Post by Tom Green on Jan 28, 2007 11:18:21 GMT -5
","World Government","Irvin Baxter Jr." 71,"March/April 2000","Jesse
Helms Addresses the UN Security Council","Jesse Helmsí speech before
the UN Security Council on January 20, 2000 was one of the most
eloquent cases we had ever seen made on U.S.-UN relations The Way It
Ought To Be.In fact, his speech grows in significance with each
passing moment.
As we see the UN, day by day and inch by inch, successfully piercing
the sovereignty of every nation on earth, our minds reel straight to
the prophecies of the Bible which speak of an endtime one-world
government.
We made the speech the cover story of the March/April 2000 edition
of Endtime magazine. Since making this address, Helms has retired
from the Senate and the Bush administration has paid the UN in full.
You only get one chance to read a masterpiece for the first time. So
grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy!
On January 20, Jesse Helms, Chairman of the powerful U.S. Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, spoke before the UN Security
Council. Helmsí committee controls the purse strings on U.S.
contributions to the United Nations, and has been withholding
payments for quite some time.
In his address he explained, from his perspective, the conditions
under which the United States should participate in the UN. While
the U.S. is specifically mentioned in Bible prophecy (see
Understanding the Endtime, Level One, Lesson One), its ultimate
destiny in world affairs remains unclear. Will the U.S. be absorbed
into the Antichristís New World Order or stand in opposition? Helmsí
speech very eloquently identifies the crossroads at which America
now finds herself. Its prophetic significance is clear.
Mr. President, Distinguished Ambassadors, Ladies and Gentlemen, I
genuinely appreciate your welcoming me here this morning. You are
distinguished world leaders and it is my hope that there can begin,
this day, a pattern of understanding and friendship between you who
serve your respective countries in the United Nations and, those of
us who serve not only in the United States Government but also the
millions of Americans whom we represent and serve.
It may very well be that some of the things I feel obliged to say
will not meet with your immediate approval, if at all. It is not my
intent to offend you and I hope I will not.
It is my intent to extend to you my hand of friendship and convey
the hope that in the days to come, and in retrospect, we can join in
a mutual respect that will enable all of us to work together in an
atmosphere of friendship and hope óthe hope to do everything we can
to achieve peace in the world.
I am not a diplomat, and as such, I am not fully conversant with the
elegant and rarefied language of the diplomatic trade. I am an
elected official, with something of a reputation for saying what I
mean and meaning what I say. So I trust you will forgive me if I
come across as a bit more blunt than those you are accustomed to
hearing in this chamber.
Never before has the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ventured as
a group from Washington to visit an international institution. I
hope it will be an enlightening experience for all of us, and that
you will accept this visit as a sign of our desire for a new
beginning in the U.S.-UN relationship.
If we are to have such a new beginning, we must endeavor to
understand each other better. And that is why I will share with you
some of what I am hearing from the American people about the United
Nations.
Now I am confident you have seen the public opinion polls,
commissioned by UN supporters, suggesting that the UN enjoys the
support of the American public. I would caution that you not put too
much confidence in those polls. Since I was first elected to the
Senate in 1972, I have run for re-election four times. Each time,
the pollsters have confidently predicted my defeat. Each time, I am
happy to confide, they have been wrong. I am pleased that, thus far,
I have never won a poll or lost an election.
So, as those of you who represent democratic nations well know,
public opinion polls can be constructed to tell you anything the
poll takers want you to hear.
Let me share with you what the American people tell me. Since I
became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have received
literally thousands of letters from Americans all across the country
expressing their deep frustration with this institution. They know
instinctively that the UN lives and breathes on the hard-earned
money of the American taxpayers. And yet they have heard comments
here in New York constantly calling the United States a ìdeadbeat.î
They have heard UN officials declaring absurdly that countries like
Fiji and Bangladesh are carrying Americaís burden in peacekeeping.
They see the majority of the UN members routinely voting against
America in the General Assembly.
They have read the reports of the raucous cheering of the UN
delegates in Rome, when U.S. efforts to amend the International
Criminal Court treaty to protect American soldiers were defeated.
They read in the newspapers that, despite all the human rights
abuses taking place in dictatorships across the globe, a UN ìSpecial
Rapporteurî decided his most pressing task was to investigate human
rights violations in the U.S. ó and found our human rights record
wanting.
The American people hear all this; they resent it, and they have
grown increasingly frustrated with what they feel is a lack of
gratitude.
Now I wonít delve into every point of frustration, but letís touch
for just a moment on one ó the ìdeadbeatî charge. Before coming
here, I asked the United States General Accounting Office to assess
just how much the American taxpayers contributed to the United
Nations in 1999. Here is what the GAO reported to me:
Last year, the American people contributed a total of more than $1.4
billion dollars to the U.N. system in assessments and voluntary
contributions. Thatís pretty generous, but itís only the tip of the
iceberg. The American taxpayers also spent an additional $8.779
billion dollars from the United Statesí military budget to support
various U.N. resolutions and peacekeeping operations around the
world. Let me repeat that figure: EIGHT BILLION, SEVEN HUNDRED AND
SEVENTY NINE MILLION DOLLARS.
