Russia is in charge of the UN Security Council. Are we ready to defund the UN now?
Zachary Faria
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Liberals are suddenly discovering that the United Nations might just be a corrupt, pro-authoritarian organization. Maybe now we can all agree that it doesn’t deserve U.S. funding.
The U.N. Security Council’s new president this month is Russia. According to the U.N. website, the Security Council “has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” Russia, of course, is in the middle of an invasion of Ukraine, which runs contrary to the council’s stated mission.
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Does this upset you? It did for some in the media, but it shouldn’t, according to the Biden administration. U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield sees no problem with this, saying that the administration expects Russia to “behave professionally.” Besides, the presidency of the council rotates every month, meaning that this is normal procedure for the U.N.
It apparently hasn’t occurred to Thomas-Greenfield or President Joe Biden that this being normal is the problem.
The last time that Russia held the presidency of the Security Council was February 2022, the same month that the country launched its assault against Ukraine. The council is completely useless when it comes to dealing with Russia, because Russia has an automatic veto over anything that comes before the council as one of the five permanent members. (Another permanent member with an automatic veto is China, in case you were wondering.)
The big punishment the U.N. was able to impose on Russia was kicking the country off of the Human Rights Council. Of course, that raises the question of why Russia was on the Human Rights Council to begin with. (China is also currently on the Human Rights Council. Are you sensing a pattern?)
So why are U.S. taxpayers funding the U.N.? The organization is a bloated bureaucracy run by people who hate the U.S. and love propping up authoritarian regimes, including the world’s worst human rights abusers. The U.N. is completely political, as evidenced by the World Health Organization becoming a Chinese propaganda organ during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And all of this is being enthusiastically funded by Congress and Biden. In 2021, the U.S. gave the U.N. more than $12 billion as Biden “resumed funding streams paused under” former President Donald Trump. The U.S. will again provide the organization with 21% of its regular budget this year. What has that investment got us so far, other than a U.N. that is controlled by Russia, China, and other authoritarians?
The U.N. is rotten to its very core. Its very structure promotes and rewards authoritarians across the world, and it’s doing so on the backs of taxpayers. As the U.S. prepares yet another $2.6 billion in funding for Ukraine to defend itself against the U.N. Security Council president, perhaps Republicans can offer Democrats a compromise and start taking chunks out of our U.N. funding for Ukraine’s defense instead. Then Democrats could either agree or explain how an anti-American global bureaucracy deserves our eternal funding.