THE
UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON HUMAN WRONGS
By
Bruce Herschensohn
In
May of 1975 Daniel Moynihan became the U.S. Ambassador to the United
Nations. He resigned nine months later. Upon his leaving the U.N.
he gave three definitions of that organization: "a theater
of the absurd, a decomposing corpse, and an insane asylum."
Another
former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick
said, "The U.N. cant, or doesnt do much in the
way of promoting international peace." In relation to its peacekeeping
activities she said, "Rather frequently, what goes on in the
U.N. actually exacerbates conflicts rather than tending to resolve
them." Those were the days when the U.N. debated the threat
of peace posed, not by Castros 40,000 troops on the African
Continent, but by U.S. forces in the U.S. Virgin Islands because
fourteen U.S. Coast Guardsmen were stationed there.
Now
move the calendar to May of 2001. "Outrageous!" has been
the most repeated word used in the U.S. Congress in reaction to
the ejection of the United States from the United Nations
Human Rights Commission.
I
dont find it to be outrageous at all. I think its good
news. What the devil were we doing in a commission serving along
side of slave-holders, kidnappers, rapists, hostage-takers and murderers?
A nation is like a person and surely most Americans would walk out
that door without being told, rather than sit in the same room with
such company.
That
ejection of the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Commission
is causing many in the U.S. Congress to advocate holding back payments
to the U.N. Since we pay 22% of the general budget of the U.N. and
even more for what are called the U.N.s peacekeeping activities,
and considering we have recently voted to pay dues previously owed,
the congress reaction of holding back funds is understandable.
But
the holding back of funds should be a separate matter and not be
linked to the commissions ejection of the United States. There
is a greater moral stand that we could take: as a start, we should
resign from every U.N. commission in which our colleagues are representatives
of terrorist governments as designated by our State Department (Sudan,
Cuba, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.)
In
addition, our membership in the entire organization, including the
Security Council and the General Assembly, should be dependent upon
whether or not the participating nations allow their citizens to
live under a framework of democracy.
The
United Nations Organization is dependent on the support of the United
States. If the U.N. doesnt restrict its membership to democracies,
then an international alliance should be built that does. Such an
alliance could overtake the United Nations Organization through
nothing more and nothing less than a lack of comparative prestige
between the U.N. and the alliance. What prestige would there be
to an organization that embraces totalitarians, as the U.N. does,
in contrast to an organization whose membership is restricted to
those nations whose citizens are free and, thus, choose their own
governments? Such a Nations of Liberty Alliance would leave the
disciples of the East River to continue their debate into eternity
over a defunct U.N. Charter that would only have historical significance.
When
the United Nations Organization was founded, (October 24, 1945)
its first Secretary General, Trigvie Lie, praised that organization
as a fire-station ready with a hose on the world-stage. At the time,
he didnt know that the fire station would be controlled by
arsonists.
The
prime purpose of the U.N. was itemized in Article One of the Charter
which reads quite well: "To maintain international peace and
security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures
for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for
the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace,
and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the
principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement
of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach
of the peace."
Nice
words. But little did we know how "peace" would be defined
by many of its members. By changing the references to the word "peace"
for the word "liberty," the organization might have had
real worth: "to maintain international liberty and security,
and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention
and removal of threats to the peoples liberties, and for the
suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of peoples
liberties, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other
breaches of the peoples liberties, and to bring about, in
conformity with the principles of justice and international law,
adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations
which might lead to a breach of liberty, which is this organizations
highest aspiration."
If
there is to be a world organization at all, it must be changed with
the understanding that if the people of the world have liberty,
they will also have peace. But peace without liberty is surrender.
The
ejection of the United States from the United Nations Human
Rights Commission does not mean that we have suffered a defeat.
We received a singular honor, with that ejection serving as a guide
for us in establishing criteria for our future membership in any
international organization.
Bruce
Herschensohn, a Distinguished Fellow with the Claremont Institute
and a member of the Center for Individual Freedoms Board of
Directors
Return
to Current Events Index
|