That means that last year (1999) alone the American people have
furnished precisely $10.179 billion dollars to support the work of
the United Nations. No other nation on earth comes even close to
matching that singular investment.
So you can see why many Americans reject the suggestion that theirs
is a ìdeadbeatî nation.
Now, I grant you, the money we spend on the UN is not charity. To
the contrary, it is an investment ñ an investment from which the
American people rightly expect a return. They expect a reformed UN
that works more efficiently, and which respects the sovereignty of
the United States.
That is why in the 1980s, Congress began withholding a fraction of
our arrears as pressure for reform. And Congressional pressure
resulted in some worthwhile reforms, the arrears accumulated as the
UN resisted more comprehensive reforms.
When the distinguished Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was elected,
some of us in the Senate decided to try to establish a working
relationship. The result is the Helms-Biden law, which President
Clinton finally signed into law this past November. The product of
three years of arduous negotiations and hard-fought compromises, it
was approved by the U.S. Senate by an overwhelming 98-1 margin. You
should read that vote as a virtually unanimous mandate for a new
relationship with a reformed United Nations.
Now I am aware that this law does not sit well with some here at the
UN. Some do not like to have reforms dictated by the U.S. Congress.
Some have even suggested that the UN should reject these reforms.
But let me suggest a few things to consider: First, as the figures I
have cited clearly demonstrate, the United States is the single
largest investor in the United Nations. Under the U.S. Constitution,
we in Congress are the sole guardians of the American taxpayersí
money. (It is our solemn duty to see that it is wisely invested.) So
as the representatives of the UNís largest investors ó the American
people ó we have not only a right, but a responsibility, to insist
on specific reforms in exchange for their investment.
Second, I ask you to consider the alternative. The alternative would
have been to continue to let the U.S.-UN relationship spiral out of
control. You would have taken retaliatory measures, such as revoking
Americaís vote in the General Assembly. Congress would likely have
responded with retaliatory measures against the UN. And the end
result, I believe, would have been a breach in U.S.-UN relations
that would have served the interests of no one.
Now some here may contend that the Clinton Administration should
have fought to pay the arrears without conditions. I assure you, had
they done so, they would have lost.
Eighty years ago, Woodrow Wilson failed to secure Congressional
support for U.S. entry into the League of Nations. This
administration obviously learned from President Wilsonís mistakes.
Wilson probably could have achieved ratification of the League of
Nations if he had worked with Congress. One of my predecessors as
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Henry Cabot
Lodge, asked for 14 conditions to the treaty establishing the League
of Nations, few of which would have raised an eyebrow today. These
included language to insure that the United States remain the sole
judge of its own internal affairs; that the League not restrict any
individual rights of U.S. citizens; that the Congress retain sole
authority for the deployment of U.S. forces through the league, and
so on.
But President Wilson indignantly refused to compromise with Senator
Lodge. He shouted, ìNever, never!î, adding, ìIíll never consent to
adopting any policy with which that impossible man is so prominently
identified!î What happened? President Wilson lost. The final vote in
the Senate was 38 to 53, and League of Nations withered on the vine.
Ambassador Holbrooke and Secretary of State Albright understood from
the beginning that the United Nations could not long survive without
the support of the American people ó and their elected
representatives in Congress. Thanks to the efforts of leaders like
Ambassador Holbrooke and Secretary Albright, the present
Administration in Washington did not repeat President Wilsonís fatal
mistakes.
In any event, Congress has written a check to the United Nations for
$926 million, payable upon the implementation of previously agreed-
upon common-sense reforms. Now the choice is up to the UN. I suggest
that if the UN were to reject this compromise, it would mark the
beginning of the end of US support for the United Nations.
I donít want that to happen. I want the American people to value a
United Nations that recognizes and respects their interests, and for
the United Nations to value the significant contributions of the
American people. Letís be crystal clear and totally honest with each
other: all of us want a more effective United Nations. But if the
United Nations is to be ìeffectiveî it must be an institution that
is needed by the great democratic powers of the world.
Most Americans do not regard the United Nations as an end in and of
itself ñ they see it as just one part of Americaís diplomatic
arsenal. To the extent that the UN is effective, the American people
will support it. To the extent that it becomes ineffective ñ or
worse, a burden ó the American people will cast it aside.
The American people want the UN to serve the purpose for which it
was designed: they want it to help sovereign states coordinate
collective action by ìcoalitions of the willing,î(where the
political will for such action exists); they want it to provide a
forum where diplomats can meet and keep open channels of
communication in times of crisis; they want it to provide to the
peoples of the world important services, such as peacekeeping,
weapons inspections and humanitarian relief.
This is important work. It is the core of what the UN can offer to
the United States and the world. If, in the coming century, the UN
focuses on doing these core tasks well, it can thrive and will earn
and deserve the support of the American people. But if the UN seeks
to move beyond these core tasks, if it seeks to impose the UNís
power and authority over nation-states, I guarantee that the United
Nations will meet stiff resistance from the American people.
