LOS ANGELES -- If the United Nations were somehow to disappear from the face of the Earth, would people care -- or even notice?

Of course, they would. The organization, founded after World War II, does important peace-enhancing work all over the globe. Even so, U.N.-bashing is back in fashion again -- with serious overtones. Now the bashing is administered by people within the organization itself.

The fact is that this world organization is weighed down by a leaden bureaucracy, an outdated Security Council and enough General Assembly hot-air posturing to float a fleet of blimps. Everyone at U.N. headquarters in New York knows this to be the sad-sack truth.