[Agamemnon]

What about UNICEF?
Private charities that have far less fanfare do far more. I am sure some private group could put together something better

That may be true... but they wouldn't. If UNICEF dissolved tomorrow, you think the gap would be filled overnight by 'some private group'? You're sure they could put something better together? I'm not sure of many charitable organizations that are the size and scope of UNICEF, could you list a few?

http://www.unicef.org/

Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
WOW! Sure made China stand up and take notice eh?

Right, good call, this negates any value or reason for the Declaration of Human Rights. It made quite a few people stand up and take notice at the time, and went a long way towards establishing an 'equal rights' mindset among humanity and assisting in eradicating long-standing and rife racism.

I don't think China avoiding a few articles and clauses makes the Declaration of Human Rights not 'credible'. Many, many Western governments would dispute a claim that it isn't.

Peacekeeping in Cyprus?
You mean the one that Canada pulled out of?

... so what? Canada pulling out means the mission failed or is not 'credible'? This doesn't make sense. If this is what you're saying, then you're absolutely wrong. If every mission Canada left was deemed a failure because of that... that would be stupid.

The 16 current Peacekeeping operations they're involved in?
Like the Balkans? How about Rwanda? Did a bang-up job there!!

Riiiight, I forgot the Balkans was _all_ the UN's fault. Clinton and NATO had nothing to do with it. Why not blame the Security Council nations at the time? Because you don't care to... its much easier to encapsulate your vague irritation at lack of action by blaming an acronym then bothering to figure out what the real case was. I'm chairing a conference on the Balkans crisis next month... I assume you've extensively researched your erroneous claims?

The UN has done some really good things. No doubt about it. But can you really sit there and say that in the last decade and a bit since the fall of the Soviet Union that it has been anything BUT helpful?

I sure can. In fact, they've done so many helpful things, I couldn't list some here without doing injustice to others. Check out www.un.org for a comprehensive list of the things they do. I find it far outweighs its criticisms. Hell, don't take the UN's word for it, ask the US or Canadian government... or most governments in the world! They've all got embassy websites for the UN, where they praise it to no end. Check out http://www.un.int/usa/ or http://www.un.int/canada/english.html for all kinds of positive ways the US, Canada, and the UN work together on a _daily_ basis.

Apparently some people think that all the UN does is intervene in security issues. This is probably one of the smallest and weakest contributions the UN provides. Economic, Social, Political, and Cultural programs run the gamut, from rich to poor, black to white, all over the world, dwarfing most other international care agencies. The UN coordinates _immense_ relief efforts, like the recent Tsunami.

64 billion dollars: single most largest relief effort was an exercise in outright graf

I assume you know that nowhere close to 64 billion dollars was taken? This sentence appears to spin this figure as the # stolen, whereas its the total size of the Oil for Food program.

Can you name ANY country that the UN has helped bring to it's feet?

It's helping dozens of countries today. It usually goes into fairly 'broken' states, so to expect some sort of turnaround success story out of misery is probably aiming miles too high. The # of things being done today is, again, beyond measure by myself. http://www.un.org/esa/

All this 'UN sucks' talk is throwing out the baby-with-the-bathwater BS. If you see room for reform, point it out. Clearly the world _wants_ to be members of the UN, so I don't see how you're more knowledgeable about what they want than they are.

Maybe write a letter?