As matters now stand, many Americans sense that the UN has greater
ambitions than simply being an efficient deliverer of humanitarian
aid, a more effective peacekeeper, a better weapons inspector, and a
more effective tool of great power diplomacy. They see the UN
aspiring to establish itself as the central authority of a new
international order of global laws and global governance. This is an
international order the American people will not countenance. The UN
must respect national sovereignty. The UN serves nation-states, not
the other way around. This principle is central to the legitimacy
and ultimate survival of the United Nations, and it is a principle
that must be protected.
The Secretary General recently delivered an address on sovereignty
to the General Assembly, in which he declared that ìthe last right
of states cannot and must not be the right to enslave, persecute or
torture their own citizens.î The peoples of the world, he said, have
ìrights beyond borders.î
I wholeheartedly agree.
What the Secretary General calls ìrights beyond borders,î we in
America call ìinalienable rights.î We are endowed with those
ìinalienable rights,î as Thomas Jefferson proclaimed in our
Declaration of Independence, not by kings or despots, but by our
Creator.
The sovereignty of nations must be respected. But nations derive
their sovereignty ó their legitimacy ó from the consent of the
governed. Thus, it follows, that nations can lose their legitimacy
when they rule without the consent of the governed; they deservedly
discard their sovereignty by brutally oppressing their people.
Slobodan Milosevic cannot claim sovereignty over Kosovo when he has
murdered Kosovars and piled their bodies into mass graves. Neither
can Fidel Castro claim that it is his sovereign right to oppress his
people. Nor can Saddam Hussein defend his oppression of the Iraqi
people by hiding behind phony claims of sovereignty. And when the
oppressed peoples of the world cry out for help, the free peoples of
the world have a fundamental right to respond.
As we watch the UN struggle with this question at the turn of the
millennium, many Americans are left exceedingly puzzled. Intervening
in cases of widespread oppression and massive human rights abuses is
not a new concept for the United States. The American people have a
long history of coming to the aid of those struggling for freedom.
In the United States, during the 1980s, we called this policy the
ìReagan Doctrine.î
In some cases, America has assisted freedom fighters around the
world who were seeking to overthrow corrupt regimes. We have
provided weaponry, training, and intelligence. In other cases, the
United States has intervened directly. In still other cases, such as
in Central and Eastern Europe, we supported peaceful opposition
movements with moral, financial and covert forms of support. In each
case, however, it was Americaís clear intention to help bring down
Communist regimes that were oppressing their peoples, ó and thereby
replace dictators with democratic governments.
The dramatic expansion of freedom in the last decade of the 20th
Century is a direct result of these policies.
In none of these cases, however, did the United States ask for, or
receive, the approval of the United Nations to ìlegitimizeî its
actions.
It is a fanciful notion that free peoples need to seek the approval
of an international body (some of whose members are totalitarian
dictatorships) to lend support to nations struggling to break the
chains of tyranny and claim their inalienable, God-given rights. The
United Nations has no power to grant or decline legitimacy to such
actions. They are inherently legitimate.
What the United Nations can do is help. The Security Council can,
where appropriate, be an instrument to facilitate action by
ìcoalitions of the willing,î implement sanctions regimes, and
provide logistical support to states undertaking collective action.
But complete candor is imperative: The Security Council has an
exceedingly mixed record in being such a facilitator. In the case of
Iraqís aggression against Kuwait in the early 1990s, it performed
admirably; in the more recent case of Kosovo, it was paralyzed. The
UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia was a disaster, and its failure to
protect the Bosnian people from Serb genocide is well documented in
a recent UN report.
And, despite its initial success in repelling Iraqi aggression, in
the years since the Gulf War, the Security Council has utterly
failed to stop Saddam Husseinís drive to build instruments of mass
murder. It has allowed him to play a repeated game of expelling
UNSCOM inspection teams which included Americans, and has left
Saddam completely free for the past year to fashion nuclear and
chemical weapons of mass destruction.
I am here to plead that from now on we all must work together, to
learn from past mistakes, and to make the Security Council a more
efficient and effective tool for international peace and security.
But candor compels that I reiterate this warning: the American
people will never accept the claims of the United Nations to be the
ìsole source of legitimacy on the use of forceî in the world.
But, some may respond, the U.S. Senate ratified the UN Charter fifty
years ago. Yes, but in doing so we did not cede one syllable of
American sovereignty to the United Nations. Under our system, when
international treaties are ratified they simply become domestic US
law. As such, they carry no greater or lesser weight than any other
domestic U.S. law. Treaty obligations can be superseded by a simple
act of Congress. This was the intentional design of our founding
fathers, who cautioned against entering into ìentangling alliances.î
Thus, when the United States joins a treaty organization, it holds
no legal authority over us. We abide by our treaty obligations
because they are the domestic law of our land, and because our
elected leaders have judged that the agreement serves our national
interest. But no treaty or law can ever supersede the one document
that all Americans hold sacred: The U.S. Constitution.
