Wednesday, September 26, 2007

What Will Tomorrow Bring: UN Relocation?

I'm working a block from the Waldorf Astoria in NYC this week, which has given me the opportunity to see the unbridled circus which surrounds the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. The UN was generously donated a prime plot of land on the east side of Manhattan for their headquarters in the 50's. Since then, they've graced the US with petulance. First let me say that I agree with the concept of the UN, but not with its practice.

Of late, they've grown increasingly irritating to the whole country over their insistence on purview in international affairs, promptly followed up by their reluctance or inability to get ANYthing done in that sphere. The Reagan (and Clinton) effect on world opinion of the US has, I fear, completely worn off, leaving the UN an anti-US mouthpiece for gripes from all corners of the globe. Leaders such as AchMADeenJIHAD are so visibly gauled to even have to set foot in this capitalist hellhole that I'm surprised they make the trip.

For New Yorkers, the UN has been an unequivocal pain in the butt for New York since arriving. Motorcades messing up traffic; Dignitaries from all over ("that's a country??") requiring NYPD overtime to escort;. lawless consolidates with unpaid parking tickets. And General Assembly week. Ugh, the traffic nightmares.

So, since they irritate us and we irritate them, and they irritate us, I'm quite sure we will start to see a movement within the Secretariat to move the HQ elsewhere. With the $4 billion they might make from the sale of prime Manhattan real estate, they could buy quite the retreat in Geneva.

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