Posted on 09/21/2004 3:00:51 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
The new session of the United Nations General Assembly is likely to take up the touchy subject of Security Council "reform."
For years, many nations have advocated modernizing the United Nations to reflect a more current view of the geopolitical situation. They argue that U.N. institutions are frozen in time and built on the balance of power as it existed at the end of World War II, when the world body was formed.
The primary focus of the reformers' concern is the U.N. Security Council, the most powerful and significant of all U.N. institutions.
Under the U.N. Charter, the Security Council is charged with protecting security and maintaining peace around the world. It is the only U.N. body whose pronouncements are legally binding on all members, and the only U.N. institution with the power to request troops and other security resources from member nations for dispatch around the world.
Under the Charter, there are five permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia and China, which each have the power to veto any proposal. In addition, there are ten non-permanent members, which are elected by the General Assembly and serve two-year terms.
Critics of the current Security Council make-up argue that major military and financial contributors are denied permanent seats and they lament the lack of a permanent voice for Africa and South America.
These arguments spurred U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint a special "High Level Panel" of former diplomats and national leaders to consider structural changes to the world body. This panel is expected to report its recommendations in December.
In the meantime, the international jockeying already has begun. Japan, Germany, Brazil and India are waging active campaigns to secure permanent seats on the Security Council. Foreign ministers are jetting from capital to capital, trying to secure support for their respective bids. Egypt, Nigeria and others also have expressed interest.
The U.S. government has said that because Japan and Germany are the second and third largest financial contributors to the United Nations, respectively, the United States supports making those two nations permanent members. More generally, the United States says it will await the final report from the High Level Panel and see what, if any, specific proposals are developed before announcing its final position.
Despite our government's generosity toward Germany and Japan, the United States should be on guard. Many advocates of reform have made it clear that they consider Security Council reform the best way to further dilute American influence on the Council specifically and at the United Nations in general.
Over the past few years, we've seen that the United Nations is no particular friend of the United States. However, in many cases, we've been able to use our influence \'af and our veto \'af in the Security Council to advance America's interests and to protect ourselves from those that would harm us.
Once the Pandora's Box of United Nations reform is opened, closing it again in order to protect U.S. interests is certain to be difficult.
Changes to the U.N. Charter must be initiated in the General Assembly, where representatives of totalitarian regimes and underdeveloped nations dominate. Their radical agendas have made the General Assembly the poster child for U.N. incompetence and irrelevance.
Given its historical unpredictability and penchant for placing rhetoric and zealotry over substance, if the General Assembly begins considering proposals to amend the U.N. Charter, anything could happen.
Because the first tool in diplomacy is compromise, it is critical to view the American starting position as merely a beginning point. If the United States enters the reform debate ready to agree to certain Charter amendments, there is a real danger that the final diplomatic "compromise" will not be what we bargained for.
We might find the Security Council expanded to the point of absurdity, with permanent votes (and vetoes) for all of the announced candidates. Nothing good can come from that.
A cynic might say that such reform would bring the United Nations closer to self-destruction and welcome such a development. But it's clear that we're stuck with the United Nations for now. Therefore, it's vital that the United States protect its interests and maintain a firm hand on the U.N.'s rudder. Otherwise, the world body might spin further out of control.
For that reason, the U.S. should drop its support for adding new permanent members to the Security Council and oppose efforts to consider U.N. reform.
Once we start down the slippery slope of Security Council expansion and dilution of American power on the Council, there's no telling where it will stop.
BTTT
Are your tax dollars, stolen from you at threat of loss of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, ending up in terrorists pockets, via the UN? They are, and I can prove it...
Jack ChIraq, french dic*head, wants the UN to levy a world tax...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Send us your powder blues, baby! I've got your 'tax'!
You thought the IRS sucked...try world WRS (World Revenue Service).
Shi'ite, I'm going to go buy some more cases of ammo and cache it...
UN Reform: verb- to seek resources, esp. money, power, and the elimination of accountability
The United States of America should throw the UN out of this country. They are our enemy.
The U.S. should get the hell out of the U.N.
I agree but why don't we. We have a Congress and Executive branch that says the UN is irrelevant but when was the first or last time anyone of them has declared us out of the UN.
There is nothing that makes us stay or participate but our government.
Write the President and Congress and demand they pull us out.
Actually that's not the claim being made by the executive branch. It's true that prior to the late war, it warned that the UN risked becoming irrelevant (as if that were a bad thing), but since then it's been singing high praises of the UN. It was Kofi's own envoy who put together the Iraqi governing council.
The "executive branch" has stated over and over again that it intends to make the UN as relevant as possible. And that's a serious problem that too many conservatives aren't willing to face.
So9
Three things have been benchmarks for me in modern times.
LBJ when he made Social Security a part of Gov't income to cover up the cost of the war in Vietnahm and the need for taxes or face high deficits. I guess this is where Anderson and Enron picked up some of their accounting principles. Nixon dressing up the white house guards in Imperial uniforms - that got laughed out of existence but does the concept of an Imperial America linger?
Then Bush 1 and the reference to the New World Order.
they might not seem much to most people but they sure consciously or subconsciously indicated the direction our nation was heading
We'll figure something out...As long as koffi anus and his ilk are gone...it's one step in the right direction..
Here's my proposal for UN reform. Replace it with a world organization, where membership depends on respect for individual rights. Probationary memberships are an option.
My vote is to take our ball and go home. Start a new organization; "United Friendlies to the US" maybe. Or "League of Liberty-defending States".
Here is how the new, reformed UN should look. Only members whose nations are republics or democracies should be allowed, and their membership power determined by the level of freedom that the governments allow their people to have. That would thin it out somewhat, and give the other nations something to shoot for...JFK
I don't fear the UN because it is so corrupt and inefficient. But I truly fear what will rise in it's place. Perhaps it will be called The Global Community? Well, I don't really fear it, that's too strong. Because I don't think any Christian will still "be here" when it rises along with the coming World Leader to head the group. But I fear for those who will be left behind.
I had a dream about this last year. I dreamed that the UN moved to Vatican City as I remember the Prophesy that the AntiChrist would rise from Rome.
I can't see ANY downside to US interests in that action. The UN offers us nothing, absolutely nothing.
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