The American people do not want the United Nations to become an
ìentangling alliance.î That is why Americans look with alarm at UN
claims to a monopoly on international moral legitimacy. They see
this as a threat to the God-given freedoms of the American people, a
claim of political authority over America and its elected leaders
without their consent.
The effort to establish a United Nations International Criminal
Court is a case-in-point. Consider: the Rome Treaty purports to hold
American citizens under its jurisdiction ó even when the United
States has neither signed nor ratified the treaty. In other words,
it claims sovereign authority over American citizens without their
consent. How can the nations of the world imagine for one instant
that Americans will stand by and allow such a power-grab to take
place?
The Courtís supporters argue that Americans should be willing to
sacrifice some of their sovereignty for the noble cause of
international justice. International law did not defeat Hitler, nor
did it win the Cold War. What stopped the Nazi march across Europe,
and the Communist march across the world, was the principled
projection of power by the worldís great democracies. And that
principled projection of force is the only thing that will ensure
the peace and security of the world in the future.
More often than not, ìinternational lawî has been used as a make-
believe justification for hindering the march of freedom. When
Ronald Reagan sent American servicemen into harmís way to liberate
Grenada from the hands of a communist dictatorship, the UN General
Assembly responded by voting to condemn the action of the elected
President of the United States as a violation of international law ñ
and, I am obliged to add, they did so by a larger majority than when
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was condemned by the same General
Assembly! Similarly, the U.S. effort to overthrow Nicaraguaís
Communist dictatorship (by supporting Nicaraguaís freedom fighters
and mining Nicaraguaís harbors) was declared by the World Court as a
violation of international law.
Most recently, we learn that the chief prosecutor of the Yugoslav
War Crimes Tribunal has compiled a report on possible NATO war
crimes during the Kosovo campaign. At first, the prosecutor declared
that it is fully within the scope of her authority to indict NATO
pilots and commanders. When news of her report leaked, she
backpedaled.
She realized, I am sure, that any attempt to indict NATO commanders
would be the death knell for the International Criminal Court. But
the very fact that she explored this possibility at all brings to
light all that is wrong with this brave new world of global justice,
which proposes a system in which independent prosecutors and judges,
answerable to no state or institution, have unfettered power to sit
in judgement of the foreign policy decisions of Western democracies.
No UN institution ñ not the Security Council, not the Yugoslav
tribunal, not a future ICC ñ is competent to judge the foreign
policy and national security decisions of the United States.
American courts routinely refuse cases where they are asked to sit
in judgement of our governmentís national security decisions,
stating that they are not competent to judge such decisions. If we
do not submit our national security decisions to the judgement of a
Court of the United States, why would Americans submit them to the
judgement of an International Criminal Court, a continent away,
comprised of mostly foreign judges elected by an international body
made up of the membership of the UN General Assembly?
Americans distrust concepts like the International Criminal Court,
and claims by the UN to be the ìsole source of legitimacyî for the
use of force, because Americans have a profound distrust of
accumulated power. Our founding fathers created a government founded
on a system of checks and balances, and dispersal of power.
In his 1962 classic, Capitalism and Freedom, the Nobel-prize winning
economist Milton Friedman rightly declared: ì[G]overnment power must
be dispersed. If government is to exercise power, better in the
county than in the state, better in the state than in Washington.
[Because] if I do not like what my local community does, I can move
to another local community... [and] if I do not like what my state
does, I can move to another. [But] if I do not like what Washington
imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations.î
Forty years later, as the UN seeks to impose its utopian vision of
ìinternational lawî on Americans, we can add this question: Where do
we go when we donít like the ìlawsî of the world?
Today, while our friends in Europe concede more and more power
upwards to supra-national institutions like the European Union,
Americans are heading in precisely the opposite direction.
America is in a process of reducing centralized power by taking more
and more authority that had been amassed by the Federal government
in Washington and referring it to the individual states where it
rightly belongs.
This is why Americans reject the idea of a sovereign United Nations
that presumes to be the source of legitimacy for the United States
Governmentís policies, foreign or domestic. There is only one source
of legitimacy of the American governmentís policies ó and that is
the consent of the American people.
If the United Nations is to survive into the 21st Century, it must
recognize its limitations. The demands of the United States have not
changed much since Henry Cabot Lodge laid out his conditions for
joining the League of Nations 80 years ago: Americans want to ensure
that the United States of America remains the sole judge of its own
internal affairs, that the United Nations is not allowed to restrict
the individual rights of U.S. citizens, and that the United States
retains sole authority over the deployment of United States forces
around the world.
This is what Americans ask of the United Nations; it is what
Americans expect of the United Nations. A United Nations that
focuses on helping sovereign states work together is worth keeping;
a United Nations that insists on trying to impose a utopian vision
on America and the world will collapse under its own weight.
If the United Nations respects the sovereign rights of the American
people, and serves them as an effective tool of diplomacy, it will
earn and deserve their respect and support. But a United Nations
that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people
without their consent begs for confrontation and, I want to be
candid, eventual U.S. withdrawal.
