A Critical Look at the UN

Steve Farrell
June 19, 2003

This just in-more evidence that the United States and the UN need to part company, forever; and the timing couldn't be better.

The evidence comes in the form of a wonderful little book, "Inside the United Nations: A Critical Look at the UN," by Robert Welch University director and New American contributing editor, Steve Bonta.

Mr. Bonta's book is advertised as a primer on the United Nations; and a primer it is. For the uninitiated in the history and purposes of the United Nations, this brief but informative work-full of nuts and bolts basics about the UN, its shady founding, its flawed principles, its radical goals and its gosh awful performance-is just the right place to begin.

The first thing Mr. Bonta makes clear is that the Founders and the founding of the UN ought not be confused with the Founders and founding of the United States. The UN, he reminds us, began with a semi-secret meeting between Roosevelt Administration officials, and British and Soviet delegates, at Dumbarton Oaks, where plans were laid for a postwar security arrangement, built around an organization that would prevent future world wars.

Aside from the fact that a red flag ought to have been raised regarding the outrageously Utopian belief that big government, especially world government, could usher in a Millennium of peace and freedom-a look at the players involved, should have caused alarm bells to sound from coast to coast and border to border, that a bad idea was on the way.

Just ask yourself, "Is there something wrong with this picture: the representatives of the mass-murdering Stalinist regime-a regime that far exceeded the cruelty and criminality of the Nazi regime (murdering 21 million of its own, prior to Hitler's genocide)-is given equal footing and a free hand in establishing a pro-peace/pro-democracy organization with global jurisdiction?"

Little wonder then that many of Roosevelt's aids who were sent there, "were either Communists or strong Communist sympathizers. A number of them, including the now-notorious Alger Hiss (who served as secretary for the conference), were eventually unmasked as spies and traitors."

Throw in the fact that Britain's leader was Roosevelt's and Hiss's partner in betraying Eastern Europe and Asia to Stalin, and you've got quite a team drawing up plans to save humanity.

But that was not enough; Roosevelt made sure, Congress, (the people's representatives), the media (not as liberal as today) and representatives of the America First committee, were excluded.

Was there really ever any question that the Soviet voice would be heard loud and clear, that the Soviet's interest would be served royally in the creation of the United Nations; and that the United States and freedom in general, would be the loser?

This was not Philadelphia in 1787!

The second thing Bonta makes clear is that the UN was never intended to be a peace organization. He quotes constitutional authority, J. Reuben Clark Jr., former undersecretary of state and U.S. ambassador to Mexico, who made this observation at the time of the drafting of the Charter:

"The Charter is a war document not a peace document … [It] makes us a party to every international dispute arising anywhere in the world."

The United Nations "[will] not prevent future wars, [but make] it practically certain that we shall have future wars," he predicted.

It would do something else, as well:

"[A]s to such wars, it takes from us the power to declare them, to choose the side on which we shall fight, to determine what forces and military equipment we shall use in the war, and to control and command our sons who do the fighting."

In other words, the real purpose of the UN was-to exploit incessant, orchestrated cries to "keep the peace," to "save the environment," to "free the indigenous peoples," and "feed the poor;"-in order to erode national sovereignty and impose global government over a disarmed world.

Fortunately, blatant calls for world government are usually flat-out rejected. Unfortunately, while conservatives think they've secured the front door, the globalists are busy busting down the back door, raiding the kitchen and hotwiring the house for implosion.

Wrote UN proponent, Council of Foreign Relations member Richard Gardner:

"If instant world government … [does] not provide the answers, what hope for progress is there? … [T]he 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up rather than the top down. It will look like a great 'booming, buzzing confusion,' to use William James' famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old fashioned frontal assault … [F]or political as well as administrative reasons, some of these specialized arrangements should be brought into an appropriate relationship with the central institutions of the UN system."

This booming buzzing confusion Gardner proposed, this end run approach of specialized arrangements brought into an appropriate relationship with the central institutions of the UN system, is the WTO, the ICC, NATO, NAFTA, Bush's FTAA and his proposed Free Trade Zone of the Middle East, as well as many other similar groupings.

Gardner's booming buzzing confusion also refers to the ABC NGO's (so-called "civil society") which, propaganda tell us, represents a wide variety of people and natural associations, when, the truth be told, most NGO's are fringe groups, artificially propped up, legitimized and shoved in our face, thanks to government and leftist foundational grants. And, by the way, these NGO's have a habit of calling for one and the same thing-world government solutions.

As for the WTO, ICC, NATO, NAFTA, FTAA and the Free Trade Zone of the Middle East, Bonta notes, few realize that these entities are recognized as regional arrangements under the UN Charter; and that they have written into their founding documents a submission to the will of the United Nations Security Council; or in other words, submission to the central institution of the UN system-where the only real power lies.

Indeed, if Bonta's analysis is correct, the Bush Administration's call for a Free Trade Zone of the Middle East, is in fact, a subtle reversal of the administration's supposed "Keep the UN out of Iraq!" policy, and likewise, not a call not for free trade, but a call for managed trade, consistent with the laws and principles of the United Nations Charter.

And what of the UN Charter? This is Bonta's next point; the Charter is not modeled after the US Constitution, as is too often advertised. He notes:

1. There is no true representation at the UN; all the officials are appointed, not elected.
2. There is no separation of powers, or checks and balances; all power, legislative, executive, and even judicial, resides in a worldwide Security Council of 15 individuals (five of whom possess absolute veto power).
3. There is no limited government; the Charter outlines all of its powers in sweeping, vague, open-ended language.
4. There are no God-given inalienable rights; the UN's Declaration of Rights reads like a reprint from the old Soviet Constitution, with every human right being subject to revocation when exercised inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter (whatever that means-and that's the point).

Bonta hits on many of the other great fallacies regarding the UN, as well; and he provides reasonable answers. For instance, to the worn out claim that "nations need a place to air their grievances, thus, we need something like the UN"-his answer is simple and inspired, "Quiet diplomacy has always been preferable to diplomacy on the stage." Bonta, citing former Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, notes, "A 'forum' for airing grievances publicly is about as effective as a bickering couple involving the entire neighborhood in their problems." What happens in such a case? Neighbor is divided against neighbor and relative against relative, when the original dispute was merely between husband and wife. Holy Writ invites us to settle our disputes with others "between him and thee alone," whenever possible. This is the moral, smarter answer. Bonta agrees. The UN, of course, does not; and that is but another reason why the UN is bad medicine.

In the end, Bonta believes that the UN ought not be and cannot be reformed. It was born and bred, pro-communist and anti-American; it will stay that way. He leads his readers to more literature on the subject; invites them to join up with GetUSOut.org to fight the good fight; and suggests we solicit our congressional representatives to support Ron Paul's, American Sovereignty Restoration Act, H.R. 1146 (which was recently reintroduced).

All of them, great ideas, found in a great, little, inexpensive book; a book that ought to be purchased, read and shared with friends and family, congressmen and pundits.

Contact Steve at stevenmfarrell@lvcm.com

To order "Inside the United Nations," click here http://www.aobs-store.com/reviews/bkiun.htm