Item: An article in the Alaska Dispatch for June 23, entitled “Time to ratify Law of Sea?,” reports of the pending United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: “Supporters from all sides, from environmentalists to industry, say if the U.S. doesn’t ratify the Law of the Sea … the country stands to lose out on both potential riches and environmental protections. So far, the European Union and 160 nation states have ratified the treaty. The U.S. is one of 18 countries that have not done so.”
Item: A special meeting of the United Nations Security Council, reports London’s Guardian for July 20, “is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change…. There has been talk, meanwhile, of a new environmental peacekeeping force — green helmets — which could step into conflicts caused by shrinking resources.”
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Correction: There is almost nothing under the sun that the would-be global government doesn’t want dominion over — from the right to self-defense, to the floor of the oceans, to the very weather of the Earth. Realists understand that little men often lust for the opportunity to crack a big whip — that is in part the importance of a limited government — and the UN wants its whip hand to be all-encompassing.
Consider the ownership of firearms. Americans rightly view this as our right. The UN, for its part, sees the Second Amendment as a hindrance to a proposed global treaty, though masquerading its power grab as an effort against terrorists and illicit arms dealers.
The effort, camouflaged as arms control — right down to the type of ammunition to be permitted — is rooted in people control. In mid-July, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, spoke to a UN committee and shot back rhetorically:
We are told, “Trust us; an [Arms Trade Treaty] will not ban possession of any civilian firearms.” But, proposals to ban civilian firearms ownership have not been rejected.
We are told, “Trust us; an ATT will not interfere with state domestic regulation of firearms.” Yet, there are constant calls for exactly such measures.
We are told, “Trust us; an ATT will only affect the illegal trade in firearms.” But then we’re told that in order to control the illegal trade, all states must control the legal firearms trade.
We are told, “Trust us; an ATT will not require registration of civilian firearms.” Yet, there are numerous calls for record-keeping, and firearms tracking from production to eventual destruction. That’s nothing more than gun registration by a different name….
We are told, “Trust us; an ATT will not interfere with the lawful international commerce in civilian firearms.” But a manufacturer of civilian shotguns would have to comply with the same regulatory process as a manufacturer of military attack helicopters.
The proposed UN treaty, as Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has remarked, has been disguised as an accord to “fight against ‘terrorism,’ ‘insurgency’ and ‘international crime syndicates,’” while it is “in fact a massive global gun-control scheme.”
Moreover, being preached at by French officials (as noted above) is akin to listening to moralizing from the most highly suspected man in the community. France recently dropped large amounts of lethal weapons directly to Libyan rebels. And there are indirect efforts too that are an obvious attempt to skirt a supposed UN mandate that permits only the protection of civilians. After some dared to criticize the overt arms drop, “French officials said Paris wouldn’t supply weapons directly to Libyan rebels but wouldn’t object if Arab states opted to supply the NTC [National Transitional Council, the self-proclaimed Libyan opposition] with military equipment procured in France,” as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Such weapons, Israeli officials have also complained of late, have been finding their way to terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
Then there is the matter of the UN’s attempted seizure of the seas, which is supported by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among others — a move that has not succeeded for decades, but which is being tried one more time.
As explained by Kim Holmes, a former Assistant Secretary of State: “UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea] reflects the 1970’s ‘new economic order’ ideology that viewed ocean riches as the ‘common heritage of mankind.’ Consequently, it establishes a bureaucracy to redistribute the wealth of the deep seabed and the extended continental shelf.” Should the United States join, points out Holmes, “it would have to share with ‘developing’ nations any royalty revenue generated on its continental shelf beyond the 200-nautical-mile mark. The International Seabed Authority would decide just how these revenues are distributed. The U.S. by itself would have no veto over its decisions.”
There is an overflowing list of other objections to the Law of the Sea, including forcing this country to submit to a new UN bureaucracy and to settle disputes with international bodies often dominated by corrupt and anti-American dictatorships.
On another front, the UN is talking seriously about equipping troops with helmets painted not blue, but green, indicative of the war versus global warming — since renamed “climate change.” Actually, the fight directed at alleged man-made weather problems is already ongoing. This has inevitably led to corruption. Earlier this year, it was discovered by German investigators that many hundreds of millions of euros had vanished in phony energy and carbon-trading schemes.
As summarized by David Rothbard, head of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, based in Washington, D.C.:
Criminal enterprises raked in tens of millions, fended off regulators with delaying tactics and then announced bankruptcy or vanished. An Italian sting operation resulted in arrests of wind-farm developers who billed the country for subsidies but never produced a kilowatt of electricity.
London’s liberal Guardian newspaper was aghast to learn that the World Bank’s Biocarbon Fund had arranged to pay European “entrepreneurs” $1 million to establish a system under which 60,000 Kenyans would restrict themselves to farming under rigidly controlled, inefficient, “sustainable” techniques. For that they will receive $1.4 million over 20 years.
That’s right, the beneficent World Bank will enrich more Europeans so 60,000 Kenyans can receive $23.83 apiece for 20 years of drudgery, poverty and misery — a princely $1.19 a year.
No doubt a force of green-helmeted Iranians, Burmese, Cubans, and North Koreans could clean up that situation in no time.
Those actually are not nations chosen at random. Those countries, among others, were among the members of the United Nations Human Rights Council who were brimming over with admiration for Moammar Gadhafi’s Libyan government earlier this year. A draft report was produced in January that reeked with the glories of Libya’s record on human rights and splendid treatment of Libyan citizens — shortly before the anti-regime revolt burst out there.
As was noted in the New York Times, North Korea gushed over Libya’s alleged protection of economic and social rights, including its heathcare practices and free education; the communists in Cuba extolled Libya’s success in primary education; the military dictatorship in Myanmar (Burma) hailed the Gadhafi government’s domestic efforts guaranteeing equal rights; and Iran commended Tripoli for its international human-rights efforts and cooperation with various treaties.
More often than not, the UN’s voice blares forth out of both sides of its mouth. Even the hellhole called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has been held up as a model by the head of a major UN institution. Last year, the director general of the UN’s World Health Organization visited the brutal, reclusive dictatorship in North Korea and boasted that Pyongyang had a healthcare system that “most other developing countries would envy.”
Said Dr. Margaret Chan: “People in the country do not have to worry about a lack of financial resources to access care.” Walking, commented the director, “is quite well observed in that country, and I suggest that is why I didn’t see many obese people.”
The fact that not too many years before a million or so people died of starvation also helped cut down on obesity. Grave food and medical shortages still plague the nation, but that wasn’t mentioned. A more accurate report by Amnesty International was summarized by Fox News, noting that North Korean doctors sometimes perform “barbaric amputations without anesthesia and [work] by candlelight for payment in cigarettes, in hospitals lacking essential medicine, heat and power.”
One could go on endlessly about other UN undertakings. A new UN report from the Department of Economic and Social Affairs urges the spending of $79 trillion over 40 years to create a transition to a global green economy through methods guaranteed to harm the people supposedly being helped by depriving them of energy.
These are not atypical mistakes or oversights. Such malevolent practices embody the United Nations. It is beyond foolish to believe such international officials just because they tell you they are on your side. So is appendicitis.
— Photo: AP Images
