Since you would probably distrust sources I would cite, and I can see that I for sure am skeptical of yours, I would at least reccomend you look up the Economist’s assessment of the UN, since we can find common ground there. You might also be willing to accept information from the BBC or UN Watch

Some of my info is taken from Human Rights Watch. Using their scale, I ranked every UN member on their human rights score. I discovered that the average UN nation is as open and free as Indonesia (see this Razor story).

Some other reasons:
1. The UN peacekeepers in Srebrenica under Dutch leadership stood aside and allowed Serbs to slaughter thousands of Muslim men and boys.

2. The UN under Kofi Annan failed to intervene in Rwanda.

3. The UN failed to stop the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Kosovo was saved only through a non-UN sanctioned intervention by NATO.

I suggest you read up on the history of the League of Nations. You’ll find that the similarities are striking.
And don’t be afraid to at least give me a first name; I don’t bite.

My desire is not to assert that the UN membership does not contain many bad countries. There are 193 countries on earth, and 191 are members of the UN. The point made here is that the purpose of the UN is to unify nations, to eliminate the us-against-them atmosphere that has constituted all of history and both world wars. This is a task that cannot be achieved in our lifetime and the alternative is a coalition of “good” countries whose objectives, by their very nature, must be national not global interests.

Other Reasons: The failures you have listed are all correct, but they do not justify dismissal of the UN. That would be akin to saying that because of the Napalming of Vietnam, military aid for Salvadoran death squads, and supplying Hussein with weapons in the 1980’s, the US should be considered a “failed experiment,” and given no credit. I don’t believe that, I’m sure you don’t believe that. And please spare me the “they had to” defense.

Finally, the League of Nations crumbled because the “great powers” did not treat it as an arbirtating body, and despised it when it did not serve their national interest. The same will happen to the UN if a like attitude is taken towards it- not by small, corrupt nations, but by the “great powers” that alone have the capacity to make or break it.

Goddamn, that was long. hope I didn’t put you to sleep.