The UN is not just dysfunctional – it's a criminal enterprise

It gives validity to zealots and bigots, a voice to international terrorists, and helps to keep tyrannical dictators in power.

It is reasonable that honest, compassionate people seek a means for governments to air their differences.

It is also reasonable that honest, compassionate people should desire some way to voluntarily pool resources to provide charitable aid to those who are starving or are victims of natural disaster. Indeed, this is the image of the United Nations that has been sold to the world since its inception.

It is not, however, the reality.

The UN gives validity to zealots and bigots. It helps to keep tyrannical dictators in power. It gives a voice to international terrorists.

Delay. Negotiate. Recommend. Study. Reconsider. Do nothing. This is the game the UN has played in nearly every international crisis. It is the reason North Korea remains a threat after 50 years. And it is the reason why a terrorist nation such as Syria can be given a seat on the UN's Human Rights Council.

The UN is buried under scandals. It has Oil-for-Food scandals. Smuggling scandals. And theft scandals.

UN peacekeeping missions – with their record of rob, rape,and pillage – can actually bring fear to the local citizens they are supposed to protect.

Who has the power to oversee and control its actions? The people don't vote on UN actions. The media has little access behind the scenes. Who audits the accounting books?

UN supporters admit such problems, and they call for "reform." But to them, reform doesn't mean plugging holes in UN spending or clearing up scandals. Instead, it means global governance.

Since its inception, the UN's advocacy has amounted to a desire to eradicate the sovereignty of nations – while imposing what it calls "world-mindedness."

A 1949 UNESCO document said, "...nationalism [is] the major obstacle to the development of world-mindedness."

Therein lies the UN's true goal. And that belies its public image of being simply a place where nations may come to air their differences and act responsibly.

Instead, the UN works to gain power for itself in order to become independent and supreme over its member nations.

To do that, it needs the power to tax. On Sept. 19, plans were approved by several nations to create a global tax, mostly through airline tickets to help pay for the treatment of AIDS. There are several other tax schemes on the UN wish list. If the UN gains the power to tax, it will become a monster free of its chains. And, of course, the UN wants its own military. It already has its own court.

Imagine a world run by the justice of China, with the economics of Cuba, and the military might of the United States. Such is the world of the future under UN global governance.

A glance at recent history shows that the UN is irrelevant as a body to deliver world peace.

Using images of dire environmental emergencies, life-threatening diseases, or starving children, the UN promotes an agenda that seeks to redistribute the world's wealth.

Nowhere is there mentioned in a single UN document that I have read an advocacy for the right to own private property. And it is a fact that the inability to own private property creates poverty. It is also a fact that confiscation of private property never helps to eradicate poverty.

It is bad economic policy. Yet that is the UN's only solution to the massive suffering throughout the world. Take it from one source to give to another. And that, I contend, is the very root of the suffering – not the solution.

The UN is not "dysfunctional" as some "reformists" have claimed. It is a criminal enterprise in which no moral nation should ever participate, let alone perpetuate.

• Tom DeWeese is president of the American Policy Center, a nonprofit in Warrenton, Va., dedicated to free enterprise.