Posted on 02/10/2003 11:02:49 AM PST by libber-tarian
Would the McDonald's Corporation make an appropriate sponsor for a seminar on obesity?
Should Bacardi be providing refreshments at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings?
If Bill Clinton offered you marital advice, would you take it?
Unless you're a fat, drunk adulterer or a former president, I assume your answer to each of those questions is no. I also assume you wouldn't let Iraq run a conference on disarmament, or let Libya lead a human rights commission.
You might not. But the United Nations would.
Yes, the United Nations--whose purported purpose is "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person" and "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom"--decided that Iraq would make an appropriate leader for its U.N. Disarmament Conference, and that the U.N. Commission on Human Rights should be entrusted to Libya.
The U.N. pays lip service to human rights and freedom, but then, as if in some Orwellian nightmare, it lets countries like Libya and Iraq drive the discussions where these concepts are debated and defined. Is it any wonder, then, that the U.N.--for all of its inconsequential finger-waving and resolution-passing--has been unable to achieve any of the aims set out in its own charter?
The real problem isn't that the U.N. is weak and morally blind, the real problem is that it is built to be this way. As a result, the U.N. is structurally incapable of fulfilling its own goals:
Because these flaws are inherent in the design and culture of the U.N., they won't go away without rebuilding the U.N. from the ground up. That's not going to happen, so we must recognize the U.N. for what it is: a terminal patient, an abject failure, a latter-day League of Nations. And, like its precursor, its time--if it ever came--has come and gone. It's time for a replacement.
What we need instead is an Alliance of Liberty, whose purpose is to ensure the eventual freedom of every person on the planet. It would state its mission as follows:
We, the free people of the world, in recognition of the fact that freedom is a gift given to us through the selfless sacrifice of our ancestors, and in agreement on the belief that it is our moral obligation to share this gift with those who were not fortunate enough to be born into it, declare ourselves united in an Alliance of Liberty, whose purpose is to secure the freedom of every human everywhere.
The Alliance would have two main objectives: to free the unfree, and to bring about long-term peace. When it must, the Alliance would use force to topple tyrants. But, by defeating tyranny--even when war is required to so do--the Alliance will be working towards an ultimate peace, a goal touted but unattained by the United Nations and the League before it.
Paradoxically, conflict is sometimes required to secure peace. In World War II, peace in Europe was achieved through the exercise of military muscle. But let's say the pacifists had been successful at convincing the allies that--to use the words of Jacques Chirac--"war always means failure and therefore everything must be done to avoid war." If Hitler gobbled up Europe and satiated his appetite for expansion, the fighting in Europe would be over. Pacifists would declare success, because by allowing Hitler to roll over Europe, war was avoided. In the minds of those who believe that peace is the absence of war, a war-free Europe living under the thumb of the Nazis would be a Europe living in peace. Talk about doublespeak.
Of course, peace is not merely the absence of war. Peace is the absence of threat. That's why the Cold War--a conflict containing much threat but no direct fighting--is referred to as a war; for forty years, the world lived under a frightening threat, and we rightly recognized that state of threat as a state of war.
Only by eliminating the threats that the world faces today will we achieve meaningful, lasting peace. Given that such threats invariably come from repressive regimes--how often do you find free countries at war with each other?--bringing freedom to those without it will eliminate these threats, and will lessen the likelihood of new ones emerging in the future. In other words, we may need to fight wars now if we want peace in the future. Or, we can let threats fester, and leave future generations even less secure than we are today. But, remember: threats do not go away simply because one side wishes to avoid conflict. There is no such thing as a unilateral peace.
In the coming weeks and months, we will hear much debate about the future of the United Nations. Such talk is futile. The United Nations is a world body in rigor mortis. It is not, as it set out to be, a body for promoting progress. Instead, the U.N. promotes stasis. And it has not, as it set out to do, brought about larger freedom. Instead, the U.N. winks at dictatorships by granting them the same consideration as democracies. The U.N. may truly desire world peace, it just doesn't know how to get there.
History gave the gift of freedom to many, but it overlooked many more. Is it right that we enjoy this gift without sharing it? What we now call a coalition of the willing should band together in a permanent alliance to replace groups that--like the U.N. and NATO--find themselves struggling for relevance. Those free nations that agree to fulfill the mission of the Alliance are welcome to help the United States carry the light of liberty to the darkest parts of the globe. And to those other free countries, the stingy ones that seem to think freedom is finite and must be hoarded, I ask: is the only freedom worth fighting for your own?
Okay Vger, but what do we do with all these carbon based life forms ? Just kidding. That was a joke. Actually I agree with the quotes from that magnificient document our founding fathers drafted. Would also like to note, as others have, that being a democracy does not automatically mean you support freedom. Hitler was elected. Saddam was elected. Sometimes within a democracy people are threatened or coerced into doing something bad for their own freedom. The underlying goal should be democratic societies that give their citizens freedom from tyranny and oppression. Which of course means, that some democratic societys may have to kicked out when they elect a Hitler and Saddam as their Executive Leaders.
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