| One of the reasons for the failure of the League of Nations, following the First World War, had been that neither the United States of America nor the USSR (both former allies) was a member. One of the reasons for the impotence of its successor - the present United Nations – is that both the USA and the USSR were. |
| At the first General Assembly meeting of the United Nations, held in January 1946 in London’s Central Hall, a decision was taken by 51 delegates to locate the UN Headquarters in the United States, the USSR agreeing ‘as a friendly gesture to Washington’. That was probably the last such concession made by the USSR to the USA. Over the decades thereafter, they sparred, argued, fought a Cold War and smaller wars through proxy states, without actually dragging each other and the rest of humanity into another world war. The United Nations proved to be an effective safety valve. As Henry Cabot Lodge once explained to its members: ‘This organization is created to prevent you from going to hell’, adding: ‘It is not created to take you to heaven.’ |
| All of its 191 member countries know all too well that the United Nations is not their stairway to heaven. Its headquarters is more like some modern Trump Tower of Babel, where a hundred languages are spoken but only those that matter heard. [EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN 4 October 2004, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
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