Posted on 01/23/2004 6:21:17 AM PST by Redcoat LI
Edited on 01/23/2004 6:35:21 AM PST by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
The United Nations is the tooth fairy of American politics: Few adults believe in it, but it's generally regarded as a harmless story to amuse the children. Since 9/11, however, the UN has ceased to be harmless, and the Democratic presidential candidates' enthusiasm for it has ceased to be amusing.
The United Nations has emerged at best as irrelevant to the terrorist threat that most concerns us, and at worst as an obstacle to our winning the war on terrorism. It must be reformed. And if it cannot be reformed, the United States should give serious consideration to withdrawal.
The UN has become an obstacle to our national security because it purports to set legal limits on the United States' ability to defend itself. If these limits ever made sense at all, they do not make sense now. Yet the UN's assertion of them forces presidents and policymakers into a horrible dilemma. If we obey the UN's rules, we compromise our national security. If we defy them, we expose ourselves to accusations of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
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