had seen the devastation of two world wars in a single lifetime. He so strongly believed in it that he wanted to arm it, calling on all member nations to "delegate a certain number of air squadrons to the service of the world organization."

It took only five years, however, to demonstrate the emptiness of the promise. But for the Soviet delegation having walked out of the Security Council in a huff over some minor argument and thus not being present to veto a response to North Korea's attack in June, 1950, even the mere façade of South Korea being saved by UN action would not have been available. Churchill's understandable enthusiasm was misplaced and, as usual, it was the United States, not the United Nations, which had to step in and do the heavy lifting. Some things don't change. The UN is an idea whose time has come ... and gone.

Once, perhaps, there was a need for a permanent forum in which all nations could get together and talk through their problems. In this age of instant communication, however, there is no such need. If anything, the UN just slows things down. Indeed, even in 1945, telephones and airplanes made getting together to talk a fairly easy thing for leaders to do. The UN was never anything more than the left-over fantasy of the "progressives" who earlier had promoted the League of Nations.

The main question is this: what does the United States do in the UN that it can't do better out of the UN? Is there a single activity that we couldn't conduct more efficiently and less expensively by working regionally or even unilaterally on specific problems as they arise? What good is a global organization driven by abstract ideology and charged with solving problems that, more often than not, are caused by the very governments that sit on the committees that are supposed to deal with them? Saudi Arabia on a women's rights committee? What's wrong with that picture? Lunacy like that is why some wag once very aptly described the UN as "the bar scene in Star Wars."

Remember, too, that the US pays nearly one-fourth of the costs of the UN and most of that American taxpayer's money goes to support a bloated, corrupt, anti-American bureaucracy (not unlike the Obama administration).

The United States should leave the UN. That would effectively kill it. Some rump UN might hang around Geneva or Stockholm for a few years whining about how everything would have been fine if only the US had lived up to its obligations. But all that would do is conclusively demonstrate the irrelevance of the organization.

The United Nations is no "temple of peace" and never has been. It gives legitimacy to the tinpot dictators who run the worst tyrannies on earth and long ago proved itself to be just "a frothing of words."

Again, it boils down to this: what does the United States do in the UN that it can't do better out of the UN? Clearly, the answer is "nothing!" It's time to move on.