Americas Founding Principles

The United Nations is a progressive idea hatched in the late 1890s with the hope of avoiding full scale wars, and as a venue to host peace talks. Its conception was wrapped up in the false Fabian Socialist ideals that the world could be crafted into a peaceful utopia, and to do that a world body would be needed to affect that change and act as judge and jury for any nation unwilling to participate in that utopia. It sounds grand to have a World Court or a world monitoring system for human rights and to oversee disaster relief and refugee movement. The forerunner of the United Nations, the League of Nations, was formed after World War I in the mistaken belief that ‘the war to end all wars’ could have been prevented if we’d just been able to all talk to each other. When the United States Congress refused to sign the treaty so the US would join, the League was doomed. Then in 1945, after another world war, the United Nations was created. The Vanderbilt family donated land for a building in New York City (San Francisco was the original site) and the United States was a member of a treaty organization without actually voting on it.

The United Nations charter is set up to deal with many issues. Its Security Council, made up of the most powerful nations at the time, has veto power over any over-reaching decisions. Those countries, China, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the United States, have remained the same. Some have suggested that Japan and Germany be allowed in, but their history with WWII is still held against them. India also, from sheer population numbers could probably also apply, but no one has insisted. In order to counter the power of the Security Council, the president of the United Nations General Assembly always must come from a less powerful country, along with the heads of the various branches of the UN. The president has the ability to promote for these various heads of the UN subgroups – human rights, energy, environment, nuclear proliferation, children, women and so on.

The United States has gained very little from its involvement in the UN. At this point, 25% of the UN budget is provided by the United States. We also provide the bulk of the men and leadership in the UN Peace Keeping Forces. Yet we could not sustain a UN initiative against Saddam Hussein.  Instead they proposed sanctions. Those UN Peace Keepers are the ones responsible to prevent wars like the ones in Serbia, Croatia, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia and the Congo. It has overseen the ‘peaceful’ transition of most of Africa from colonies to full nations. They’ve put sanctions on countries like Namibia for invading their neighbors, but not on China for invading Tibet. The UN monitors election validity in places like Mozambique and Eritrea where the violence involved became civil war. They are supposed to check to see that countries like Iran and Pakistan do not get nuclear weapons, or the former USSR keeps an eye on the weapons left in all the republics when that country broke up. The head of the Human Rights arm of the UN has come from places like Libya and Iran. The grandiose Kyoto Treaty on global warming laid out pollution numbers that would effectively force the US to pre-industrial era levels, while letting other nations continue to pollute to their heart’s content. The UN is the one that negotiated the original treaty to make Palestine and Israel (the pre-1967 lines, as well as the post-1967 lines). In other words, the UN has overseen some of the most ridiculous, corrupt, or wasteful missions in history.

Now dictators like Iran’s Ahmadinejad or Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez come to our country and malign us and question our 9/11 disaster from our own shores. We give up our sovereignty when we pay money to the UN, allow the world court to judge us for our own death penalty laws or second amendment rights, and accept their mandates on how parents should treat children. The UN is the power pushing the environmental and ‘sustainability’ laws that have our local leaders giving up our personal and property rights.

Now the UN is entertaining the petitions of the Palestinian Authority. This move is very dangerous.  It is clear the Security Council will not approve membership.  The General Assembly is, however, very likely to grant them status as a nonmember observer state.  If this happens, the fact that they are identified as a state gives them dangerous privileges. They could join other UN bodies like the International Criminal Court.  That could give them influence that might lead to the International Criminal Court going after Israel.  They would gain more stature and make life tougher on Israel. This would probably also embolden other Arab states to take action against Israel.

Has the UN done anything of worth? Yes, they are the ones promoting vaccinations in third world countries. Small pox has been eradicated. Frankly, however, we’d be better served to let the Red Cross do that. And they have the gall to call us imperialistic and arrogant?

~Lisa Lowell, Silverton OR