UN Chief Threatens Trump, Promising Expulsion

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has warned that many of these peacekeeping missions have become obsolete and require a thorough reckoning on paper.

In New York, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is planning to host an April 6 meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss an ongoing U.S. review of the U.N.’s 16 peacekeeping missions.

Haley, who will serve as the council’s president for the month of April, will make the point that some of the U.N. missions may have outlived their usefulness and may need to be shuttered, reconfigured or shrunk, according to a confidential U.S. concept paper.

Combatting the bad press that surrounds budget cuts to the United Nations seems to be a huge problem.  When half of your own Republican Party is working feverishly against you in order to spend more and cut less, the idea that Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan will be limiting their powers is really the crux of the matter.

Just this May, the Omnibus passage by both the House and the Senate increased spending by billions, cut almost nothing as the Republicans heralded the “newly-discovered hidden funds in the former Obama DOJ,” and largely ignored nearly 100% of Trump’s budget cut proposals.  Many of these same Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Lindsay Graham have trumpeted that the proposed UN cuts by the Trump administration are “dead on arrival.”

Add to that the corrupt Leftist media and its horribly one-sided debate on the “angelic benefits” of the United Nations programs and Trump has truly got his hands full.  Just check out this opening salvo in Foreign Policy Magazine in March:

The White House is seeking to cut $1 billion in funding for U.N. peacekeeping operations and to eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars for other U.N. programs that care for needy children and seek to lift the world’s poorest out of a life of grinding poverty, according to two diplomatic sources briefed on the plan.

The proposal is certain to face strong pushback from Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, who warned that President Donald Trump’s budget will never be passed. But it reflected the White House’s clear desire to jettison America’s traditional role as the champion of the downtrodden and embrace that of a military powerhouse to be feared.

Understand, now that the above online publication is not presented as an opinion piece.  In fact, the author, Colum Lynch, is a long-time Leftist whose bio appears as thus:

He now devotes his reporting chops to documenting President Donald Trump’s efforts to reorder the international system. Born in Los Angeles, Colum received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1985 and a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 1987. Before moving to FP, Colum reported on diplomacy and national security for the Washington Post for more than a decade. He has appeared frequently on national news programs, including the Lehrer NewsHour, as well as on MSNBC, NPR, and the BBC.

This should tell you everything you need to know about Lynch and why it is that he’s so thoroughly devoted to the United Nations, the massive expenditure of the American taxpayer’s money, and to the notion that any cuts (now matter how benign) are comparable to the complete and utter destruction of the United Nations.

Let’s also not forget that the 193 diplomats and their alternates/proxies are paid a handsome $70.6K a year, plus healthcare, meal stipend, travel, entertainment/leisure and, most importantly, immunity.  Having grown up in New York City, I was not a stranger to the habits of UN Diplomats flaunting their immunity in cases of DWIs, Hit & Runs, Prostitution, Parking Violations, and Battery/Assault and getting away scot-free with the charges.  Of course, there is the army of interpreters and translators, staff members, secretaries and clerks, cooks and barbers, tailors and servers.  How much of that $8B budget is eaten up by homes, vehicles, hotels, energy bills, leases, travel, healthcare, licenses, food, alcohol, general overhead, maintenance, tens of thousands of workers abroad, uniforms, weapons, ammo, etc., etc., etc.?

So, for the Leftists to act as if this top-heavy, gargantuan enterprise is a lean, mean, legislating machine, is a flat-out lie.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the Trump administration on Tuesday that if the United States disengages from many issues confronting the international community it will be replaced — and that won’t be good for America or for the world.

Guterres made clear to reporters at his first press conference here since taking the reins of the United Nations on Jan. 1 that proposed cuts in U.S. funding for the U.N. would be disastrous and create “an unsolvable problem to the management of the U.N.”

But the U.N. chief stressed that he is not afraid to stand up to President Donald Trump, citing his vocal opposition to the U.S. leader’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. He said the mobilization of U.S. business and civil society in support or the climate deal is “a signal of hope that we very much encourage.”

