With friends like this ... the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has made no secret of its negative feelings about the United Nations.

According to The Economist, "The United Nations was above all an American creation." It was the pet project of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"The most striking aspect of this tale," the magazine reported in 2005, "is that in 1945 America's global dominance was even greater than it is today.

"All other great powers lay in ruins, while America itself was unscathed by bombing or invasion. America's factories were working at full tilt. Its armed forces were the most powerful in the world by far, and it was only months from unveiling a terrible new weapon, the atomic bomb, which no other country possessed. America's economic output, by some estimates, was half of the world's total.

"At the peak of America's powers, in other words, its leaders were determined to create a multilateral institution involving as many nations as possible as a primary mechanism for ensuring American, as well as global, security."

In his speech before the San Francisco conference, U.S. President Harry Truman said: "We all have to recognize--no matter how great our strength--that we must deny ways as we please."

That's the polar opposite of today's U.S. attitude as expressed by John Bolton: "If I were redoing the Security Council today," he said on National Public Radio in 2000, "I'd have one permanent member because that's the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world." No prizes were offered for guessing that the "one permanent member" Mr. Bolton referred to was the United States.

And, this comment came from the man U.S. President George W. Bush appointed as his ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Bolton also has given it as his view that: "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along."

Mr. Bolton is not alone in his view. Anti-UN sentiments are expressed by a large number of U.S. politicians and U.S. citizens. There is a deep resentment that Americans pay about a quarter of the UN's bills and end up being trash-talked by speaker after speaker in the General Assembly.

Jed Babbin wrote about the source of that resentment in his 2004 book Inside the Asylum (ISBN: 0895260883).

"[Diplomatic nations] always want to give the UN another chance to be what it was supposed to be: a forum for nations of good will to meet and settle disputes peacefully without resort to war. Instead, today's UN is a diplomatic version of the Mad Hatter's tea party, where good is evil, right is wrong, and every dictator or despot is given the same rights and privileges as the leaders of free nations ...

"For the United States, the UN is a quagmire of diplomacy in which wars can be lost but not won, alliances can dissolve but not be formed, the birth of nuclear terrorism is being watched but not aborted, and no adult supervision is imposed on a Third World playground where anti-Americanism is the favourite game." Ouch!

Mr. Babbin is a former undersecretary of defence in the U.S. government and a fight-wing political commentator. For a less inflamed view of U.S. relations with the United Nations let's turn to Newt Gingrich and George Mitchell. These two senior American politicians co-chaired a task force that looked into UN reform. The task force issued its report in June 2005.

Both task force chairs stressed that an effective United Nations is of great benefit to the United States, and that substantial reform is needed if the organization is to live up to its founding goals.

Mr. Gingrich wrote that, "There is a new need for sustained, consistent American leadership at the UN if that organization is to become an effective instrument in protecting the safety of the American people and dignity of peoples worldwide." These sentiments are echoed by Mr. Mitchell, who says that reform "can be accomplished only with concerted leadership of the United States, working with the growing ranks of the world's democracies."

The low point in U.S. relations with the United Nations came in the spring of 2003. U.S. President George W. Bush and his advisers had decided to invade Iraq. Mr. Bush said Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein and his regime presented a "grave and gathering danger" to American and world security. Iraq was said to have weapons of mass destruction (poison gas, biological weapons and, perhaps, nuclear arms) and to be a haven for terrorists bent on attacking the U.S.

Mr. Bush sought UN approval for the attack. However, France and Russia made it clear they would not support an American invasion of Iraq. Because those two countries could veto Security Council decisions, America decided to act without UN authorization. Bitter words were spoken.

The U.S. military victory over Iraq was swift. Saddam Hussein fled and his armies surrendered.

Since then we have learned there weren't any weapons of mass destruction. Neither were there any links between Iraq and international terrorist rings.

America is now bogged down in a guerrilla war in Iraq that it has little hope of winning. And, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that the U.S. attack is illegal.

Some say that American defiance of the United Nations over Iraq has dealt a death blow to the organization.

Others say it has only caused a serious wound that can be healed through reform.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. John Bolton gave a speech in 2003 in which he described North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il as a "tyrannical dictator" who had turned his country into a "hellish nightmare." Most objective observers would agree that Mr. Bolton was right on the money but he was rapped on the knuckles because blunt talk like that doesn't go down well on the diplomatic circuit. Discuss whether or not it would be better or worse for international relations if diplomats spoke more plainly.