Thank you very much.
Helms Addresses the UN Security Council","Jesse Helmsí speech before
the UN Security Council on January 20, 2000 was one of the most
eloquent cases we had ever seen made on U.S.-UN relations The Way It
Ought To Be.In fact, his speech grows in significance with each
passing moment.
As we see the UN, day by day and inch by inch, successfully piercing
the sovereignty of every nation on earth, our minds reel straight to
the prophecies of the Bible which speak of an endtime one-world
government.
We made the speech the cover story of the March/April 2000 edition
of Endtime magazine. Since making this address, Helms has retired
from the Senate and the Bush administration has paid the UN in full.
You only get one chance to read a masterpiece for the first time. So
grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy!
On January 20, Jesse Helms, Chairman of the powerful U.S. Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, spoke before the UN Security
Council. Helmsí committee controls the purse strings on U.S.
contributions to the United Nations, and has been withholding
payments for quite some time.
In his address he explained, from his perspective, the conditions
under which the United States should participate in the UN. While
the U.S. is specifically mentioned in Bible prophecy (see
Understanding the Endtime, Level One, Lesson One), its ultimate
destiny in world affairs remains unclear. Will the U.S. be absorbed
into the Antichristís New World Order or stand in opposition? Helmsí
speech very eloquently identifies the crossroads at which America
now finds herself. Its prophetic significance is clear.
Mr. President, Distinguished Ambassadors, Ladies and Gentlemen, I
genuinely appreciate your welcoming me here this morning. You are
distinguished world leaders and it is my hope that there can begin,
this day, a pattern of understanding and friendship between you who
serve your respective countries in the United Nations and, those of
us who serve not only in the United States Government but also the
millions of Americans whom we represent and serve.
It may very well be that some of the things I feel obliged to say
will not meet with your immediate approval, if at all. It is not my
intent to offend you and I hope I will not.
It is my intent to extend to you my hand of friendship and convey
the hope that in the days to come, and in retrospect, we can join in
a mutual respect that will enable all of us to work together in an
atmosphere of friendship and hope óthe hope to do everything we can
to achieve peace in the world.
I am not a diplomat, and as such, I am not fully conversant with the
elegant and rarefied language of the diplomatic trade. I am an
elected official, with something of a reputation for saying what I
mean and meaning what I say. So I trust you will forgive me if I
come across as a bit more blunt than those you are accustomed to
hearing in this chamber.
Never before has the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ventured as
a group from Washington to visit an international institution. I
hope it will be an enlightening experience for all of us, and that
you will accept this visit as a sign of our desire for a new
beginning in the U.S.-UN relationship.
If we are to have such a new beginning, we must endeavor to
understand each other better. And that is why I will share with you
some of what I am hearing from the American people about the United
Nations.
Now I am confident you have seen the public opinion polls,
commissioned by UN supporters, suggesting that the UN enjoys the
support of the American public. I would caution that you not put too
much confidence in those polls. Since I was first elected to the
Senate in 1972, I have run for re-election four times. Each time,
the pollsters have confidently predicted my defeat. Each time, I am
happy to confide, they have been wrong. I am pleased that, thus far,
I have never won a poll or lost an election.
So, as those of you who represent democratic nations well know,
public opinion polls can be constructed to tell you anything the
poll takers want you to hear.
Let me share with you what the American people tell me. Since I
became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have received
literally thousands of letters from Americans all across the country
expressing their deep frustration with this institution. They know
instinctively that the UN lives and breathes on the hard-earned
money of the American taxpayers. And yet they have heard comments
here in New York constantly calling the United States a ìdeadbeat.î
They have heard UN officials declaring absurdly that countries like
Fiji and Bangladesh are carrying Americaís burden in peacekeeping.
They see the majority of the UN members routinely voting against
America in the General Assembly.
They have read the reports of the raucous cheering of the UN
delegates in Rome, when U.S. efforts to amend the International
Criminal Court treaty to protect American soldiers were defeated.
They read in the newspapers that, despite all the human rights
abuses taking place in dictatorships across the globe, a UN ìSpecial
Rapporteurî decided his most pressing task was to investigate human
rights violations in the U.S. ó and found our human rights record
wanting.
The American people hear all this; they resent it, and they have
grown increasingly frustrated with what they feel is a lack of
gratitude.
Now I wonít delve into every point of frustration, but letís touch
for just a moment on one ó the ìdeadbeatî charge. Before coming
here, I asked the United States General Accounting Office to assess
just how much the American taxpayers contributed to the United
Nations in 1999. Here is what the GAO reported to me:
Last year, the American people contributed a total of more than $1.4
billion dollars to the U.N. system in assessments and voluntary
contributions. Thatís pretty generous, but itís only the tip of the
iceberg. The American taxpayers also spent an additional $8.779
billion dollars from the United Statesí military budget to support
various U.N. resolutions and peacekeeping operations around the
world. Let me repeat that figure: EIGHT BILLION, SEVEN HUNDRED AND
SEVENTY NINE MILLION DOLLARS.
