It might not be politically viable for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations. But at the very least the United States could get the United Nations off our soil.
In November 2004, Move America Forward initiated a petition drive to get the United Nations off American soil.
Nearly two years later one could not help but think why America puts up with the United Nations. Recently former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami came to America to sing the praises of Hezbollah all the while working for the High Level Group of UN’s Dialogue Among Civilizations. Last week Americans saw the spectacle of both Khatami’s successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez address the opening of the 61st United Nations General Assembly. The former accused the United States of killing civilians in cold blood in Iraq, while the latter referred to President Bush as the devil.
This was too much even for far left New York Democratic Representative Charlie Rangel, who lambasted Chavez for coming into his Congressional district and criticizing “my President.” Rangel’s admonition, in turn, was too much for Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of the far-left blog The Daily Kos:
Memo to Chuck Rangel – if you don’t like world leaders saying mean things about the United States in your congressional district, then perhaps it’s time to move the United Nations somewhere where people aren’t such wilting flowers.
Kos might think of Americans as wilting flowers and he would be wrong. But he is, for once in his life, actually right about something. The United Nations should be moved out of New York and out of the United States altogether.
The continued presence of the United Nations on American soil gives the tyrants of the world a platform from which to spit in our faces. The UN General Assembly serves to legitimize our sworn enemies. It is a democratic forum for those who don’t practice democracy at home. It is a forum where the United States is incessantly and usually unjustly bashed by the worst that human nature has to offer to the world. But for all their hatred and contempt of the United States they don’t seem to want to leave. UN diplomats seem to like their apartments and the fancy restaurants and parties they attend in the city that never sleeps.
Fox News Channel reporter Eric Shawn illustrates this beautifully in his first book, The U.N. Exposed: How The United Nations Sabotages America’s Security And Fails The World. Shawn interviewed a member of the U.S. delegation to the UN. Not wanting to disclose his identity, Shawn gave him the nom de plume of Wallace O. Woodward:
Woodward has known many foreign colleagues who come to the United States, live on the Upper East Side of New York, and realize they don’t want to go back to their home countries, because their standard of living here is so much higher. “The opportunities here are completely different, so while you hear them (criticizing) the United States publicly, behind the scenes they are scrambling to get a visa or permanent green card, or a job at the U.N.,” he says. “That’s the other dirty little secret, how many ambassadors want jobs at the U.N. because they don’t want to go back to their home country.”
After all, hooking up with the U.N. payroll usually means you will never be fired . . . If you come from certain countries, those are pretty good odds – especially considering that sudden coup d’état can lead to your supervisor’s arrest or assassination and suddenly plunk you out on First Avenue waiting for the M15 bus with everyone else.
Can anyone say Thailand?
It might not be politically viable for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations. But at the very least the United States could get the United Nations off our soil. Now one might argue along the lines of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II. That is to say, to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. However, the United States needs the United Nations about as much as one needs leukemia. Why should our sworn enemies be able to travel here to denounce us while we pick up the tab?
So let’s move the UN Headquarters to Paris or Geneva as Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward has suggested. I’ll go a step further. Move the UN Headquarters to Caracas or Tehran. Yes, Venezuela and Iran and much of the Non-Aligned Movement will continue to bash the United States. But the food won’t be as good.
aargold24@hotmail.com
http://www.poetsforthewar.org
Read more articles by Aaron Goldstein
It is simple- put them in France. The UN is France- do nothing, bitch a lot. Whine about injustice whiel being unjust. Get it out of the U.S. and more importantly stop funding this useless organization.
Comment by Honker | September 28, 2006
Actually, the food in Venezuela isn't too bad. You'd be surprised. Just don't eat any fried platanos.
I'm wonderng why having foreign leaders in the US is such a bad thing. Assuming for a minute that the views these leaders profess are generally the views of the populations they represent, doesn't it make sense that we should hear them out? Now, it just so happens that Chavez's views are representative of exactly none of the Venezuelans i know, and I know a few. The problem is not that we have vocal enemies (we do actually celebrate our freedom of speech), nor is the problem that they have a forum here, the problem is that we aren't doing more to make our enemies our friends. It's reactions like yours and those of Rangel that make US (or us) easier to dislike.
