Get out of the UN, start over

I knew Jack Danforth when he was in the United States Senate, he served eighteen years. First elected in 1976, his final race in 1988 was as nasty as they come.

Indeed, he considered running for a fourth term in 1994, and I discussed steps we might take to inoculate him against the nasty charges liberals in his State of Missouri tend to make against center-right Senate candidates. He finally decided that he just couldn't stomach another campaign. He retired and former Governor John Ashcroft was elected to succeed him.

Danforth remained in fairly low profile for the next decade until President Bush tapped him to be our Ambassador to the United Nations. (He was seen soon thereafter presiding at the National Cathedral for the funeral of President Ronald Reagan. Danforth is, among other things, an Episcopal priest.)

After just six months on the job, Danforth has resigned. He gave as the primary reason for the resignation the need to assist his wife of 47 years in her recovery from a very nasty accident. But Danforth told friends he was very frustrated with his inability to implement the President's policies at the UN.

No wonder. The UN now is dominated by nations of the third world whose values are so distant from our own that they won't even object to the genocide occurring in the Sudan.

Danforth was known in the Senate as a man whose powers of persuasion were so intense that once he got onto an issue, his opponents often ran for cover. Clarence Thomas worked for Danforth as a young assistant.

Senator Danforth's blessing materially contributed to saving the Thomas nomination from defeat in the Senate, despite vehement opposition from civil rights and women's group on the left.

A man who is still a fervent Christian, a man who has principles, a man who is an articulate advocate for this country can hardly get along at the UN.

As we write, the UN is involved in a huge scandal which has the potential to escalate beyond anything we have known to date.

At a minimum UN Secretary General Kofi Annan presided over the misappropriations of billions of dollars in the oil-for-food program designed to help poor Iraqis. Instead, the money never reached the poor. It was used to finance new weapons programs for Saddam Hussein, weapons which were manufactured by those who opposed US intervention in Iraq, namely France, Germany and Russia. Some money apparently even reached Annan's son. There are new allegations suggesting that some of those dollars might have benefited Annan himself.

We may never know the whole story, because even though former Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Paul Volker, is supposed to be conducting an internal investigation at the request of the UN and Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) is conducting a Senate investigation, neither has subpoena power and thus cannot access the necessary documents and people to set the record straight.

Senator Coleman has called on Annan to resign on the grounds that, at the minimum, Annan turned a blind eye toward what was going on or, at the maximum, the corruption may be much worse. The Bush Administration has backed Annan weakly, probably because it thinks Annan has been helpful in signing up resources for the Iraqi elections scheduled for late January.

I am against any sort of world government. It would only mean that a cabal who hates our religions and our way of life could gang up on the USA. No good could possibly come from such an institution.

I do buy the notion that some sort of world forum can be useful perhaps to prevent genocide such as we are seeing in the Sudan. However, I would only permit democracies to join. Democracies are not perfect, but by and large they do not start wars. Moreover, minorities tend to receive more humane treatment in democracies than in dictatorships. So far, at least there is generally freedom of speech and religion in the democratic nations.

What about nations which claim to be democratic but which do not live up to minimum democratic standards? Well, it would be a great incentive for them to change some of their policies to conform to minimum standards such as freedom of media, freedom of worship, freedom of assembly and speech.

The current UN cannot live without the United States. We pay about a quarter of its budget and for what? To have us slapped down by a group of bloodthirsty dictators who hate our system of government? To have human rights abuses investigated by a committee composed of the worst human rights violators on the face of the earth? To have UN people run for cover as soon as the situation gets tough in Iraq? For the life of me I can't figure out any benefit to staying in the UN.

To be sure, the losers will scream bloody murder. After all, the losing Presidential candidate, Senator Kerry, made it clear that he believed in the UN more than he believed in the USA. In fact, it was clear that he viewed the United Nations as a vehicle to restrain the aggressive, imperialist United States.

Many current Senators are utopian in their outlook. They actually believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the UN, as presently constituted, can work. In fact, they would claim it is working. When you ask them for evidence they cite Bosnia and Kosovo. First, it is the good old USA is really the driving force in both places. Second, if the UN troops were to withdraw the residents of both Bosnia and Kosovo would resume their previous way of life. That is to say, they would be killing each other. Does UN peacekeeping work when withdrawal does not occur after pacification?