That means that last year (1999) alone the American people have
furnished precisely $10.179 billion dollars to support the work of
the United Nations. No other nation on earth comes even close to
matching that singular investment.
So you can see why many Americans reject the suggestion that theirs
is a ìdeadbeatî nation.
Now, I grant you, the money we spend on the UN is not charity. To
the contrary, it is an investment ñ an investment from which the
American people rightly expect a return. They expect a reformed UN
that works more efficiently, and which respects the sovereignty of
the United States.
That is why in the 1980s, Congress began withholding a fraction of
our arrears as pressure for reform. And Congressional pressure
resulted in some worthwhile reforms, the arrears accumulated as the
UN resisted more comprehensive reforms.
When the distinguished Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was elected,
some of us in the Senate decided to try to establish a working
relationship. The result is the Helms-Biden law, which President
Clinton finally signed into law this past November. The product of
three years of arduous negotiations and hard-fought compromises, it
was approved by the U.S. Senate by an overwhelming 98-1 margin. You
should read that vote as a virtually unanimous mandate for a new
relationship with a reformed United Nations.
Now I am aware that this law does not sit well with some here at the
UN. Some do not like to have reforms dictated by the U.S. Congress.
Some have even suggested that the UN should reject these reforms.
But let me suggest a few things to consider: First, as the figures I
have cited clearly demonstrate, the United States is the single
largest investor in the United Nations. Under the U.S. Constitution,
we in Congress are the sole guardians of the American taxpayersí
money. (It is our solemn duty to see that it is wisely invested.) So
as the representatives of the UNís largest investors ó the American
people ó we have not only a right, but a responsibility, to insist
on specific reforms in exchange for their investment.
Second, I ask you to consider the alternative. The alternative would
have been to continue to let the U.S.-UN relationship spiral out of
control. You would have taken retaliatory measures, such as revoking
Americaís vote in the General Assembly. Congress would likely have
responded with retaliatory measures against the UN. And the end
result, I believe, would have been a breach in U.S.-UN relations
that would have served the interests of no one.
Now some here may contend that the Clinton Administration should
have fought to pay the arrears without conditions. I assure you, had
they done so, they would have lost.
Eighty years ago, Woodrow Wilson failed to secure Congressional
support for U.S. entry into the League of Nations. This
administration obviously learned from President Wilsonís mistakes.
Wilson probably could have achieved ratification of the League of
Nations if he had worked with Congress. One of my predecessors as
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Henry Cabot
Lodge, asked for 14 conditions to the treaty establishing the League
of Nations, few of which would have raised an eyebrow today. These
included language to insure that the United States remain the sole
judge of its own internal affairs; that the League not restrict any
individual rights of U.S. citizens; that the Congress retain sole
authority for the deployment of U.S. forces through the league, and
so on.
But President Wilson indignantly refused to compromise with Senator
Lodge. He shouted, ìNever, never!î, adding, ìIíll never consent to
adopting any policy with which that impossible man is so prominently
identified!î What happened? President Wilson lost. The final vote in
the Senate was 38 to 53, and League of Nations withered on the vine.
Ambassador Holbrooke and Secretary of State Albright understood from
the beginning that the United Nations could not long survive without
the support of the American people ó and their elected
representatives in Congress. Thanks to the efforts of leaders like
Ambassador Holbrooke and Secretary Albright, the present
Administration in Washington did not repeat President Wilsonís fatal
mistakes.
In any event, Congress has written a check to the United Nations for
$926 million, payable upon the implementation of previously agreed-
upon common-sense reforms. Now the choice is up to the UN. I suggest
that if the UN were to reject this compromise, it would mark the
beginning of the end of US support for the United Nations.
I donít want that to happen. I want the American people to value a
United Nations that recognizes and respects their interests, and for
the United Nations to value the significant contributions of the
American people. Letís be crystal clear and totally honest with each
other: all of us want a more effective United Nations. But if the
United Nations is to be ìeffectiveî it must be an institution that
is needed by the great democratic powers of the world.
Most Americans do not regard the United Nations as an end in and of
itself ñ they see it as just one part of Americaís diplomatic
arsenal. To the extent that the UN is effective, the American people
will support it. To the extent that it becomes ineffective ñ or
worse, a burden ó the American people will cast it aside.
The American people want the UN to serve the purpose for which it
was designed: they want it to help sovereign states coordinate
collective action by ìcoalitions of the willing,î(where the
political will for such action exists); they want it to provide a
forum where diplomats can meet and keep open channels of
communication in times of crisis; they want it to provide to the
peoples of the world important services, such as peacekeeping,
weapons inspections and humanitarian relief.
This is important work. It is the core of what the UN can offer to
the United States and the world. If, in the coming century, the UN
focuses on doing these core tasks well, it can thrive and will earn
and deserve the support of the American people. But if the UN seeks
to move beyond these core tasks, if it seeks to impose the UNís
power and authority over nation-states, I guarantee that the United
Nations will meet stiff resistance from the American people.