Well, it’s true that he’s standing up to Donald Trump, but that part about him “not afraid” is a crock.  He is absolutely terrified right now.  To imagine for a moment that the huge and treasure-laden U.S. gravy train just got chopped in half is the stuff of nightmares to a Leftist!  And knowing that there are cracks in the armor of the press right now, what with CNN being a permanent resident of Scandal Town and the Washington Post on its hourly “Russia-Watch,” there’s no certainty that Trump will be defeated.

The climate change hoax being debunked and rejected by nearly 100% of the public is yet another path to gold that has been essentially shut down and the United Nations has invested a good deal of its street cred in that endeavor.  I cannot even begin to imagine the outright panic that Guterres must have experienced when Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord!

Looking at the array of global crises, Guterres expressed concern that there could be a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia over Syria and urged a de-escalation of the dispute between Washington and Moscow over the U.S. downing of a Syrian jet.

This is very important, he said, “because these kind of incidents can be very dangerous in a conflict situation in which there are so many actors, and in which the situation is so complex on the ground.”

“So, indeed, I am concerned, and I hope that this will not lead to any escalation of the conflict that is already as dramatic as it is,” Guterres said.

And here’s yet another aspect of the “apocalyptic view” of the world sans the United Nations being there every step of the way to mediate and calm the nerves of the big players.  This whole Russia-U.S. kerfuffle regarding the downed Syrian regime jet was a lot of necessary saber-rattling to save face on the part of the Russians.  They were threatening the “tracking” of U.S. fighter jets, but stopped short of saying they were going to be firing upon them.  This Pit-bull-without-teeth method of diplomacy was the only real way for the Russian Defence Minister to show solidarity with the Syrian leader Assad.  Anything short of that would have been a thorn in the side of the Russians, and anything more would have been an international incident with the United States.

The secretary-general, who served as U.N. high commissioner for refugees for 10 years, chose World Refugee Day for the press conference and appealed to all U.N. member states not to refuse entry to those seeking asylum and deserving protection.

He also urged rich countries to do much more to support the 80 percent of the world’s refugees living in the developing world — and to increase the number of refugees they will give new homes to.

The United States is “by far the largest resettlement country in the world” with a “very generous and positive policy,” Guterres said.

But Trump is moving to significantly reduce the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States, even as his bid to temporarily suspend admissions is stalled in the courts. His budget proposal calls for a 25 percent cut in funds for resettling refugees on American soil.

Guterres said he has strongly encouraged the United States “to come back to the levels of resettlement that we witnessed until two or three years ago.”

Finally, as you can see, this was a direct dig at the Trump administration and his stringent policy toward refugees.  The United States is a sovereign nation with many different types of people who regard this country as a safe haven and a place where they can express themselves in a variety of ways and still manage to make a good living for themselves.  That being said, its immigration policies are a hell-of-a-lot less restrictive than so many other industrialized nations and yet you wouldn’t know it listening to the Progressives.  Their vision of a Trump America is one where vigilantism is rampant, illegals are deported in mass numbers (regardless of their actual status) and the Border Wall is being built with the blood money of those of whom we have exploited.  The Left literally believes that Trump policies are more restrictive than almost every other nation when, in fact, it is the very Leftist policies themselves that have created the illegal mess in the first place!  For Guterres to suggest that we are not holding up our end of the bargain, when that bargain was negotiated under a different president, in a different time, and under the guise that this nation was a racist nation and this was reparations for such behavior, is reprehensible and, frankly, rude.

If the simple act of cutting budgets is inconceivable to the United Nations, it might have nothing to do with the programs at all.  In fact, knowing what a Leftist body it is, the likely answer is that it has everything to do with money.

Source:  Fox News / CNS News / United Nations / Business Insider / Foreign Policy1 & 2 / Washington Times / CNN

Image: United Nations