Pull the plug on the U.N.
By Henry Lamb
web posted June 28, 2004
The United States created the United Nations; now, the United States should kill it. The bloated bureaucracy has become moribund, corrupt, and is a hot-bed of anti-American propaganda. The United States should pull the financial plug, and let the institution pass peacefully into history.
Not only has the U.N. failed to realize its original peacekeeping vision, it has recast its original vision and now sees its role to be the administrator of global governance. The creation of the International Criminal Court in 1998, and the unending efforts to establish global taxing authority, are the last remaining elements needed to empower the U.N. to enforce sovereign equality over all nations - including the U.S.
Had the Democrats won the 2000 presidential election, both of these elements would likely be in place. George Bush, however, withdrew the U.S. signature from the International Criminal Court Charter, and he blocked the advance of global taxing authority at the U.N.'s Monterrey Conference on Financing Development. Democrats, the U.N., and much of the world severely criticized the Bush administration for what they called "unilateral cowboy" action.
The International Criminal Court claims authority over all nations - including the U.S. - even though the U.S. is not a party to it. To protect U.S. soldiers from political harassment, the Bush administration negotiated an exemption resolution by the U.N. Security Council, two years ago. That exemption expires on June 30.
Kofi Annan opposed any renewal of the exemption. According to the New York Times, Annan said:
"I think in this circumstance it would be unwise to press for an exemption, and it would be even more unwise on the part of the Security Council to grant it. It would discredit the Council and the United Nations that stands for rule of law and the primacy of the rule of law."
Say what? Exactly which "rule of law" authorizes the corruption in the U.N.'s oil for food program? Which "rule of law" authorizes the corruption in the office of the corruption czar?
In the face of certain defeat, the Bush administration withdrew the resolution from further consideration.
Now, the United States should withdraw its troops from all U.N. peacekeeping operations. The U.S. should stop payment of all peacekeeping funds, and remove the item from next year's budget.
This action should signal the beginning of an orderly withdrawal from the United Nations system, while the United States redefines its role in the international community. The United States has already negotiated bi-lateral agreements with 89 nations to protect U.S. citizens from ICC jurisdiction. This effort should be expanded. It makes no sense to continue to support the U.N., an organization whose goal is the creation of a system of global governance that is antithetical to the system of governance created by the U.S. Constitution.
Instead, the United States should fashion a foreign policy that celebrates and encourages individual freedom, representative government, and equal national sovereignty.
As difficult as this course may be, it is the only course the U.S. can follow and be true to its founding principles. As foggy as the battlefield in Iraq may be, it could be the Phoenix from which rises a prototype of the new vision of U.S. foreign policy.
The new policy should honor every nation's right to choose its own form of government, so long as it poses no threat to the United States. When any nation, regardless of its form of government, becomes a threat to U.S. security, then the U.S. should remove the threat, and encourage reconstruction on the principles of freedom.
The U.N.'s vision of global governance is built upon socialism, a system that cannot sustain its own bureaucratic weight. An American vision of equal sovereignty for all nations, envisions a world community of voluntary cooperation and mutual benefit - without a global authority, a global tax, a global court, a global army - or a Secretary-General.
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), and chairman of Sovereignty International.
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