Thread: White House opposes plan to trim UN dues

Gee I wonder why?

White House opposes plan to trim UN dues

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/15/news/nations.php

By Steven R. Weisman The New York Times

THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005
WASHINGTON The Bush administration, in an unusual open break with the Republican leadership in the House, moved Wednesday to oppose a bill popular among conservatives that would cut in half the American dues to the United Nations if the organization does not enact several specific budget and management reforms.

State Department officials formally conveyed the administration's position to Capitol Hill, one day before a scheduled vote in the House. The bill, backed by the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, is considered likely to pass but also likely to face tougher prospects in the Senate in light of outright administration opposition. {God forbid the Senate would do anything that wasn't in 100 percent lockstep with what Bush wants. Isn't there anybody in this branch of government that hasn't had his spine completely removed yet?}

Until formal word went to the House, the administration had indicated its uneasiness with the bill's withholding position but had not declared its opposition, hoping to get the provisions to which it objected deleted quietly.

"We have serious concerns with the bill," said Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs. "We are the founder of the UN. We're the host country of the UN. We're the leading contributor to the UN. We don't want to put ourselves in a position where the United States is withholding 50 percent of the American contributions to the UN system." {Why? Why can't we? It's our tax dollars, our money damn it. We control the money being spent, not you damn bureaucrats. Why are we continuing to shell out all this money to an entity that hates America? Just two years ago Jorge Bush threatened to distance America from the UN if they didn't go along with his Iraq war garbage, but I guess that was a blatant lie, not that I'm surprised or anything}

State Department officials say they fear the withholding provision, were it to become law, would return the United States to the 1990's, when dues were withheld and Washington lost considerable credibility among its UN allies. {Who cares? The UN has no credibility whatsoever. They are a corrupt entity, NWO wannabe that is controlled by petty third world dictators that hate America. They are a complete joke.}

The administration argues that cutting dues will jeopardize its chances of other reforms, such as streamlining the budget, improving accountability to avoid a repeat of scandals like the one at the oil-for-food program and preventing human rights abusers from sitting on the UN Human Rights Commission. {Gee Jorge, if we got ourselves out of the UN then we wouldn't be paying the price for Koffee Cups scandals you stupid idiot. Then the UN without our tax dollars would die the slow, horrible, painful death it richly deserves.}

Aides to Hastert and other Republican leaders say that, on the contrary, a dues cutoff provision is the only way to bring about necessary changes and that passing the bill will strengthen the hand of advocates of reform.

Representative Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican who is chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said the administration's opposition was "not surprising" but that he was unpersuaded. "The constitution gives to Congress the power of the purse and we intend to exercise it in pursuit of meaningful UN reform," a spokesman quoted him as saying. {This branch of government may be the only hope we have left to avoid the inevitible civil war that unfortunately Americans will face in a few years from now.}

The confrontation between the administration and Republican conservatives comes at a time when the issue of "reform" is heating up at the UN, in Washington and in capitals throughout the world. Much of the attention has focused on a bid by Japan, India, Germany and Brazil to become permanent members of the Security Council.

Many changes advocated by the administration are to be considered this year, and Bush has cited the need for reform as a principal reason for choosing John Bolton, a longtime critic of the body, to be UN ambassador.

Democratic and some Republican critics of Bolton argue that, as with the dues cutoff issue, a confrontational approach - Bolton has many times spoken disdainfully of the UN bureaucracy - will set back the cause of making necessary changes. {God forbid we appoint a guy who isn't a stooge for the NWO and tells it like it is. I don't understand why Bush likes Bolton, but I guess even a broken watch is right two times a day.}

Some Republicans have also waged a campaign to remove UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, charging that he allowed corruption to pervade the oil-for-food program, which enabled Iraq under Saddam Hussein to sell oil and purchase humanitarian goods benefiting his political allies around the world. Some critics have charged that Annan's son was caught up in the scandal.

