International
Can We Finally Talk About United Nations Funding?
David Clinton
Billions of dollars disappear into the black hole. Not much value comes out the other end
No area touched by government policy should be off-limits for open discussion. It’s our money, after all, and we have the right to wonder how it’s being spent. Nevertheless, there’s no shortage of topics that, well, aren’t appreciated in more polite company. Until quite recently, I somehow assumed that Canada’s commitments to the United Nations and its many humanitarian programs were among those restricted topics. I had my own deep reservations, but I generally kept my thoughts to myself.
Then the Free Press published a debate over US funding for the UN. I know that many subscribers of The Audit also read the Free Press, so this probably isn’t news to most of you. If questioning UN funding was ever off limits, it’s officially open season now.
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The only defense of the organization to emerge from the debate was that America’s spooks need the surveillance access made possible by the UN headquarter’s New York address, and the city needs the billions of dollars gained from hosting the big party. No one, in other words, could come up with a single friendly word of actual support.
For context, Canada doesn’t bill for parking spots around Turtle Bay in Manhattan. And our spies are not up to the task of bugging hospitality suites anywhere nearby.
How much money do Canadian taxpayers spend on the United Nations? According to data from Canada’s Open Government resource, UN-targeted grants cost us at least $3.7 billion between 2019 and 2022. That number could actually be a lot higher since it’s not always easy to identify spending items as specifically UN-related.
Of that $3.7 billion, more than $265 million went to administrative and headquarters operations. Those administrative grants included $209 million directed to the “United Nations Organization” and officially described as “Canada’s assessed contribution to the United Nations Regular Budget”. Membership dues, in other words.
So what do we get for those dues? Arguably, nothing at all. Because the actual work of the UN happens through their specific programs – which were covered by the other $3.5 billion we contributed.
Unfortunately, those contributions are often misspent. Take as an example the eight million or so dollars Canada sends each year to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Since 1978, UNIFIL’s 10,000-strong contingent’s only job has been to:
“confirm Hezbollah demilitarization, support Lebanese army operations against insurgents and weapon smuggling, and confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, in order to ensure that the government of Lebanon would restore its effective authority in the area”.
It’s no secret how splendidly that worked out. Hezbollah cheerfully spent the best part of the past two decades building some of the most robust military infrastructure on earth. And all under the direct supervision of UNIFIL.
Then there’s the disturbing relationship between United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and both Hamas and Hezbollah. As I’ve already written, by their own admission, Global Affairs Canada completely missed (or chose to ignore) that one. UNRWA cost Canadians $55 million between 2019 and 2022.
It’s true that some UN peacekeeping missions from decades back saw success, like operations in Namibia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, East Timor, and El Salvador. But the failures were, to say the least, noticeable. Those included Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, and Darfur. And all that’s besides the accusations of widespread, systemic sexual abuse committed by peacekeepers just about anywhere they go. The peacekeeping model’s value proposition is far from proven, but the financial costs are right out there in the open.
Besides their regular happens-to-the-best-of-us failures, the UN has carefully cultivated their own unique brand of corruption. In 2005, Paul Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC), for example, reported on widespread corruption and abuse associated with the UN’s Oil-for-Food program for Iraqi citizens.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has long been associated with corruption, cronyism, and a general lack of financial control. But to be fair, those claims are very much in line with accusations regularly leveled against the UN as a whole.
Most Canadians are agreeable to sharing their collective wealth and expertise with those around the world who are less fortunate. But we’d be far more effective at it by creating our own programs and bypassing the rotting corpse of the United Nations altogether. That is, after all, what Global Affairs Canada is supposed to be doing.
While I’ve still got your attention, there’s one other United Nations-y thing that I’d like to discuss. While researching this post, I accessed official data representing all UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions since 2000. Fascinating stuff, I assure you. But it didn’t turn out the way I’d expected.
You see, for years I’ve been hearing about how UN resolutions are overwhelmingly focused on condemnations of Israel – to the point where Israel takes up the majority of the organization’s time.
In fact, there were far too many spurious and gratuitously hostile anti-Israel resolutions. And I defer to no one in my contempt for each one’s dishonesty and hypocrisy. But unless there’s something very wrong with the official UN data on resolutions, condemnations of Israel take up no more than a small minority of their time.
Specifically, of the 1,594 General Assembly resolutions from the past quarter century, just 60 or so targeted Israel. And the Security Council faced a total of 1,466 resolutions over that time, of which only somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 concerned everyone’s favorite colonial-settler, apartheid, space laser-firing, and weather-controlling oppressor.
