Opinion of the UN

I was watching some academic battle of the high schools type thing on TV this week. One of the teams was from Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The moderator was interviewing the contestants and there was this one kid he was talking to who had participated in a mock UN meeting with young people from across the world at the UN building in New York City. The kid described the meeting and then moderator asked him:

"So what do you think - is the UN still a force for peace in the world?"

And the young man replied:

"No. It's irrelevant."

I almost fell out of my chair. There are Democratic politicians across the States stating that the way to fix Iraq is to "go to the UN and let them police it". And they're supposed to be the learned ones.