Shaking at Turtle Bay

Back in December of last year, I wrote the following in a post entitled UN-necessary:

The limited good works of the United Nations don't outweigh the anti-Western tilt that has occurred over the past 50 years. It's bias, incompetence, corruption, and overall ineffectiveness are the sad results of a reasonable idea that went bad.

The UN will never change. In fact, its advocacy for rogue regimes, its championing of perpetual pseudo-victims (i.e., the palestinians), its hypocritical organizations (e.g., the "Human Right's Council) that allow oppressive regimes (e.g., Libya or Iran) to go without sanction but imply that liberal democracies are international outlaws (e.g., the recent anti-Israel resolution), its bloated bureaucracy populated by do-nothing functionaries on perpetual vacation in The Big Apple, it's obvious corruption and inability to perform its role as "peacekeeper" are all an acknowledged part of its sordid history.

To his credit, Donald Trump pledged to reign in the UN and he's doing exactly that.

Of course, the trained hamsters in the MSM have an on-going love affair with the idea of the UN, spend almost no time investigating its corrupt and often damaging practices, and would never, ever give Trump credit for anything, much less his stance with regard to the UN. Benny Avni comments:

Want to rein in the bureaucratic bees at the United Nations? Forget honey; grab the vinegar.

America is boycotting a weeklong session at the UN Human Rights Council that started Monday, and is pressuring others to oppose five related resolutions expected to be raised on Friday, at the end of that session.

As US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley pointed out Monday, only one country is subjected to regular scrutiny and condemnation in each of the three annual sessions of the 47-member Geneva-based human rights body.

Guess which one.

It's a tiny liberal democracy in a sea of Islamist thought and dictatorial regimes in the Middle East. You know its name. The corrupt UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel 68 times in the past decade, while condemning all other countries combined only 68 times. But who cares. The UN's actions are increasingly meaningless.

There's much more for the Trump Administration to do vis-a-vis the UN—and it all begins with cutting funding to the UN dramatically. Why should billions in U.S. Taxpayer dollars be wasted on an ineffective, corrupt organization that accomplishes little and is often antithetical to our interests? Why Indeed?

Avni continues:

The United States pays $5.4 billion, 22 percent, of the annual UN “regular” budget, much more than any other country. Additionally, US taxpayers fork over $8.25 billion for UN peacekeeping (28.5 percent of the total peacekeeping budget).

Haley said she’s scrutinizing those budgets, starting with peacekeeping — a target-rich environment with quite a few defunct, redundant or bloated blue-helmet missions around the world.

Other UN cuts were detailed in President Trump’s recently announced budget.

The trend is clear: America will significantly reduce its UN contributions and stop handing over blank checks to agencies controlled by US antagonists.

No wonder they’re freaking out at Turtle Bay. Last week, Guterres indicated in a statement that such US budget cuts would harm global efforts to combat terrorism and would undercut his attempts to reform the world body.

As evident by his scrapping of an anti-Israel report under Haley’s pressure, the opposite is true.

They’re shaking on the 38th floor. Good.

Very, very good.