UNbelievable and UNsustainable

From the BBC :

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has sent a team of investigators into refugee camps in west Africa following the revelation that large numbers of children have been sexually exploited by aid workers there.

The scale of the problem - revealed in an overview of a report by the UNHCR in conjunction with the British-based charity Save the Children - has surprised relief personnel.

From Reuters :

A U.N. General Assembly panel has killed resolutions denouncing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and Sudan after African nations argued the measures were politically motivated by Europeans and the United States.
[...]
U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, who transported all 15 Security Council ambassadors to Nairobi last week, castigated the assembly on Tuesday when it became clear the measure would be scuttled by a procedural vote.

"One wonders about the utility of the General Assembly on days like this. One wonders if there can't be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle," he said.

"Why have this building? What are we all about? This to me is a very bad situation," Danforth told reporters.

On Wednesday, U.S. delegate Gerald Scott noted the well-documented abuses in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where Arab militia had tortured civilians and made homeless 1.8 million civilians in a clash with African rebel groups. The resolution would have condemned all sides in the conflict.

"If these (U.N.) bodies cannot speak with one voice on an issue as clear as Darfur, what can they do?," Scott asked.

The Sudan draft expressed "grave concern" at atrocities in Darfur "including forced displacement and arbitrary executions" as well as widespread abuse of women throughout the country "in law and practice."

From Diplomad :

Our Diplomads have served at the UN, in New York, Vienna and Geneva, and worked with the UN in a variety of other posts, and can tell you from experience that the UN is a massive, expensive hoax that needs to be ended once and for all.

Those who don't rely on the "elite" MSM for all their information, know about the UN's "oil-for-food" scam that is slowly being uncovered, and could prove the most massive financial scandal in human history (even bigger than Massachusetts' "Big Dig.") The "oil-for-food" scam, huge as it is, flows logically from the ruling ethos at the UN. The UN system is built on corruption, on the principle of the shake-down; whatever lofty objectives might have existed at its creation, for the UN corruption now provides the means and reason to exist.

See also a multi-count indictment by the Belmont Club. I've always been of the opinion that the UN's various organs - like the WHO, FAO, ILO and so on - do far too much good for the whole thing to be abandoned. But given what's happened with UNESCO and the UNHCR, I wonder how long it will take for the rot to set in irredeemably in other organs too? What happens when the WHO becomes politicised and as corrupt as the rest? Or the FAO? Or the ILO? Or, as seems increasingly likely to have already happened, the IAEA? Reluctantly, I've come to the conclusion that we should be preparing a back-up plan. It would take decades to set up, so we better start soon.