ALEX GORKA | 30.06.2016
Calls to Leave United Nations Get Louder in the USA
In the immediate aftermath of Brexit, the issue of its relationship with the UN has come to the fore in the United States.
Sarah Palin, once the governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate, suggested that the United States take similar steps to leave the United Nations. «May UN shackles be next on the chopping block», she said.
Palin demanded the United States extricate itself from the UN, which «dissolves a nation’s self-determination and sovereignty». The first Republican woman nominated for the vice presidency is an influential figure. She is one of the Tea Party leaders. Her book Going Rogue has sold more than two million copies.
In 2014, Palin launched an online news network, the Sarah Palin Channel.
She has the means to influence the US public opinion.
Now the issue will hit public discourse as the pro-nationalist, anti-globalist sentiment is spreading in the wake of the British «leave» vote.
Actually Sarah Palin’s statement is just part of the story and she is not the only public figure and politician to raise it. Alabama congressman Mike Rogers wants the United States to exit the United Nations. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL3) has long been one of the most vocal opponents of the UN and recently laid out his major issues with the multi-national organization in a statement.
He believes the United States’ participation with the United Nations should end immediately. According to Rogers, the UN continues to prove it’s an inefficient bureaucracy and a complete waste of American tax dollars. «Why should the American taxpayer bankroll an international organization that works against America’s interests around the world?» Rogers asked rhetorically. «The time is now to restore and protect American sovereignty and get out of the United Nations».
Congressman Rogers’ frustrations with the UN led him to introduce H.R. 1205, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2015, which he said would «end country’s participation in the UN and any organizations affiliated with them».
Several other liberty-minded congressmen have also sponsored the legislation.
If approved, the legislation would repeal the UN Participation Act of 1945 and shutter the US government’s mission to the outfit. It would also «terminate all membership by the United States in the United Nations, and in any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body of the United Nations». That specifically includes UNESCO along with the World Health Organization, the UN Environment Program (UNEP), and more. It would end all US involvement in all UN conventions and agreements, too.
The proposed law, introduced in numerous legislative session of Congress in recent decades, would also end all funding to the UN and all of its agencies. The legislation also aims to end all US military involvement in UN military «peacekeeping» schemes and ban United States troops from serving under UN command. Finally, the bill would seek to evict the UN from US soil. It would also ban any use of American government facilities by the global outfit, while stripping UN officials and dignitaries of diplomatic immunity.
In the US Senate, pro-sovereignty sentiment is going strong. Last year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a former contender for the 2016 nomination which he lost to Donald Trump, blasted the UN and suggested it should be dismantled.
The 2014 Gallup poll showed that a staggering 57 percent of Americans believed the UN was doing a «bad job», versus 37 percent who thought it was doing a «good job».
More than two thirds of Americans were upset with the UN, and independents were also overwhelmingly opposed. But even among Democrats, half thought the UN was doing a bad job.
Indeed, especially in recent years, the UN has become increasingly vocal in attacking the US for violations of human rights and international laws. In 2014 The United Nations Committee Against Torture released a report that deeply criticized the US for racial discrimination and other Civil Rights issues, including electronic surveillance, CIA interrogations, immigrant detentions, the failure to shut down the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay etc.
The report’s findings are the «concluding observations» of hearings during the«Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment», which took place in Geneva.
A new UN report in 2015 criticized the United States for being the only country in the world that imprisons children for life without parole.
The same year the United States was sharply criticized over its human rights record by numerous countries at the United Nations Office at Geneva.
Member nations blasted the US at the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, rebuking the country over its human rights record. During the second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the US, country after country urged the US to strengthen legislation and expand training to eliminate racism and excessive use of force by law enforcement officers.
The legality of using drones by the US has been questioned many times by the international community.
In 2003 the US attacked Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council, in 2011 as a member of NATO alliance it went beyond the UN resolution on Libya.
The list can go on. There is a plethora of examples to prove that the US is a country in serious trouble with the international law.
The UN may be imperfect but at a time when the global security is under threat, let it be terrorists, rogue states of climate change, the Organization remains a vital instrument of international governance in the interdependent world. Engagement and cooperation, not isolation or unilateralism, are the keys to security. After WWII, the world would have been a much worse place without the UN. This international body has managed many conflicts. The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency have greatly contributed into preventing a nuclear war. A half dozen core human rights treaties and the creation of a Human Rights High Commissioner to monitor them have changed the world for the better. An extensive international criminal justice system has been developed under UN auspices. More broadly, the UN has addressed social problems to feed the hungry and shelter the dispossessed. It has helped to provide education to millions of children. A world without the United Nations would have thrown us back to the Stone Age. With the UN jettisoned, the US would return to pre-Second World War isolationism in the age of the computer, the Internet, and the high-speed airplane.
The global law and order are threatened by irresponsible US politicians willing to free the country from the burden of international law and global commitments. The decision will undermine every foundation the contemporary world is based on. It’s time to ring alarm bells.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
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