The cesspool that is the modern UN is bad enough on its own merits. There’s no need to manufacture fake accusations.
Daily Caller
Sweeping Deportations to Begin in Chicago Day After Inauguration
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to launch his promised large-scale deportation operation the day after he is sworn into office, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The incoming Trump administration will immediately begin mass deportation efforts in major sanctuary cities across the United States, with Chicago predicted to be first on the docket, according to The Wall Street Journal. The raid in Chicago is anticipated to begin Tuesday morning and last the entire week, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deploy 100 to 200 agents to execute the operation.
Incoming border czar Tom Homan — who led ICE during the first Trump administration — previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the White House will focus on the “worst first,” prioritizing illegal migrants who have criminal histories and orders of removal. However, Homan also made clear that any illegal migrant in the U.S is fair game.
“Like the first Trump administration, we’re going to prioritize public safety threats, national security threats and fugitives,” Homan stated to the DCNF, adding that gang members and other criminals would be their main focus. “Those that had due process at great taxpayer expense, were given orders of deportation, never left and became a fugitive – them too, they’re a priority.”
“The ones who pose the biggest threat to the country – they come first. The worst first,” Homan went on. “But let’s be clear, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table.”
The Chicago City Council recently slapped down an attempt by two moderate aldermen to scale back the sanctuary city laws currently in place.
Aldermen Raymond Lopez and Silvana Tabares, both Democrats, proposed amending Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance to allow for ICE cooperation when an illegal migrant has been arrested of certain criminal activities, arguing that such a policy would be a net benefit for the city’s immigrant community as it would allow deportation officers to better focus on criminals instead of making enforcement actions in the city at large. However, their proposal was quickly shot down by the council on Wednesday.
Other sanctuary cities in the U.S. have also expressed steep opposition to Trump’s enforcement agenda. Los Angeles passed its sanctuary law shortly after Trump emerged victorious in the presidential election, San Diego County doubled down on its existing law and Boston reaffirmed its sanctuary status in December.
Homan has said that city officials refusing to cooperate with ICE will not deter their agenda, and he added that those who knowingly harbor illegal migrants from law enforcement will be recommended for prosecution.
Along with large-scale deportation operations, Trump has also vowed to end birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil by illegal migrant parents, resume construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, bring back the Remain in Mexico program and implement other hawkish policies.
International
Coup in Romania – Fascinating interview with Presidential hopeful Calin Georgescu
Funny how a lot of people branded “far right” by progressives and the corporate media sound pretty reasonable when you see / hear them in conversation.
Take Romanian Presidential candidate Calin Georgescu. As an independent candidate, Georgescu found himself leading the current Presidential race in Romania when his campaign found itself under attack.
Georgescu opposes financial and military support of the war in neighbouring Ukraine. For that he’s been called not pro-peace, but pro-Russian and anti-NATO. His campaign effectively used TikTok as any other potenial candidate hoping to win an election in 2024 would do. Opponents say his social media success simply has to be the result of Russian influence. They have no proof, but they’re already in power so they don’t seem to need any.
Georgescu has an extremely interesting resume for someone who is apparently ‘far-right’. In 2015 and 2016 he was Executive Director of the United Nations International Institute for Sustainable Development. His political experience in Romani comes from a long stint in the Office for the Environment including two years as Secretary General of the Ministry of Environment.
He followed that up with a long run as Executive Director of the National Centre for Sustainable Development in Bucharest, before joining the United Nations.
Fascinating route to far-right extremism indeed.
Of course no one called him ‘ultranationalist, extremist, or far-right while he was polling around 5%. But when his success in the first round catapulted him to 23% of the vote for President, putting him in the lead heading into the decisive second round of Presidential voting, the Constitutional Court of Romania annulled the results.
Among his “far-right” campaign initiatives were strengthening Romania’s defence capabilities, diversifying Romania’s diplomatic relations, increased support for farmers, promoting energy and food production, and reducing dependency on imports.
From Viva Frei on Rumble
Călin Georgescu’s unexpected success in the first round of the presidential election was attributed to a massive social media campaign on TikTok, which was later scrutinized for possible foreign influence, particularly from Russia. The court’s decision to annul the election results was based on these concerns and allegations of campaign finance irregularities. It is nothing less than the desecration of the democratic process.
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