Despite blatant violations of international law and United Nations sanctions by the oppressive North Korean dictatorship, the world body will provide the communist state with an aid package totaling about $290 million. And no, we’re not talking strictly humanitarian programs, either.

As the xenophobic North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il appears to be inching toward a murky transition of power, the United Nations is laying plans to spend more than $290 million on a welter of programs in the communist state—including a scheme to produce an algae sold in the U.S. as tropical fish food–provided someone else comes up with much of the money…

Whatever the outcome of the succession process, at least a dozen U.N. agencies and offices clearly hope to be deeply involved over the next five years in North Korea’s national welfare, in areas ranging from health care and education to sanitation and civil service training, “strengthening knowledge networks” in agriculture, alternate energy development, and transportation, not to mention improving North Korean export trade.

A significant number of the efforts will also go to bolstering the capabilities of the North Korean government, which is not surprising, since they are prepared in close collaboration with various departments of the ruling apparatus. These efforts include a strong focus on health care delivery and education (already problematic in a totalitarian state burdened with a smothering cult of the personality).

But they also include more ambiguous activities in a brutal and thorough-going dictatorship such as North Korea. Among them: coordinating “national knowledge networks and practices,” “management and specialist training,” and—in a country that regularly threatens its neighbors with nuclear and conventional war—a “disaster preparedness and response strategy” spurred by North Korea’s famines and floods. All of these activities are depicted by the U.N. documents as being strictly humanitarian in nature.

The United Nations receives a significant portion of its funding from the United States, so we’re talking about your tax dollars going to bolster the oppressive, rogue communist state known for flaunting international law and telling the United States to go pound sand. And his is the same North Korea that recently killed dozens of South Korean sailors.

Why is the United Nations doing this? Because this is what the United Nations does. The organization bolsters dictators and rogue states, using western funds to work against western interests. I would expect nothing less from the rogue state-appeasing UN.