Friday, October 21, 2005

League of Looters versus League of Freedom

Here is a great piece at FrontPage that identifies the key reason why the UN has failed in its primary objective of fostering world peace:

The fundamental feature of the United Nations is its policy of opening membership non-judgmentally to all nations--whether free or oppressive, peaceful or belligerent. This is upheld as the UN's central virtue and a vital means to peace. Admitting blatantly tyrannical regimes, proponents say, creates opportunities for "dialogue" and rehabilitation. As Kofi Annan explains, the very fact that such "non-democratic states" sign on "to the UN's agenda opens an avenue through which other states, as well as civil society around the world, can press them to align their behavior with their commitments."

But UN membership did not prevent the USSR (a founding member) from herding its citizens into gulags and forced-labor camps, murdering untold numbers of them, and invading other states; nor China from crushing under its military boot pro-freedom demonstrators and peaceful ideological dissenters; nor Iran and Saudi Arabia from infusing Islamist terrorist groups with abundant financial means and the ideological zeal to wage jihad against the West.

The UN's policy of neutrality accomplishes precisely the opposite of its putative effect; it actually protects and bolsters vicious regimes.

Participation in the UN confers on them an unearned moral legitimacy. That the leaders of such regimes are routinely invited to speak before the UN rewards them with an undeserved respectability. So it was with Fidel Castro: his self-justifying UN speech after seizing power in Cuba elicited rapturous applause. He was raised to the dignity of statesman -- a man who deals in reasoned argument -- despite being a totalitarian ruler who brutally silences dissidents. And the unwarranted recognition of arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat as a statesman arguably began when he first spoke at the United Nations in 1974. Though such men attain and hold power by force, though they preach murderous ideologies, though they devastate the lives of their subjects -- the United Nations unfastidiously endorses them and their regimes.

The United Nations thus gives them a means to entrench their power.


Is it any wonder that the once noble vision and hope that led to the formation of the UN has now evolved into a "League of Looters" that plunders the goodwill and prosperity of productive and free nations and rewards those led by despots and tyrants?

Well, live and learn.

The time has come to dissolve the UN and accept it was a terrible, horrible mistake that has increased world suffering and become the biggest impediment to the spread of Freedom around the world.

If idealists still exist after watching the UN debacle unfold over the last half century, then I would suggest that the next time around, membership should be restricted to those countries that demonstate a committment to real freedom for their citizens--and not the "Jimmy Carter" kind of country that pretends to have democratic elections so some despot can get the former President's approval and high fives from other tyrants in key UN positions.

What is needed is a League of Freedom to promote and encourage democratic and free institutions around the world.

League of Looters versus League of Freedom. A real no-brainer.

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