2. The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is a conservative group created in 1997 to "promote American global leadership." Many of its members, such as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld hold or have held senior positions in the Bush administration. PNAC argues that the U.S. should create coalitions of democratic nations and use military force to keep the peace around the globe. In this scenario, the United Nations would be responsible for war reconstruction, peacekeeping, and humanitarian relief. Discuss.

FACT FILE

According to a New York Times/CBS News poll in 2003 nearly six out of 10 Americans thought the UN was doing a poor job.

FACT FILE

Because of the failure of many members to pay their dues in full and on time, the UN came very close to bankruptcy in 1996.

Websites

Get US Out--http://www. getusout.org/

Project for the New American Century--http://www. newamericancentury.org/

U.S. Task Force on the UN--http://www.usip.org/un/ report/index.html

RELATED ARTICLE: Economic empire building.

John Perkins is a former U.S. staffer at the World Bank, a United Nations Agency. In his 2004 book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (ISBN: 1576753018) he describes an international finance system that helps the U.S. take over the national economies of other countries.

In a recent interview with Independent Media Mr. Perkins outlined what he claims is the real purpose of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

"Over the past 30 to 40 years, we economic hit men have created the largest global empire in the history of the world ... There are many ways to do it, but a typical one is that we identify a Third World country that has resources, which we covet. And, often these days ... we go to that Third World country and we arrange a huge loan from the international lending community; usually the World Bank leads that process.

"So, let's say we give this Third World country a loan of $1 billion. One of the conditions of that loan is that the majority of it, roughly 90 percent, comes back to the United States to one of our big corporations, the ones we've all heard of recently, the Bechtels, the Halliburtons. And, those corporations build in this Third World country large power plants, highways, ports, or industrial parks--big infrastructure projects that basically serve the very rich in those countries. The poor people in those countries and the middle class suffer; they don't benefit from these loans, they don't benefit from the projects. In fact, often their social services have to be severely curtailed in the process of paying off the debt.

"Now, what also happens is that this Third World country then is saddled with a huge debt that it can't possibly repay. For example, today, Ecuador. Ecuador's foreign debt, as a result of the economic hit man, is equal to roughly 50 percent of its national budget. It cannot possibly repay this debt, as is the case with so many Third World countries.

"So, now we go back to those countries and say, look, you borrowed all this money from us, and you owe us this money, you can't repay your debts, so give our oil companies your oil at very cheap costs. And, in the case of many of these countries, Ecuador is a good example here that means destroying their rainforests and destroying their Indigenous cultures. That's what we're doing today around the world, and ... it began shortly after the end of World War II. It has been building up over time until today where it's really reached mammoth proportions where we control most of the resources of the world."

In May 2005, Paul Wolfowitz, a close adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush became President of the World Bank. He was hand-picked for the job by Mr. Bush. Howls of protest from liberals greeted the appointment. Even the conservative Economist magazine expressed doubts about the wisdom of putting Mr. Wolfowitz in charge. "His appointment," the magazine wrote in a leader, "tells the world that Mr. Bush wants to capture the World Bank and make it an arm of American foreign policy. If that is his intention, it is a mistake."

RELATED ARTICLE: Power of the purse.

American taxpayers pick up about a quarter of the UN's bills, and a lot of them are not very happy about that. One of the most vocal complainers is Henry J. Hyde: he's a Republican congressman from Illinois. He has sponsored a bill that would see the U.S. withhold half its UN dues if the world body failed to adopt 39 reforms within two years. The bill passed the House of Representatives in June 2005.

However, the U.S. has a long history of not paying its full assessment of UN fees. Currently, the United States is about $1.3 billion behind in its dues. It has promised to pay the full amount owing in exchange for a reduction in its assessment to 22 percent of the organization's operating budget.

The U.S. point of view is understandable. For 2002, the 43 developing countries contributing at the minimum rate were assessed $11,104 each. The largest contributor--the United States--was assessed $283 million.

Many developing countries are happy to vote in favour of programs from which they benefit but for which they pay next to nothing. At the same time, some of those nations spend a fair amount of time bad-mouthing the United States.