I read an article by George Sjostrom in my local newspaper recently. He wrote about the UN and how corrupted it was and that the U.S. gets no respect and therfore should withhold more of its overdue payments. While I agree that UN is not the institution we had hoped it would be when it was established, I disagree with many of Sjostrom's arguments. I wrote to him but he has not responded in two weeks. I guess he has no interest in debating this. So I am going to publish my letter to him here and see if anyone has any thought on this. Sjostrom's article was publised on Oct. 1, 2005 in the Ventura County Star

Dear Mr. Sjostrom:

With all due respect, I find many flaws in your argument against the UN. Yes, the UN does not seem to be able to agree on anything but what would you expect when there are 191 nations involved, all with different cultures and interests? The U.S. is just one nation but we have such a big divide that the blue states and the red states can't agree on anything either. Yes, there is corruption and waste in the UN but what country, including the U.S., does not have corruption and waste? If Paul Volcker had written a report on all the wastes and pork coming out of our government, would the Congress have taken any meaningful action?

You have problems with Tonga having the same voting power as the U.S. in the General Assembly. Would you rather see China with 10,000 times more voting power than Tonga based on the proportion of population? The truth is the UN was never meant to be a democratic institution. It was created by the big powers for the big powers. This is why there is a veto for 5 members of the Security Council. Anything that is important cannot be done without the consensus of all 5 countries. If 180 countries voted to get rid of all nuclear weapons on earth it would be a meaningless gesture since the U.S., Russia, and China are sure to veto it. The truth is nobody cares what Tonga thinks. When the United States speaks everybody listens even if the U.S. doesn't always get her way. UN forces will never go anywhere without the support of the U.S. So even if all the arab countries voted to send UN troops against Israel, it would never happen. On the other hand when we have no energy to do the right thing like intervening in Africa, we can always claim that the UN is there already. Would you rather see U.S. troops or UN troops in places like Lebanon? Of course the UN can't do a very good job because the major powers would never let the UN have a strong military.

When we are doing the right thing like going to Korea, going to Kuwait or chasing al Qaeda in Afghanistan the UN and most of the world support us. It gives the impression that we are not doing this for our own self interests only when the UN is behind us. When we do things that are questionable we can't expect the UN and the rest of the world to kowtow to our power. This Iraq war is a perfect example. Most of the our own people finally are realizing this is not the right thing to do. The rest of the world, even most of the people in our strongest ally Great Britain, believe we are wrong. So the structure and composition of the UN is irrelevant in this case. Even NATO, an organization consisting of our allies only, is not giving us much support.

The UN can be very useful to us if we provide good leadership. I am sure we would have received great support if we had gone in to attack Saddam Hussein in the 1980's when he used chemical and biological weapons against Iran and his own people. Instead we applauded him because we hated Iran. Now instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan where the UN would have been glad to relieve our troops by now, we are stuck in Iraq while al Qaeda is regrouping.

Yes, the UN is not what we had hoped it was going to be. It has not solve many great problems in this world. It is basically there for the great powers of the world to present their cases to all the nations. I think in most cases we have come out ahead of China and Russia, earning more respect than them. But when we give false intelligence to justify war and then go ahead when most of the world disagree, we do seem arrogant to the world community and lose respect. There is talk that we should just kick the UN out of New York. Well, I am sure Bejing would be happy to host the UN. That would be disastrous for the U.S. and the rest of the world. The UN may not be a great success, but compare to its predecessor the League of Nations, it has been a tremendous improvement. Afterall, we have not had World War III yet. Thank you for reading such a long letter.

If anyone reading this understands why the investigation of the case involving the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame is still going on 2 years later, let me know. Karl Rove is testifying before the grand jury for the 4th time. Numerous journalists have testified. One was jailed for refusing to name her source even though she did not publish Plame's name. My question is: why has Robert Novak, the person who actually put Plame's name in print, not been sent to jail? That seems to be the most direct route to get to the truth. None of the other testimonies are necessary if Novak testifies. If they can send Judith Miller to jail for refusing to name her source, why can't they do the same to Novak?

This is not a case of a journalist's right to not reveal his sources. Novak had to know that it is illegal to expose a secret agent. Nobody can possibly think that this is not a crime against the country. When Novak learned of Plame's name and her role in the CIA, he did not have to write about it. If the person who gave him the information had simply wanted to discredit Plame's husband but did not want Plame's name to be published, then Novak is the only one guilty because he could have wrote the story without naming Plame. If Novak was threatened or instructed by someone in the government to expose Plame, then there is no reason for him to hide the source of the leak since that person had committed a crime. So the special prosecuter should simply indict Novak. If he won't give up his source, then he is guilty of knowingly endangering a CIA agent. One of the reason that journalists are allowed to hide their sources is because we wouldn't want someone with power, such as the government, be able to intimidate witnesses. In this case the source is a part of the government that is intimidating someone, so he should not be protected. I am sure Novak understands this and so his cry for the freedom of the press is absurd.

This whole thing seems like a circus. The list of possible suspects can't be so long that 2 years later we still don't know who did it. If the source was a low level person in the Bush administration, I am sure the White House would have figured it out a long time ago and would have sacrificed him to get this whole thing behind them. So was it Karl Rove or another person at his level? Everybody knows Robert Novak knows. If anyone knows why Novak is walking around as a free man while the rest of the world is laughing at our so call investigation, please let me know.