"A large majority of the public believe that the United States should accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the World Court, sign the Kyoto protocols, allow the United Nations to take the lead in international crises, and rely on diplomatic and economic measures more than military ones in the ‘war on terror.’ Similar majorities believe the United States should resort to force only if there is ‘strong evidence that the country is in imminent danger of being attacked,’ thus rejecting the bipartisan consensus on ‘preemptive war’ and adopting the rather conventional interpretation of the UN Charter reiterated by the UN’s High-level Panel of December 2004 and the UN World Summit a year later. A small majority of the population even favors giving up Security Council vetoes, so that the United States would follow the UN’s lead even if it is not the preference of US state managers. On domestic issues, overwhelming majorities favor expansion of government programs: primarily health care (80 percent), but also funding for education and Social Security" (Chomsky, Noam. "Failed States," p. 229).
Furthermore, the United States is in debt to the United Nations. "United States debt to the United Nations, in both the regular and peacekeeping budgets, exceeded $1.5 billion at the start of 2009. After passage of the 2009 appropriations bills, U.S. debt for peacekeeping alone was over $1.3 billion. These arrears make the United States the largest debtor to the United Nations" (http://docs.google.com/vie
Further cutting the UN budget will make no significant dent in the deficit, whose purpose is redistributing wealth to bankers and defense contractors. The UN budget is being threatened because human empathy is a subversive value; it threatens the paradigm of exploitation.
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