If It Had Any Power, It Would Be Dangerous
By Peter and Helen Evans (03/16/03)
If you're at all like us, you probably haven't paid much attention to the United Nations, except for the past few months during the Iraq debates. We thought it was still a forum where nations could come together to resolve their disputes.
In light of recent events, we decided to do some research. It was pretty evident that the United Nations was powerless. It 'deplores', it 'condemns', but it has no power, thankfully, to enforce its decisions. It's bad enough that the United States funds 25% of the budget of this irrelevant organization, but on further investigation it's an organization that is directly in opposition to the goals of individual freedom and limited government. In fact, it wants to be the world government.
Does that alarm you? Well, read on. The United Nations is no longer content to be a forum for the resolution of international disputes. It's a bloated bureaucracy that wants total jurisdiction over the world. Remember this is an organization whose membership includes dictators, tyrants, socialists, communists and impoverished countries who would like nothing better than to have a blank welfare check. America, the Great Experiment in individual liberty, the oldest democracy on earth, would have but one vote. This flame of democracy would be snuffed out in a swamp of cultural relativism. Let's read from their "Millennium Forum Declaration and Agenda for Action."
Specifically, the "Charter for Global Democracy" outlined twelve goals necessary to achieve global governance. These included:
1) Consolidation of all international agencies under direct authority of the United Nations;
2) Regulation by the UN of all transnational corporations and financial institutions;
3) An independent source of revenue for the UN;
4) Eliminate the veto power and permanent member status of the Security Council;
5) Authorize a standing UN army;
6) Require UN registration of all arms and the reduction of all national armies;
7) Require individual and national compliance with all UN Human Rights treaties;
8) Activate the International Criminal Court and make it compulsory for all nations;
9) New institutions to establish economic and environmental Sustainable Development; 10) Establishment of an International Environmental Court;
11) A declaration that climate change is an essential global security interest that requires the creation of a "high level action team" to allocate carbon emissions based on equal per-capita rights (Kyoto Global Warming Treaty);
12) Calls for the cancellation of all debt owed by the poorest nations, global poverty reductions and the "equitable sharing of global resources" as allocated by the UN.
Obviously, the UN would like to expand its mandate from being a place where nations can meet to air their differences to becoming a global government, complete with taxes, armies and criminal courts; powers historically belonging only to sovereign nations.
What could the world look forward to if this were allowed to happen? Here are two examples of how it organizes itself now. According to its policy of rotating leadership, Libya ( ruled by that well-known humanitarian, Muammar Qadhafi ) is now the head of the Human Rights Commission. And, in what has to be the supreme irony, this spring, Iraq was slated to head the Conference on Disarmament (!). According to the United Nations web site, the Conference on Disarmament, established in 1979, is "the single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community." The Conference is charged with "practically all multilateral arms control and disarmament problems." Prior to Iraq's turn, Iran will hold the chair for one month. You see, the position is allocated alphabetically, a chilling indication of the importance of democratic principles at the United Nations.
This would be a joke, but it's serious business in the present climate of world opinion. Recently, millions took to the streets to protest the US and its coalition of the willing to disarm Iraq. Evidently they are uninformed people who don't know what's going on at the UN. Let's tell them what the United Nations is really about.
The United Nations also has plans to expand physically, proposing a new, 30-storey building in New York to be financed by an interest-free loan from (guess who?) the United States. Congressman Vito J. Fossella (R) of New York has introduced legislation to reform the UN. Urge your representative to support him. Tell them that you don't want your tax dollars to fund this project. Let's inform the uninformed about the true intentions of the United Nations. Let's insist on reforms that will bring it back to its original mandate as a forum for international dispute resolution, rather than an all-powerful, un-accountable world government. Or better yet, instead of trying to tame this monstrosity, let's pull its financial plug and start fresh.
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