What Bush really told the UN

By Alan Caruba
web posted September 24, 2003

I doubt that most people actually read the President's address to the United Nations General Assembly, given on September 23. During his address two years earlier, the ruins of the World Trade Center were still smoldering. He warned the UN it was in danger of becoming "irrelevant."

It had long before become irrelevant as an instrument for peace and its agenda had become one of imposing itself as a global government to supercede the sovereign nations of the world. It is the epicenter of bizarre "environmental" programs.

On June 26, 1945, as World War II was winding down, the United Nations Charter was signed by delegates of fifty nations who had spent two months negotiating every word, every comma, in it. The world saw it as a great triumph, having passed through two of the most horrible wars in history during the twentieth century. The UN was the passionate dream of Franklin D. Roosevelt and was brought to fruition by Harry Truman. The United Nations was an international institution created almost single-handedly by the United States of America. Contrary to the views of some, Stalin's USSR resisted it until the sheer weight of the votes of delegates forced its hand.

Three years later, on December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by a unanimous vote in the General Assembly and it is instructive that the Soviet bloc, the Union of South Africa, and Saudi Arabia abstained.

Today, there is no Soviet Union, South Africa has abandoned its racist apartheid policy, and the leading supporter of worldwide Islamic terrorism, Saudi Arabia, finds its grip on events slipping through its fingers, under attack by the very forces it let loose.

Like the President's address, it is doubtful that most people have ever actually read the Declaration of Human Rights. Much of what the President had to say to the General Assembly reflected its aims.

Let it be said that the President did not, as the mainstream US media would have us believe, go hat in hand to the UN to beg it to cooperate in the war on terrorism. In fact, throughout his speech, the President repeatedly referred to "our international coalition." He was speaking of those nations that supported the US decision to go first into Afghanistan and then into Iraq to attack those forces allied against civilization. In other words, the President did not identify the UN as an instrument for peace, for the liberation of enslaved peoples, but as an institution that had failed its Charter.

Therein lies the growing understanding and comprehension among Americans that the United Nations never could and never will fulfill its mission to end the "scourge of war" and bring about a world in which the dignity of all individuals is protected.

The history of the UN is the history of the United States as its largest financial contributor and the nation that, time and again, has had to fight wars intended to impose Communism and now Islam on the world. The notion that the United States has to go to the UN for approval is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

Perhaps the UN can be transformed into something that provides help to refugees and others in need, but the International Red Cross has been doing that for a long time as well. Long the hostage of member governments that ignored its great principles, the UN like its predecessor, the League of Nations, has proven itself incapable of preventing war or effectively acting against its own members that flout its purpose.

Still, the President ended his speech saying, "As an original signer of the UN Charter, the United States of America is committed to the United Nations. And we show that commitment by working to fulfill the UN's stated purposes, and give meaning to its ideals. The founding documents of the United Nations and the founding documents of America stand in the same tradition. Both require [and] both recognize a moral law that stands above men and nations, which must be defended and enforced by men and nations. And both point the way to peace, the peace that comes when all are free. We secure that peace with our courage, and we must show that courage together."

Do not expect France to show that courage. Do not expect Germany to show that courage, nor Red China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Iran, and a host of others for whom the United Nations exists only to impose socialism/communism or the mad dreams of Islamic fanatics on the world.

As the United States demonstrated in two world wars hatched in Europe and later in Korea, only our courage and our commitment thwarted the expansion of Communism and only our leadership will end the threat of the Islamists.

Our economic strength is based on capitalism and free trade. Our moral strength comes from the principles upon which our nation was founded. No other nation in the world comes close to our commitment to freedom, to democracy, to the dignity of the individual. Our courage is all that stands between the enemies of civilization and of mankind.

Alan Caruba is the author of "Warning Signs" and his weekly column is posted on www.anxietycenter.com, the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center. © Alan Caruba 2003

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