Quiz question: What country surpasses Haiti, Somalia and Congo as a deadbeat and rogue nation?
asserted
country → surpass → nation
Answer: In the halls of the United Nations, it’s the good old USA.
asserted
it → ’ → Nations
The Trump administration is delinquent on UN dues, while 141 countries – including those mentioned above – are fully paid up.
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countries → include → those
And while other countries at least pretend to advance peace in the spirit of the UN, President Donald Trump used his UN speech to threaten to “annihilate” Iran and “drive them into hell”.
asserted
Trump → pretend → hell
It was a rare instance of a world leader taking to the UN podium to muse about whether to commit what sounds like genocide.
asserted
what → take → genocide
All of this underscores a tragedy of our era: some 130 armed conflicts are under way around the globe, more than double the number in 2009, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a growing share of the challenges afflicting us are international and require multilateral solutions, yet the major powers are marginalising the UN and rendering it even less effective than usual.
uncertain
it → underscore → UN
Fuel prices are surging.
asserted
prices → surge → ?
Trump’s Iran war has spread to Yemen and the Red Sea.
asserted
war → spread → Yemen
Russia is engaging in so-called grey-zone attacks in Europe.
asserted
Russia → engage → Europe
Drugs, epidemics, artificial intelligence, computer hacking, terrorism, human trafficking, climate change, looming famine in Somalia, the toll of war in Ukraine, Sudan and the Gaza Strip – all of these challenges demand co-operative responses, and the UN is an obvious forum to develop them.
asserted
UN → loom → them
For many of these problems, the UN is becoming almost irrelevant.
asserted
UN → become → problems
Trump last year derided the UN as full of “empty words”, and he had a point.
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he → deride → point
The organisation is a timid Tower of Babel that is more effective at issuing paper than at solving conflicts; hell is a UN meeting.
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hell → issue → conflicts
“The cost is measured in lives,” said Nadia Murad, a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose Yazidi region in Iraq was surrounded by Islamic State fighters in 2014 for nearly two weeks.
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region → measure → weeks
“No one came to help us,” she told me, and she ended up kidnapped by IS and was raped for months.
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she → come → months
Her mother and six brothers were killed.
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mother → kill → ?
Yet if the United Nations is periodically paralysed, it’s also vital and sometimes a godsend.
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it → paralyse → ?
“I have also seen UN staff members remain in places after everyone else has left, doing work no one else is willing to do,” Murad said.
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Murad → see → work
That is precisely why the UN must do it better.
asserted
UN → do → it
Critics can denounce UN workers as “fatally arrogant parasites”, as President Javier Milei of Argentina put it a few days ago, but I’ve been held at gunpoint alongside courageous UN humanitarians in the Central African Republic who were trying to bring assistance to a desperate area after other aid workers had fled.
asserted
workers → denounce → area
I’ve seen front-line UN workers living out of cargo containers in Somalia, sleeping in tents in South Sudan, driving down perilous roads in Congo and standing up to gunmen in Yemen – risking their lives to save children from war, rape and disease.
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workers → see → war
One of the heroes of the 20th century was James Grant, who led UNICEF and in 1982 engineered the child survival revolution.
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who → lead → revolution
He and his team employed vaccines and better treatment of diarrhoea to save 25 million lives in his lifetime, and countless millions since.
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He → employ → lifetime
When have critics of the UN done anything half so noble?
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critics → do → anything
When have critics of the UN put their lives on the line for others, like the 136 UN employees who died in the line of duty last year?
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who → put → duty
Today in Congo, UN workers are combating the Ebola outbreak.
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workers → combat → outbreak
In Somalia, they are feeding starving children.
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they → feed → children
In Gaza, they are distributing aid.
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they → distribute → aid
If the United States was distinguished during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza by providing 2000-pound bombs that Israel used to destroy neighbourhoods, the UN stood out for trying to achieve peace and get aid through Israeli checkpoints.
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UN → distinguish → checkpoints
It’s Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
asserted
It → ’ → Ukraine
It’s Trump’s attack on Iran.
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It → ’ → Iran
It’s Elon Musk “feeding USAID into the wood chipper”, as he put it, by one count costing more than 750,000 lives.
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he → ’ → lives
So for all my impatience with plodding UN bureaucracy, I’ll take the United Nations any day over great-power jingoism and caprice.
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I → take → jingoism
Sure, bash the United Nations; it often deserves it.
asserted
it → bash → it
But my guess is that millions more children would die every year if it weren’t for UNICEF, the World Food Program, the UN Refugee Agency and the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
asserted
it → die → Affairs
Understand also that the UN is a crumbling pillar of what is left of this geopolitical global order that the United States helped create after World War II and that has so benefited us and the world.
asserted
that → understand → us
And note that one reason for the infuriating UN paralysis and timorousness is that great powers throw their weight around, often vetoing constructive action and, in the case of the United States, slashing budgets as well.
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powers → note → budgets
I fear that the paralysis may get worse.
uncertain
paralysis → fear → ?
The United Nations is supposed to choose a new secretary-general this year, and this is a moment when the world needs a charismatic, outspoken leader who could use the bully pulpit and tackle the globe’s security and humanitarian crises.
uncertain
who → suppose → security
Sadly, that seems exactly what the United States, China and Russia are determined to avoid.
asserted
States → seem → what
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
