Another step toward world government (United Nations New World Order)

Conservatives, alarmed over the erosion of American sovereignty, suffered another setback this week.

The New York Times describes the defeat: "The United States bowed Wednesday to broad opposition on the Security Council and announced it was dropping its effort to gain immunity for its troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court."

It is a victory for the New World Order, and internationalists see it as such. Both the Financial Times ("U.S. Retreats on Bid for War Crimes Immunity") and The New York Times ("U.S. Drops Plan to Exempt G.I.s from U.N. Court") elevated it to the front-page lead story on June 24.

Several factors brought about the U.S. defeat. NATO allies Spain, Germany and France abandoned us. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an end to immunity for U.S. troops. And the Abu Ghraib prison scandal undermined the case for any exemptions from war crimes trials for America soldiers.

The prospect of U.S. soldiers being led in handcuffs before the ICC to be prosecuted for war crimes, while Washington impotently wails, is, of course, remote. But Americans had better wake up and smell the coffee. A global bureaucracy is steadily tying this nation down with tiny strands, just as Gulliver was tied down by the little men on that beach in Lilliput.

Globalists are elated and cocky over our defeat. Reports the FT: "International human-rights groups welcomed the Security Council's refusal to extend the immunity resolution.

'''The rule of law has been reinforced: that international law applies equally to all countries,' said William Pace, head of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court."

What is wrong with Pace's contention? Just this. The United States opposed creation of the ICC. And the president and Congress have rejected its claims to jurisdiction over U.S. armed forces. By what right, then, does the ICC claim such jurisdiction?

Can a tribunal be set up and assert a right to prosecute U.S. citizens and soldiers without our permission? In the World Government rising, apparently our consent is not required for us to be subject to a criminal tribunal whose sovereignty supercedes our own. Americans had best discover what these internationalists are up to, or our grandchildren may one day wake up and find out Granddad was napping while they lost forever what their ancestors had won for them on the battlefields of Saratoga and Yorktown.

Consider the claims being made and accepted by nations, by international organizations and by civil servants no one ever elected.

The U.N., a U.S. creation, is now claiming the right to determine when, where and whether the United States may go to war. Secretary General Kofi Annan, a U.N. bureaucrat from a failed state, Ghana, is telling us that U.S. soldiers must be subject to prosecution by a U.N. war-crimes tribunal with jurisdiction we have never accepted.

The World Trade organization, established in 1994 when Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich signed onto Bill Clinton's GATT treaty, ordered President Bush to lift U.S. steel tariffs or face fines, and President Bush meekly complied. Now, the WTO has ordered Congress to end tax breaks for major U.S. exporters and authorized the EU to impose tariffs on U.S. goods – which the EU has done. Now, Congress is rushing to comply.

Has no one considered imposing reciprocal tariffs on the EU and telling it the ball is in its court? Europe, after all, runs a huge trade surplus with us. They are the ones who should fear a trade war.

The question here is not only what is decided, but who decides. Why should laws enacted by Congress and signed by the president be subject to any review, other than by our own Supreme Court?

This year, another U.N. power grab, over the world's oceans and their resources, almost succeeded, until conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Frank Gaffney raised the roof. U.S. accession to the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty was then interred in Senate committee. The Law of the Sea Treaty was a resurrected version of the one Ronald Reagan had torpedoed in 1983. They keep coming back.

Americans seem unaware that all these institutions with the high-sounding names – the United Nations, World Trade Organization, the Kyoto Protocols, the International Criminal Court, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank – have one grand strategic purpose:

To assert the superior sovereignty of international organizations over the government of the United States, to restrict and conscript our power for their purposes and to transfer the wealth of the American nation and people to international civil servants – for their consumption and redistribution.

In the name of humanity, these glorified thieves would rob us of our heritage. We are fools if we let it happen.

