The U.N.'s Diminished Dignity

Once upon a time, the United Nations was a legitimate international organization, as it was in 1960 when it played host, in the midst of the Cold War, to a summit that brought most of the world leaders to New York City. These heads of state joined our President Eisenhower at what was then an august institution dealing with important global relations.

Aside from Premier Khrushchev banging his shoe on the podium and Fidel Castro trashing the Hotel Theresa in Harlem with his chickens, the United Nations was then regarded as a dignified diplomatic community.

It hasn't lived up to that definition in some time, so why is it still here in New York City?

My own memories of the United Nations can be traced back to that September of 1960, when I was a student at Cathedral High School, which was near the Waldorf=Astoria, where presidents and other dignitaries stay. Our class had lined up on 51st Street, in full uniform, including navy-blue berets and white gloves, to salute the Eisenhower motorcade. We had the opportunity to see Prince Phillip and Jordan's young King Hussein pass by in their black limousines. The roar of the NYPD's motorcycle escorts was exhilarating to a young teenage girl, as were the handsome, blue-helmeted policemen.

Though tensions were flying high between America and the USSR because of the U-2 spy plane incident, one could feel with some assurance that things would be settled by the United Nations, led by the quiet diplomacy of the able secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjold. It may be a cliche to say "That was then but this is now," but how else to compare the then-distinguished organization with the corrupt anti-American band of thieves and despots now occupying primo real estate near the East River?

Why on earth isn't the Oil-for-Food scandal on all the front pages of the mainstream press? Here we are fighting a war in a country that was headed by a dictator who used the Oil-for-Food money earmarked for the Iraqi people to build his palaces and rebuild his military. U.N. officials monitoring the program allegedly took bribes to look the other way while certain countries made billions from it. No wonder those countries didn't want us to go to war in Iraq.

Now the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, has the nerve to say the Iraq war was illegal because it contravened the U.N. Charter. I say that charter has never had the best interests of our country at heart. Certainly, the United Nations has been a thorn in the side of New York for some time.

Diplomatic immunity was supposed to protect delegates from unwarranted arrests by hostile governments. It was not supposed to be a free pass for the diplomats to violate civil laws in host countries. Our traffic laws are apparently a joke to many U.N. officials, and New York has had a continuing battle trying to get somebody in the government to pay for the millions of dollars in unpaid traffic fines racked up by U.N. people.

Mayor Bloomberg threatened to start towing the scofflaws' cars but was stopped by Secretary of State Powell, who said our diplomats would suffer ill treatment abroad as a result. A compromise was suggested, to deduct the outstanding fines from foreign aid, but these diplomats don't really care about the amount of aid going to their homelands, so long as they can do whatever they want here.

A U.S. News and World Report columnist, Roger Simon, wrote in his August 27, 2002, syndicated column of the criminal abuses by the diplomatic community.

"Peter Christiansen, a retired New York police detective, testified before a Senate committee that he had tracked down a man suspected of 15 rapes," Mr. Simon wrote. "Two of the victims identified the man, but he was the son of a military attache from Ghana and had diplomatic immunity. 'I was forced to let him go,' Christiansen told the senators. 'As he left, he snickered and laughed at the crime victims and myself.' "

Since everyone has come to the conclusion that the international community hates us anyway, why not go whole hog and really give them something to hate us for? Let's kick them out of our city. Let them relocate to the Hague or, better yet, how about dumping them in Sudan, so they can get a good look at the genocide that they admit is going on but won't do anything about? Remember Rwanda?

If Rudy Giuliani could get the mob out of the Fulton Fish Market, why can't we get rid of those international parasites on the East River?