As matters now stand, many Americans sense that the UN has greater
ambitions than simply being an efficient deliverer of humanitarian
aid, a more effective peacekeeper, a better weapons inspector, and a
more effective tool of great power diplomacy. They see the UN
aspiring to establish itself as the central authority of a new
international order of global laws and global governance. This is an
international order the American people will not countenance. The UN
must respect national sovereignty. The UN serves nation-states, not
the other way around. This principle is central to the legitimacy
and ultimate survival of the United Nations, and it is a principle
that must be protected.
The Secretary General recently delivered an address on sovereignty
to the General Assembly, in which he declared that ìthe last right
of states cannot and must not be the right to enslave, persecute or
torture their own citizens.î The peoples of the world, he said, have
ìrights beyond borders.î
I wholeheartedly agree.
What the Secretary General calls ìrights beyond borders,î we in
America call ìinalienable rights.î We are endowed with those
ìinalienable rights,î as Thomas Jefferson proclaimed in our
Declaration of Independence, not by kings or despots, but by our
Creator.
The sovereignty of nations must be respected. But nations derive
their sovereignty ó their legitimacy ó from the consent of the
governed. Thus, it follows, that nations can lose their legitimacy
when they rule without the consent of the governed; they deservedly
discard their sovereignty by brutally oppressing their people.
Slobodan Milosevic cannot claim sovereignty over Kosovo when he has
murdered Kosovars and piled their bodies into mass graves. Neither
can Fidel Castro claim that it is his sovereign right to oppress his
people. Nor can Saddam Hussein defend his oppression of the Iraqi
people by hiding behind phony claims of sovereignty. And when the
oppressed peoples of the world cry out for help, the free peoples of
the world have a fundamental right to respond.
As we watch the UN struggle with this question at the turn of the
millennium, many Americans are left exceedingly puzzled. Intervening
in cases of widespread oppression and massive human rights abuses is
not a new concept for the United States. The American people have a
long history of coming to the aid of those struggling for freedom.
In the United States, during the 1980s, we called this policy the
ìReagan Doctrine.î
In some cases, America has assisted freedom fighters around the
world who were seeking to overthrow corrupt regimes. We have
provided weaponry, training, and intelligence. In other cases, the
United States has intervened directly. In still other cases, such as
in Central and Eastern Europe, we supported peaceful opposition
movements with moral, financial and covert forms of support. In each
case, however, it was Americaís clear intention to help bring down
Communist regimes that were oppressing their peoples, ó and thereby
replace dictators with democratic governments.
The dramatic expansion of freedom in the last decade of the 20th
Century is a direct result of these policies.
In none of these cases, however, did the United States ask for, or
receive, the approval of the United Nations to ìlegitimizeî its
actions.
It is a fanciful notion that free peoples need to seek the approval
of an international body (some of whose members are totalitarian
dictatorships) to lend support to nations struggling to break the
chains of tyranny and claim their inalienable, God-given rights. The
United Nations has no power to grant or decline legitimacy to such
actions. They are inherently legitimate.
What the United Nations can do is help. The Security Council can,
where appropriate, be an instrument to facilitate action by
ìcoalitions of the willing,î implement sanctions regimes, and
provide logistical support to states undertaking collective action.
But complete candor is imperative: The Security Council has an
exceedingly mixed record in being such a facilitator. In the case of
Iraqís aggression against Kuwait in the early 1990s, it performed
admirably; in the more recent case of Kosovo, it was paralyzed. The
UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia was a disaster, and its failure to
protect the Bosnian people from Serb genocide is well documented in
a recent UN report.
And, despite its initial success in repelling Iraqi aggression, in
the years since the Gulf War, the Security Council has utterly
failed to stop Saddam Husseinís drive to build instruments of mass
murder. It has allowed him to play a repeated game of expelling
UNSCOM inspection teams which included Americans, and has left
Saddam completely free for the past year to fashion nuclear and
chemical weapons of mass destruction.
I am here to plead that from now on we all must work together, to
learn from past mistakes, and to make the Security Council a more
efficient and effective tool for international peace and security.
But candor compels that I reiterate this warning: the American
people will never accept the claims of the United Nations to be the
ìsole source of legitimacy on the use of forceî in the world.
But, some may respond, the U.S. Senate ratified the UN Charter fifty
years ago. Yes, but in doing so we did not cede one syllable of
American sovereignty to the United Nations. Under our system, when
international treaties are ratified they simply become domestic US
law. As such, they carry no greater or lesser weight than any other
domestic U.S. law. Treaty obligations can be superseded by a simple
act of Congress. This was the intentional design of our founding
fathers, who cautioned against entering into ìentangling alliances.î
Thus, when the United States joins a treaty organization, it holds
no legal authority over us. We abide by our treaty obligations
because they are the domestic law of our land, and because our
elected leaders have judged that the agreement serves our national
interest. But no treaty or law can ever supersede the one document
that all Americans hold sacred: The U.S. Constitution.