Kofi Annan offers hope for equitable, stable world
UN secretary-general speaks at Afternoon Exercises
By Ken Gewertz
Harvard News Office

Multinationalism, collective decision-making, and the rule of law - these offer
Kofi Annan was the speaker June 10 at Harvard's Afternoon Exercises. The bursts of applause that interrupted his talk at frequent intervals suggested that many in the audience approved of his multilateral message. (Staff photo Rose Lincoln/Harvard News Office)
the best hope of achieving a stable and equitable world order, according to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Annan was the speaker June 10 at Harvard's Afternoon Exercises. The bursts of applause that interrupted his talk at frequent intervals suggested that many in the audience approved of his multilateral message.

"It is in the interest of every country to have international rules and to abide by them," Annan said. "And such a system can only work if, in devising and applying the rules, the legitimate interests and points of view of different countries are accommodated, and decisions are reached collectively. That is the essence of multilateralism, and the founding principle of the United Nations. All great American leaders have understood this."

Annan praised the key role the United States played in reconstructing Europe after World War II and in establishing the United Nations. American power has been a vital element in achieving both these goals, he said, "But what makes that power effective, as an instrument of progressive change, is the legitimacy it gains from being deployed within a framework of international law and multilateral institutions and in pursuit of the common interest."

The world today faces a crisis of collective security, Annan said. The availability of weapons of mass destruction plus the proliferation of terrorism makes "the strong feel almost as vulnerable to the weak as the weak feel vulnerable to the strong."

Faced with this crisis, some have argued that the preventive use of force is the only sensible response to the threat of possible attack.

During Morning Exercises, afternoon speaker Kofi Annan sits with other honorands just before receiving his honorary degree. (Staff photo Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office)

"Indeed, the combination of global terrorism, possible proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the existence of rogue and dysfunctional states does face us with a new challenge," Annan said. "The United Nations was never meant to be a suicide pact. But what kind of world would it be, and who would want to live in it, if every country was allowed to use force, without collective agreement, simply because it thought there might be a threat?"

Annan said that he has appointed a "panel of eminent persons" to look into the questions of when the threat of international aggression warrants the taking of pre-emptive action and how the international community should respond to such a danger. He said that he expects the panel's recommendations by the end of 2004.

Annan also said that the UN must formulate new rules for dealing with genocide and crimes against humanity, rules that would ensure that the international response is not too little and too late, as it was in Bosnia and Rwanda. The civil war in Sudan, which has already resulted in terrible suffering and destruction, is one example of a humanitarian crisis waiting to be resolved, and Annan urged the international community to pressure the Sudanese government to "put its house in order."

The world also faces a crisis of solidarity, Annan said, which could result in a failure to meet the goals that were set four years ago at the UN Millennium Summit - goals such as improving the quality of drinking water, improving education, reducing infant and maternal mortality, and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The third crisis facing the world today is one of prejudice and intolerance, Annan said.

Pomp, circumstance, light showers: Under an unsteady morning drizzle, Kofi Annan receives his honorary doctorate. (Staff photo Justin Ide/Harvard News Office)

"We must not allow ourselves, out of fear or anger, to treat people whose faith or culture differs from ours as enemies. We must not allow ourselves to blame Islam or to suspect all Muslims because a small number of Muslims commit acts of violence and terror. We must not allow anti-Semitism to disguise itself as a reaction to Israeli government policies - any more than we should allow all questioning of those policies to be silenced with accusations of anti-Semitism."

In closing, Annan urged the American graduates of Harvard to "live up to your country's best traditions of global commitment and global leadership."

To the international students who are members of the Class of 2004, he said: "Tell your fellow citizens back home to look beyond facile stereotypes about this country. Whatever you think of particular American policies, you have been here long enough to know the dynamism of American society, and the generosity of the American spirit."

To all the graduates, he said: "Now is not the time to abandon our rule-based international system. Let us preserve it. Let us improve it. And let us pass it on - intact, and stronger than ever!"

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