Burns said he had conveyed word of the administration's uneasiness with the dues cutoff provision to Capitol Hill for several weeks and that cables had gone out to every American embassy on Wednesday, outlining the reforms the administration did support.

These included, he said, budget and management changes, replacing the Human Rights Commission with a council, setting up a fund to support democracies, establishing a "peace-building commission" that would help civil institutions in countries torn by conflict and a new treaty outlawing terrorism, defined as the killing of innocent civilians. {Sounds like more meaningless bull to me}

He said the administration supported most of the recommendations of a panel set up by Congress that released a report on Wednesday criticizing UN management and proposing corporate-style oversight bodies, personnel standards and accounting reforms.

Don't forget that Bush has gone out of his way to support the totally corrupt Kofi Annan, as well.

And, as an aside, I read today that Barbara Bush calls Bill Clinton "son".

Did we get conned, or what?

Well here is one reason to reject the UN plan.


http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst061305.htm

NeoCon Global Government

June 13, 2005

This week Congress will vote on a bill to expand the power of the United Nations beyond the dreams of even the most ardent left-wing, one-world globalists. But this time the UN power grabbers aren’t European liberals; they are American neo-conservatives, who plan to use the UN to implement their own brand of world government.

The “United Nations Reform Act of 2005� masquerades as a bill that will cut US dues to the United Nations by 50% if that organization does not complete a list of 39 reforms. On the surface any measure that threatens to cut funding to the United Nations seems very attractive, but do not be fooled: in this case reform “success� will be worse than failure. The problem is in the supposed reforms themselves-- specifically in the policy changes this bill mandates.

The proposed legislation opens the door for the United Nations to routinely become involved in matters that have never been part of its charter. Specifically, the legislation redefines terrorism very broadly for the UN’s official purposes-- and charges it to take action on behalf of both governments and international organizations.

What does this mean? The official adoption of this definition by the United Nations would have the effect of making resistance to any government or any international organization an international crime. It would make any attempt to overthrow a government an international causus belli for UN military action. Until this point a sovereign government retained the legal right to defend against or defeat any rebellion within its own territory. Now any such activity would constitute justification for United Nations action inside that country. This could be whenever any splinter group decides to resist any regime-- regardless of the nature of that regime.

What if this were in place when the Contras were fighting against the Marxist regime in Nicaragua? Or when the Afghan mujahadeen was fighting against the Soviet-installed government in the 1980s? Or during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising? The new message is clear: resistance-- even resistance to the UN itself-- is futile. Why does every incumbent government, no matter how bad, deserve UN military assistance to quell domestic unrest?

This new policy is given teeth by creating a “Peacebuilding Commission,� which will serve as the implementing force for the internationalization of what were formerly internal affairs of sovereign nations. This Commission will bring together UN Security Council members, major donors, major troop contributing countries, appropriate United Nations organizations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund among others. This new commission will create the beginning of a global UN army. It will claim the right to intervene in any conflict anywhere on the globe, bringing the World Bank and the IMF formally into the picture as well. It is a complete new world order, but undertaken with the enthusiastic support of many of those who consider themselves among the most strident UN critics.

Conservatives who have been critical of the UN in the past have enthusiastically embraced this bill and the concept of UN reform. But what is the desired end of “UN reform�? The UN is an organization that was designed to undermine sovereignty and representative government. It is unelected and unaccountable to citizens by its very design. Will UN reform change anything about the fact that its core mission is objectionable? Do honest UN critics really want an expanded UN that functions more “efficiently�?

The real question is whether we should redouble our efforts to save a failed system, or admit its failures-- as this legislation does-- and recognize that the only reasonable option is to cease participation without further costs to the United States in blood, money, and sovereignty. Do not be fooled: it is impossible to be against the United Nations and to support “reform� of the United Nations. The only true reform of the United Nations is for the US to withdraw immediately.


Who needs a Constitution, slightly used, often ignored and torn to shreds?

I say stop paying dues and shut down the UN!

cut them off and kick them out

Exactly, kick the scum out of the US. No more foreign aide to the UN or any country for that matter.