The United Nations, created ''to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,'' is a potential casualty of the latest war.

It will continue to run its humanitarian programs and ruminate on the great issues. But the Bush administration and its supporters, still smarting over the U.N. refusal to officially bless the war in Iraq, have essentially declared that in a new world policed by American power, the United Nations won't be a player and should be consigned to the ash heap of history.
In the words of ex-Republican Party official Clifford May, now president of a Washington think tank, there are ``five things grown-ups should no longer believe in: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Tinker Bell, the United Nations and the `international community.'''

The U.N. bashers aren't disturbed in the least by President Bush's declaration the other day that the United Nations should play a ''vital'' role in postwar Iraq because they know that Bush's definition of ''vital'' (humanitarian aid) is far narrower than the internationalist definition (the United Nations as chief administrator). And because they agree with Bush that the victor in war should write the rules.

'Maybe we've leveraged down the United Nations' image so badly in this country that we can't ever bring it back up,'' he said. 'But without the U.N., America cuts itself off from the rest of the world. Sure, the `international community' is something of a myth, but some myths are necessary. It's a way to aspire to something. If we didn't have the myth of the United Nations, we'd probably have to create it.''
OTOH most myths are immature fantasies!

May said that Bush ``isn't going to go back to the United Nations for anything, except maybe to ask them to get him sandwiches from the corner deli. The United Nations can't be a managing partner in Iraq. It can come and hand out cookies and bandages.
I liked this! More on the 'bunch of kids' trying to play in the adult world meme.