The Tide is Turning Against the UN

May 22, 2001

By Tom DeWeese

“The United Nations, created in 1945 by the governments of the world, is being put to death by the governments of the world. No doubt there will be some more years of meetings, press releases and America-baiting on the East River. But year after year, stage by stage, the original motives, ethical purposes and hopes for world brotherhood have been so twisted or shoved aside that already the UN and its Charter barely exist at all.”

Since the vote was taken by United Nations members to oust the United States from the Human Rights Commission, numerous articles have been written condemning the action, but perhaps no article was more important than the one written by A. M. Rosenthal entitled “Agonies of dreams forsaken.” Mr. Rosenthal’s article is notable because he is a former editor of The New York Times who once covered the UN, but more importantly, because he has been a lifelong supporter and believer in the UN.

Rosenthal wrote his column just after the UN Human Rights Commission vote. His agony is apparent in the first paragraph. He said his column was “among the most difficult I have written in a life-time of journalism.” A.M. Rosenthal is a lifelong liberal. The UN and its dream of “world brotherhood” were the culmination of the hopes and dreams of the entire liberal movement. The reality that such a utopia cannot exist has now become so obvious that even they can no longer ignore the UN’s pre-ordained fate.

The liberals thought they could force the world to be good. They thought they could dictate the standards by which we would all we have to live. In doing so, they tried to ignore two emerging and essential facts of the last and this new century; individual freedom and national cultural differences. Instead of making us all the same to live in harmony, they succeeded in creating greater misunderstanding and hatreds. People resist-as they should—being stripped of their national identity and history. The result is fear and mistrust.

A world devoid of national identity is a world devoid of national leadership. The void that is created is filled by those ambitious enough to fill it. Today’s leaders aren’t the visionaries of the West who truly hoped for a world of peace. Instead, they are the ruthless dictators of Communist China, Iran, Iraq, and others who seek regional or world domination. The UN has proven to be the perfect vehicle as compliant client-nations give voice to their ravings and deem them legitimate.

The United Nations was a dream, but as its Human Rights Commission comes under control of the world’s worst offenders of human rights, and as its Narcotics Control Board is manned by the likes of Iran, one of the worst drug-pushing nations on earth, the UN has become the full blown nightmare for freedom-loving individuals and sovereign nations. The UN has become the theater of the absurd that even its most devoted supporters can no longer ignore.

There is one solution to bringing peace and sanity back to a world community of responsible and accountable sovereign nations. The United States must leave this cesspool of corruption. When that occurs, it will be the final chapter of an idea gone terribly wrong and the effort to impose a world government that would suppress liberty and plunge us into a new Dark Age of serfdom and ignorance.

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Tom DeWeese
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Tom DeWeese is founder and president of the American Policy Center and is an internationally recognized expert on the issue of Sustainable Development and its attack on private property. He is author of three books, including Now Tell Me I Was Wrong, ERASE, and Sustainable: the WAR on Free Enterprise, Private Property, and Individuals.