The American people do not want the United Nations to become an
ìentangling alliance.î That is why Americans look with alarm at UN
claims to a monopoly on international moral legitimacy. They see
this as a threat to the God-given freedoms of the American people, a
claim of political authority over America and its elected leaders
without their consent.
The effort to establish a United Nations International Criminal
Court is a case-in-point. Consider: the Rome Treaty purports to hold
American citizens under its jurisdiction ó even when the United
States has neither signed nor ratified the treaty. In other words,
it claims sovereign authority over American citizens without their
consent. How can the nations of the world imagine for one instant
that Americans will stand by and allow such a power-grab to take
place?
The Courtís supporters argue that Americans should be willing to
sacrifice some of their sovereignty for the noble cause of
international justice. International law did not defeat Hitler, nor
did it win the Cold War. What stopped the Nazi march across Europe,
and the Communist march across the world, was the principled
projection of power by the worldís great democracies. And that
principled projection of force is the only thing that will ensure
the peace and security of the world in the future.
More often than not, ìinternational lawî has been used as a make-
believe justification for hindering the march of freedom. When
Ronald Reagan sent American servicemen into harmís way to liberate
Grenada from the hands of a communist dictatorship, the UN General
Assembly responded by voting to condemn the action of the elected
President of the United States as a violation of international law ñ
and, I am obliged to add, they did so by a larger majority than when
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was condemned by the same General
Assembly! Similarly, the U.S. effort to overthrow Nicaraguaís
Communist dictatorship (by supporting Nicaraguaís freedom fighters
and mining Nicaraguaís harbors) was declared by the World Court as a
violation of international law.
Most recently, we learn that the chief prosecutor of the Yugoslav
War Crimes Tribunal has compiled a report on possible NATO war
crimes during the Kosovo campaign. At first, the prosecutor declared
that it is fully within the scope of her authority to indict NATO
pilots and commanders. When news of her report leaked, she
backpedaled.
She realized, I am sure, that any attempt to indict NATO commanders
would be the death knell for the International Criminal Court. But
the very fact that she explored this possibility at all brings to
light all that is wrong with this brave new world of global justice,
which proposes a system in which independent prosecutors and judges,
answerable to no state or institution, have unfettered power to sit
in judgement of the foreign policy decisions of Western democracies.
No UN institution ñ not the Security Council, not the Yugoslav
tribunal, not a future ICC ñ is competent to judge the foreign
policy and national security decisions of the United States.
American courts routinely refuse cases where they are asked to sit
in judgement of our governmentís national security decisions,
stating that they are not competent to judge such decisions. If we
do not submit our national security decisions to the judgement of a
Court of the United States, why would Americans submit them to the
judgement of an International Criminal Court, a continent away,
comprised of mostly foreign judges elected by an international body
made up of the membership of the UN General Assembly?
Americans distrust concepts like the International Criminal Court,
and claims by the UN to be the ìsole source of legitimacyî for the
use of force, because Americans have a profound distrust of
accumulated power. Our founding fathers created a government founded
on a system of checks and balances, and dispersal of power.
In his 1962 classic, Capitalism and Freedom, the Nobel-prize winning
economist Milton Friedman rightly declared: ì[G]overnment power must
be dispersed. If government is to exercise power, better in the
county than in the state, better in the state than in Washington.
[Because] if I do not like what my local community does, I can move
to another local community... [and] if I do not like what my state
does, I can move to another. [But] if I do not like what Washington
imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations.î
Forty years later, as the UN seeks to impose its utopian vision of
ìinternational lawî on Americans, we can add this question: Where do
we go when we donít like the ìlawsî of the world?
Today, while our friends in Europe concede more and more power
upwards to supra-national institutions like the European Union,
Americans are heading in precisely the opposite direction.
America is in a process of reducing centralized power by taking more
and more authority that had been amassed by the Federal government
in Washington and referring it to the individual states where it
rightly belongs.
This is why Americans reject the idea of a sovereign United Nations
that presumes to be the source of legitimacy for the United States
Governmentís policies, foreign or domestic. There is only one source
of legitimacy of the American governmentís policies ó and that is
the consent of the American people.
If the United Nations is to survive into the 21st Century, it must
recognize its limitations. The demands of the United States have not
changed much since Henry Cabot Lodge laid out his conditions for
joining the League of Nations 80 years ago: Americans want to ensure
that the United States of America remains the sole judge of its own
internal affairs, that the United Nations is not allowed to restrict
the individual rights of U.S. citizens, and that the United States
retains sole authority over the deployment of United States forces
around the world.
This is what Americans ask of the United Nations; it is what
Americans expect of the United Nations. A United Nations that
focuses on helping sovereign states work together is worth keeping;
a United Nations that insists on trying to impose a utopian vision
on America and the world will collapse under its own weight.
If the United Nations respects the sovereign rights of the American
people, and serves them as an effective tool of diplomacy, it will
earn and deserve their respect and support. But a United Nations
that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people
without their consent begs for confrontation and, I want to be
candid, eventual U.S. withdrawal.
Thank you very much.