Ja: Common sense on the U.N.

Many persons are now of the view that the way the UN Secretary General and the UN community in general responded to the Iraq crisis has seriously undermined and eroded the credibility of the UN. That body, then, should not be expected in this dispensation to rise to the heights of moral and ethical rectitude.

We live in an unreal world if we imagine that the UN operates with impartiality and neutrality. By attempting to perpetuate these false notions, the UN peacekeeping forces have overseen disasters in Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), and Bosnia (1992-95), where they refused to take the sides of the victims.

But how could (they) take the sides of victims when the UN peacekeeping forces are under the tutelage of U.S. foreign policy?

CARICOM must wake up and realise that the UN is no longer, if ever, a superior moral authority to national governments. It responds to the interests of the member nations, with the interest of the most powerful in military and economic terms of both, having the day.

He's wrong on some other points, but he's essentially right on this.