23 March 2026

The growing degradation of the UN

By RN Bhaskar and Sakeena Bari Sayyed

Image: CoPilot

Part II can be found by clicking here

The United Nations (UN) was born on 24 October,1945. It was because after WWII, all the major countries realized that there was an urgent need to have a powerful yet impartial and fair dispute resolution mechanism. It was truly collaborative.

It was unlike its predecessor, the League of Nations, which had become a victors’ club incapable of representing the interests and the agonies of the weaker countries.  That is why the UN  created many multilateral forums focussing on a variety of activities — education (UNICEF), food (FAO), trade (WTO), and a host of other activities. Fast forward 80 years, and the UN has become another rich boys’ club.

However, the war bug has made many of the rich boys to have empty pockets and back-breaking IOUs.  Even the US.  But all the rich boys have squandered away their goodwill. They grew on other people’s money – through colonisation and plunder.  With the UN coming in, much of this exploitation became difficult.  Not surprisingly, when economic conditions worsened, they were left with empty pockets.

Honey, I shrunk the UN

The US, the biggest rich boy, is also left with empty pockets.  It has managed to pretend it is rich because its currency – the US dollar – is the fiat currency. It has the power to print more ‘international’ currency. Easy money through reverse-colonisation (slavery) and exploitation (annexation of other people’s lands) made them careless about using money prudently.  Desirous of going back to its old days of annexation and plunder, it has gone about, mindlessly, demolishing and shutting down many of the multinational organizations that made the UN great and relevant.  It has even abetted the Israeli attack on UN peacekeepers in the Middle East.

It has closed around 60 of such UN organizations – using its incredible financial and muscular strength and its Veto power.  It was unmindful of the fact that each of these organisations was supposed to protect the interests of the weak and the vulnerable. In other words, when the chips are down, the US has gone back to extortion through tariffs and through annexation (Venezuela is one example; the attack on Iran is another).  Dreams of annexing Cuba, Columbia, Greenland and even Canada are part of the interrupted hallucinations of this extortionist.

Today, the world is on the brink of WW-III. As it was with the League of Nations, many believe that it is time for the UN to be phased out.  Its inability and refusal to allow the UN to take action against the biggest perpetrators of injustice have made the United Nations both impotent and irrelevant.

Crimes condoned, or ignored

Increasingly, the UN and its affiliate organisation – the International Criminal Court (ICC) — are being seen as unfair and unequal dispensers of justice. Consider the way they have begun calling some countries and their leaders war criminals. Some of the key war criminals are listed out in the table below.  True, the UN has been emasculated.  But the ICC still has the power to list out the names of criminals under investigation.  It has failed to do that.

Sadly, some names are missing. Germany is not there in the list. It supplied to Saddam – under US instructions — chemicals for the war that Saddam Hussein waged against Iran. These get classified as Weapons of mass destruction (WMD).  You can listen to more of this at timeline 21:12 – 22-03 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yogVg6GFSeQ&t=1275s .

Even today, you have victims of chemical wars in Iran still smarting from the aftereffects. The name of the US is missing. George Bush senior, who allowed these chemical weapons to be used, is also not mentioned by the ICC as a war criminal.

Ditto for his son — George Bush Junior – who asked his military to bomb Iraq and beat it into submission.  The bombs used depleted uranium – another WMD. Even today, you hear of women giving birth to malformed babies on account of the exposure to the radiation from this depleted uranium. That also is against the Geneva convention  on WMDs (https://disarmament.unoda.org/en/our-work/weapons-mass-destruction/secretary-generals-mechanism-investigation-alleged-use-chemical-and-biological-weapons-unsgm/1925-geneva-protoco)

And while Israel’s prime minister and defence minister have been declared war criminals for the crime in Gaza, other names and crimes still need to be registered.  For instance, Israel too has used chemical WMDs in its war against Palestinians. It is alleged to have used white phosphorus against people in Lebanon. It is supposed to have used chemicals on farmland to prevent anything from growing there which could be interpreted as a means to stop people from growing their own food, even while it blocks the entry of food and aid into many areas in order to inflict mass starvation on these people.

Unfair accusations

The UN was unusually quick in labelling Vladimir Putin as a war criminal even though he was responsible for fewer deaths and regime changes than the US. The table below gives the list of the major regime changes incited by the US and the number of people who died in the process.

Compare this with the people who died under Putin

In this connection, it must be noted that even though the Orange Revolution of 2004 (funded by the CIA) didn’t really kill people nor did the Arab Spring of 2010. Both resulted in conflicts that eventually killed more than a million people.

The Orange revolution led to regime change in Ukraine, which facilitated NATO expanding eastwards which, in turn, caused the Ukraine war. The real culprit was the US. The highly classified letter written to the US government by its ambassador to Russia in 2008 predicted the sequence of events that would eventually lead to the current Ukraine-Russia conflict. The ambassador was William Burns who later became CIA director. This document can be found by doing a google search on ‘NYET means NYET’. The document would not have come to light had it not been for WikiLeaks. It shows how the US caused the war, which has led to so many deaths (also view https://youtu.be/HbZicfRMSws?si=6lQpPrg6qb4dCku7).

Similarly, the Arab Spring in Egypt followed the Iraq regime change in quick succession.   This was followed in quick succession with toppling the governments of Libya and, more recently, Syria.  Currently the US and Israel are trying to effect a regime change in Iran. So far, such attempts have proved unsuccessful.

All the regime changes were the joint-handed work of the US and Israel. The original outline has its roots in a document prepared by Binyamin Netanyahu almost 47 years ago. Recently, Netanyahu admitted this — stating that the current bombing of Iran was his 47 year old dreamcome-true (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/read-netanyahus-full-statement-on-iran-attacks) . His plans include the toppling of other Arab states as well, including Turkey. The hands of the US and Israel are stained with blood.

The list of possible criminals is long.  They will, in all probability not get prosecuted because of the US veteoing any such resolution to try them.

A sample list is given in Part II of this article

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My latest podcast is on how Indians are leaving this country – almost an exodus. You can find it at https://youtu.be/lsOMvuoH3JU

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Also watch my views on Republic TV on India’s foreign policy blunders at India’s Foreign Policy Blunder?  — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxy0C7kS0A4

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You can read about my views on euthanasia arising from the Supreme Court’s judgement on the Harish Rana case, by looking up https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/opinion/story/harish-rana-case-supreme-court-has-more-humanity-than-indias-legislators-2881791-2026-03-14

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And do watch our weekly “News Behind the News” podcasts, streamed ‘live’ every Saturday morning, at 8:15 am IST. The latest can be found at https://www.youtube.com/live/0oYDb9_2dIo?si=ijm3gkZbQtOVgM09

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