Put the Screws to Them, Nicely
May 2nd, 2003 - 9:32 am
Victor Davis Hanson has a few recommendations for reforming the UN, and our relationship with Old Europe. And it’s today’s Required Reading.
Victor Davis Hanson has a few recommendations for reforming the UN, and our relationship with Old Europe. And it’s today’s Required Reading.
Forget reform. The UN HQ needs to be turned into a casino-brothel. That way Americans can continue to get screwed and robbed on the East Side of Manhattan.
I agree. The UN is too far gone to be reformed. The UN compound would make a great detention center for illegal alians.
Victor seems relunctant to actually leave NATO. I understand that the US needs access to different bases in europe. Why can’t we guarantee access using bilateral treaties with the different countries involved?
NATO has outlived its usefulness both to the US and the europeans. We are spending billions defending a people who hate us and could easily defend themselves. I’m not interested in punishing europe, but it kills me to know that there are still American troops there.
Why not just leave?
Never thought I’d live to see columnists in NR speculate longingly on Russian military supervision of Europe.
Helluva time to be alive, this.
It may be emotionally satisfying to say FU to Europe, but there are many more countries in NATO than France, Belgium, and Germany with whom we need to maintain what has become a very supportive relationship. As Hanson urges, it is time to show France the door, and move troops from Germany. Belgium has no international position without Nato and various UN offices, and these should simply be removed. But it is not in the US’s interest to turn our backs on a group of nations who have twice led the world into massive conflict, not to mention nurtured a deadly threat in the defunct Soviet Union. Any group of people that volatile requires some levelling presence from the US, even if our focus of assets changes from past to present and future allies.
There are plenty of options to make the UN viable again. Step one is to put the final nail in the coffin of Europe’s love for aristocracy and make the UN a democracy-only club.
Representation must also be made proportional to something other than the victors of a war that ended almost 60 years ago. Step two, UN Security council countries are: USA, UK, Germany, Russia, Japan, India, Brazil, South Africa, and a rotation of 7 other democracies based on population and geographic location.
Today’s UN is worse than a joke. It’s meddlesome, unelected, unaccountable and hopelessly mired in corruption and moral equivalency. It ought to exist, but in a modernized and useful form.
‘We should also seek to merge France
LEAVE the UN?! Are you nuts? We have here a unique opprtunity to REMAKE the UN, and indeed, we have already begun the process. France, Germany, and Russia don’t give a flying fuck about Iraqi humanitarian issues. They never have. This was their Big Play to counteract the power of the US on the world stage with that of the EU.
We won. We have a grand chance now to decide the course of democracy in an international setting for many years to come. Let’s not waste it. We live in an international age, and we’ll only hurt ourselves by withdrawing from that.
Leave the UN? Ha. I’d prefer to make it our bitch.
For those who argue that the UN should become a democracy club, the problem is that there is NO WAY that you can argue that France is NOT a democracy. That and the fact that they have nukes makes them a lot more justified to a democracy-club membership (even permanent membership) than, say, South Africa, where Mbeki appears to be intent on ruining Mandela’s legacy.
Indeed, one of the problems would be that, if South Africa goes down the tubes, there arguably wouldn’t be too many African countries justified to sit in such a council.
Just a thought….
The Bush gang’s current policy is moving the USA ever more towards a totalitarian and militaristic democracy. It’s time to say goodbye to Nato, the sooner the better. Good old Europe should look out for new alliances with states who are prepared to defend themselves against the expansionist threat of the American empire.
I agree (in part) with the last comment. Those of us who are true-blue conservatives must continue to oppose this dangerous foreign policy, which is rooted in utopian idealism. I have been addressing these issues in my past blog posts. (Scroll down from the index page.)
This does not look good.