Here's what I found most interesting: "Straight UN Facts What the U.S. Pays the U.N. The United States has the maximum assessed contribution to the UN regular budget - 22%. In 2005 the assessed amount is $439,611,612. The minimum assessed contribution is 0.001%. The scale of assessments for each UN member for the required contributions to the regular budget is determined every 3 years on the basis of Gross National Product (GNP). Only nine countries (starting with the largest contributor: United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, China) contribute 75% of the entire regular budget. Cuba, which accounts for much of the behavior of the UN Human Rights Commission and its Sub-Commission, contributes .043% of the regular budget. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia contributes .713%." My question being, all those economists who predict hopefully that china's economy will surpass the US in the (only by their measure) not too distant future, does that mean that the US will then, based on GNP, will no longer have to pay so much to support/assist so many other nations whose only national occupation is condemning the US for everything we do (except only in times of crisis when they cry for our protection, aid, and money)?

Against all reality people first demand/force the UN to be something it's not and then get all disappointed because the UN fails to live up to their unrealistic expectations. That's like forcing a financial expert to perform heart surgery and blame him when the operation fails. The UN never was meant as a fighting organisation, hasn't got an army to fight, doesn't have the organisation to fight, doesn't have the authority to initiate fights, etc. The UN was meant for diplomacy. In this diplomatic role you can use the UN as an honest broker (that both parties trust) to make reaching a peace agreement easier. This can even be combined with monitoring tasks. But you need not even go that much further and you will quickly reach the limitations of what the UN can do.

"...In this diplomatic role you can use the UN as an honest broker (that both parties trust) to make reaching a peace agreement easier." Nice, were it true. Convince me that I'm wrong. Most Americans sure don't have a sense of "honest brokering" on issues important to us. Notable successes (party hat and horn out, ready to celebrate!)?

-"...In this diplomatic role you can use the UN as an honest broker (that both parties trust) to make reaching a peace agreement easier." Ahhh..so then that whole Oil for Food scandal thingie was just an "honest" mistake then?

The whole oil for food thing was already several steps too far for the UN. You entrust the management of an arms boycot to a bunch of diplomats and then all of a sudden you're suprised at dismal results. That's like entrusting to the state department the management of US border patrols and be all suprised when this is not working. The UN is limited in what it can do and in what it can be. Oh and it will never be perfect. As for that the UN cannot fulfill the role of honest broker, because of the US. This is not true for ALL cases. - There remain enough cases, where US interests do not prevent the UN from fulfilling the role of honest broker. - There are also cases where US back made UN actions possible in the 1st place. - Oh and of course the US is singled out as evil. NO mention that the Russians, the Chinese, the French, the ARAB league, etc. all do exactly the same stuff with respect to the UN. (I didn't see the French going to the UN before invading the Ivory coast nor did I see Russia going to the UN before Chechnia).

Sorta seems like we are getting the smelly end of the stick on this one. I figure we should just leave the UN and do what we end up doing anyway. If we need to talk to some nation we should just do it the old fashioned way, with the ambassadors... That whole we are the world band together and sing kumbaya my lord thing passed with the hippies. Reality is that the UN is a waste of time and money that could be diverted to one of the many other organizations that do the same things as the UN, just without Kofi and his son getting a take. How redundant is redundant? We got ambassadors, why do we need the UN? We got military's, why put our soldiers under the ineffective and criminally negligent rules of the UN? We got literally thousands of Civilian relief agencies who would do their job much better without the UN dicking things up. Okay everyone lets line up nice and pretty in our blue hats and sit back. No shooting while the rebel mob murders the whole village in a genocidal rage now, we wouldn't actually want to do something right now. Maybe if we make one more layer of bureacracy we can end wars for good, as it will simply be too much paperwork to go save people from their unjustified slaughter while we watch on CNN. Can anyone name something the UN actually does to justify the budget it gets? I mean something that isn't already being done by someone else?