For those who still cling to the notion that the United Nations is a visionary, high-minded organization that represents the best hope for the world, think again. No, I’m not talking about the Oil for Food scandal. That’s hideous enough, as is the U.N.’s all talk, no action approach. But now comes intense criticism from the inside in Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story From Hell on Earth. It’s written by three people who’ve worked for the U.N. and have lived with the tangible results (or lack thereof) of its policies. Perhaps the most succinct, telling, and chilling rebuke of the body comes from one of the authors, Andrew Thomson, as noted by a reviewer in The Wilson Quarterly.

“For me there’s only one lesson,” Thomson writes. “If blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs.”