Send the U.N. packing

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My wife would like to see us kick the United Nations out of the United States. I, for one, think it's a swell idea. What's more, I'm certain that most New Yorkers feel the same. After all, for the past 58 years, the gang of scofflaws has taken advantage of their diplomatic immunity to be the worst kind of guests. Double-parking is the least of it.

Probably the only people who would miss these expense-account spongers are the waiters and maitre d's at the more expensive Manhattan eateries.

My own reason for wanting the United Nations padlocked is because I object to corruption and hypocrisy being passed off as high-mindedness. My problem with the organization is more basic than that, although it does explain how it is that Mr. Annan seems to have a more extensive, and more expensive, wardrobe than Donald Trump.

People such as Sen. John Kerry are always eager to get the United Nations' good-housekeeping seal of approval before America makes a foreign policy decision. Or at least Mr. Kerry and company do when there's a Republican in the White House. I don't seem to recall it's having been quite so imperative when Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were holding down the Oval Office.

Be that as it may, what nation in its right mind would surrender even a scintilla of its sovereignty to a group as loathsome as the member states of the United Nations? I would sooner trust the Mafia to call the shots. You think I'm indulging in hyperbole? At least I have no reason to think that, for all its faults, the Costa Nostra hates America. I mean, consider that among the regimes having votes are the likes of Cuba, China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea to you), Laos, Cambodia, Rwanda, Myanmar, Sudan, Uganda, and two dozen Muslim-dominated dictatorships running the gamut from Bahrain to Yemen. And that's not even counting France.

Understand, the United Nations, while going ballistic over America's rescuing Iraq from Saddam Hussein's iron grip, did nothing about genocide in Rwanda and Sudan. The United Nations, while taking every opportunity to chastise Israel, treats Yasser Arafat as if he were another Mother Teresa and his gang of suicide bombers were just so many good Samaritans going about their business.

But even aside from all that, I counted 33 member nations with populations under 1,000,000. In fact, there are a baker's dozen with populations under 100,000! We don't call places that size countries, we call them counties or neighborhoods. The total population of those 33 countries, ranging alphabetically from Andorra (67,509) to San Marino (24,521), is slightly in excess of 10 million, the same as Seoul, Korea, for crying-out-loud! If you can believe it, there are only 16,952 people in Palau. Palau has a seat in the United Nations, and, what's more, its ambassador can park anywhere he pleases.

Do you really want Palau having a say in matters of American foreign policy? On top of all that, the United States not only pays most of the freight for the United Nations, but we don't even charge them rent. Can you imagine what someone like Mr. Trump would pay for that piece of real estate?

So, give me one good reason why these good-for-nothing freeloaders shouldn't be sent packing. Let them set up camp in the Hague or Geneva or Fallujah, for that matter.

If anyone feels the absolute need for America to belong to a fraternal organization, I would suggest something smaller and a tad more selective, something like the Elks or a summer bowling league.

Burt Prelutsky, author of the recent "Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco," (Scorched Earth Press) is an award-winning TV writer.