Comment by Brad | September 28, 2006
"The problem is not that we have vocal enemies the problem is that we aren’t doing more to make our enemies our friends."
There's a problem with this mind-set. We hear it all to often, but it is naive at best. On the one hand, you have our enemies that don't care what we do. They will still be our enemies because we are who we are. On the other hand, you have our enemies that believe we have too much. They don't realize (or don't want to realize) that we have more than most because we're a republic, and capitalism thrives. Simply, they're jealous. Jealousy is blind, deaf, and mute.
Comment by Alex | September 29, 2006
Alex, are you suggesting that we have done something to make our enemies our friends, and despite this effort, their jealousy has nonetheless blinded their eyes? Have we done anything to reach out to Venezuela and Iran besides the useless, chest-thumping utlimata? If we have, it's been merely for the sake of saying , "Look, we tried." Labeling hostility toward the US as mere jealousy is far more naive, indeed, infantile than addressing the problem as a lack of active effort. People are getting worked up about what these foreign leaders said and, particularly at the fact that they said it on our "turf", instead of looking at the bigger picture of whether their remarks are well-founded.
Comment by Brad | September 29, 2006
So Brad, you think that a tyrant who rules a country in which 35% of the population lives below poverty level is justified in calling the president of the Us the "devil"? You think that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a perpetrator of human and civil rights attrocities who has threatened a sovereign nation with the possibility of nuclear terrorism, is justified in calling the United States a terrorist nation? Instead of asking yourself, "what can we do for these people to make them like us?", ask yourself "What did we do to them in the first place?" Is it the trillions of dollars we spend buying and importing their oil that supports their entire economies, such as they are? Is it the light-water nuclear reactor we offered Iran free and clear so that they might stop weapons grade plutonium enrichment? The fundamental naivete on your part is the assumption that our enemies are rational and logical and that we can solve our problems by simply acquiescing to their outrageous demands. It's the assumption that Islam is a peaceful religion of tolerance, that communists desire to live side-by-side peacefully with capitalistic nations and that everyone else in the world is justified in feelings of seething hatred, with the exception, of course, of the United States. I can see why you'd think that way though, seeing as how well it worked in pre-WWII Europe when Chamberlain was declaring "peace in our time" while the German warmachine was toppling half of the continent. Now I agree with you that we get everything we deserve when we invite these folks to excercise OUR rights of free speech (rights that don't exist for the citizenry of their own countries, mind you, but rights that they are entitled to nonetheless) on our soil. But that's just the point. If the United States is a tyrannical terrorist rogue nation, why not move the UN headquarters to one of the bastions of freedom and prosperity, like Tehran? And then let's spout anti-totalitarian rhetoric and let Mr. Ahmadinejad consider whether or not we have a legitamate complaint. It's a little one-sided to expect all of America's freedoms, including the freedom to criticize, while blaming America for all the ails of the world and accepting no responsiblity for attrocities that are happening within your own country. If the United States did that, they would be held to a different standard, don't you think?
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | September 30, 2006
The UN is an utterly usless organization that holds nothing but contempt for the USA. We may want to keep an ambassador there just to keep and eye on them but I think moving it to another country is something we should take a hard look at. There is an idea floating around that the USA should start a new organization called "The league of Democratic Nations". We would invite all Democratic nations to join us and then pull all foreign aid from countries who do not embrace human rights and freely elected governments. In time our goals of Democratizing the world might come to fruition faster. Those who choose to continue their own types of communist, dictatorial, or theocratic forms of government will son find that they miss our generosity and may come around to embracing Democracy. Of course this would also include trade embargos and other types of tough diplomacy with countries like China and Russia. We have let China skate too long without holding them accountable for their human rights abuses. Our efforts in the capitalization of China may only be helping them to amass enough wealth to build weapons that they may use attack us with someday when we have been weakened by terrorists groups they secretly support. Russia is also hoping for our demise all the while working with Iran and other terrorist sponsors. It seems that the USA has become target number one around the world. Although we have been generous to a fault we seem to be wearing a bullseye. Military strength and resolve will sustain us but we need a more viable organization than the UN to help build stronger support for our mission of spreading democracy and freedom in a world that has far too many dictators, tyrants and terrorists.
Comment by JD Pearce | September 30, 2006