The UN does perform some useful statistical work. That could easily be absorbed by the new organization I am proposing. That new organization could undertake some humanitarian work as well. Much of the money collected by the UN for humanitarian purposes never gets to the intended recipients. A new organization could fix that. This new organization would not attempt to be a world government. Good grief, no. Rather, it would be a forum to organize cooperation for the greater good. The new group would only intervene when clearly something had to be done to save a population or, on rare occasions, to stop a war when honest negotiation is not possible.

It is clearly time to get those "Get the US out of the UN" bumper stickers out of the trunk in the attic. As the saying goes, everything that's old is new again.

Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation. He served as President of the foundation from 1977 to 2002.

From 1989 to 1996, Mr. Weyrich served as President of the Kreible Institute of the Free Congress Foundation, responsible for training democracy movements in the states comprising the Former Soviet Empire. He is a founder and past director of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the founding president of the Heritage Foundation, and the current National Chairman of Coalitions for America.

A former reporter and radio news director, Mr. Weyrich is a regular guest on daily radio and television talk shows. A sought-after writer, Mr. Weyrich has published policy reports and journals on a variety of conservative issues and has contributed editorials to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

He has been described by The Economist as "one of the conservative movement's more vigorous thinkers." Voted three years in a row from 1981 – 1983 by readers of Conservative Digest as one of the top three "most popular conservatives in America not in Congress," Mr. Weyrich has been named by Regardie's Magazine as "one of the 100 most powerful Washingtonians."

He has been married since 1963 to the former Joyce Smigun, is the father of five children, and serves as a deacon in his church.

Better still, we should send the UN packing, as in, kick them out of the US. Maybe they could meet in France and we could convert the UN headquarters to a new organization which would be composed of democratic, capitalist countries.

The only problem is that the building would be 75% vacant. A potential solution to that problem would be to include democracies (even if they were socialist like Germany or France), which could drop the vacancy to a more manageable level.

...Let's get out of the UN and start over.

Let's get out of the UN and NOT start over. This was their second chance. The League of Nations, remember? And that didn't work. Also, it is my tax money being thrown away, and I don't like it.

Been saying the same thing over and over, so I'll just say it again:

Get the US out of the UN and get the UN out of the US. I would rather be labled a ROGUE Nation that be afiliated with these International Gabgsters, Murders and Thieves. They are the Reason the UN Sanctions failed in Iraq and they are th eReason our Sons snd Doughters are dying in Iraq and Afganistan.

Get out of the UN and Stop sending money to the Terrorist Proples who are hell bent on killing us all, like th ePalistinians, who Bush wants to give 20 million of our hard earned Tax dollars to. Tighten the borders and immigration policies, cut off all of the aid excewpt to those countries who are aligned with us.

The Republicans and the Dimms think we have no where else to turn for leadership to run this country, well we stasrted out with Farmers, Innkeepers, and just regular Commonsense type people, somwhere we have lost those type of people. They are still around though, they always are:

The Dimms and the Republicans just won't hear the American People, we have no place else to go for representation in Congress: Let's see, elections 2006,

Constitutional Party,
http://www.constitutionparty.com/

America First Party,
http://www.americafirstparty.org/

Independant American Party
http://www.usiap.org/

The American Party
http://www.theamericanparty.org/

"Maybe they could meet in France"

My sentiments exactly. Let them go meet in Paris. Converting the UN building is another matter. After all the scandal of Kofi Annan's "Oil for Food" or whatever program, and France's corruption in that same program, the UN building needs a major fumigating before decent people could use it.

If the Immigration reform and Border Protect is not an earnest effort to Control and Protect our Borders, if the Immigration Reform Laws are toothless nad have no enforcement of our laws; I will seriously consider voting for a representative from one of these parties.

I think others should also, both Republican and Democrats who have been used by the International Eletist of Both the Democratic and Republican Parties. They both have their Socialist agendas and they do not include the Constitutional Republic of the United States.

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