sell oil to buy food, medicine and other necessities for the Iraqi people — had paid bribes.
Many companies and U.N. officials were paid bribes which enabled Saddam Hussein to steal over 11 billion dollars.
But it was the U.N. itself, as venal as any mob-run enterprise, that made the corruption of its own program possible — "facilitated it," in U.N.-speak.
To say the U.N. needs "reform" is useless. At this point, it might be better to end the U.N.’s mandate and start completely anew. (from Investors.com)
These actions of misconduct by the U.N. is an outrage, especially to the taxpayers since the U.S. foots over 75% of the UN.’s costs. The only recourse is to get us out of the UN!
Posted by Walt as Corruption, Finances at 3:50 PM EDT
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