Tom DeWeese -- Building UN Castles in the Sky

Any international institution that votes to put Libya in charge of its Human Rights Commission and has Iraq in line to head its Disarmament Conference has sunk to such depths of moral depravity it should be driven from the world stage. This same institution, the United Nations, having no shame whatever, has decided the United States of America should build them a new skyscraper with an interest-free loan.

Recently it unveiled its plan for a top-to-bottom renovation of its current Manhattan-located, 38-floor building. The plans would also include building an additional 30-story tower, thus nearly doubling the UN headquarters' space. Cost of the project is estimated at $1.3 billion. The UN continually pleads poverty, but that is because there's never enough money to fund its self-imposed, ever-expanding agenda.

What to do? What does the UN always do when it needs money or anything else? It looks for that never-ending pot of gold at the end of the Potomac. After constantly bashing the United States for its selfish, capitalist greed, the benevolent socialists at the UN want Uncle Sam to float a loan. But not just a loan; they want an interest-free loan!

The arm-twisting has already begun as UN officials are rounding up support for the loan at the State Department and in Congress. According to reports, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan cornered President Bush about the issue when they met last November.

Should the United States just provide the loan, no questions asked? Since the money will actually come from the pockets of the American taxpayer, perhaps the government should act in our interest by making sure the UN actually qualifies for the loan.

A good loan officer at any bank would ask basic questions like these: What, specifically, is the money to be used for? Is the project necessary and fiscally sound? What are the possibilities that the loan will be paid? Is there a sufficient credit record to permit loaning such an amount? For the American taxpayer, let's examine the answers.

The UN says it needs to repair its old headquarters and original plans called for "a comprehensive, systematic cost-efficient" capital master plan to bring the building up to modern building code requirements. For example, the building doesn't have a sprinkler system. In addition, say UN officials, the building has become expensive to run and is poorly equipped to handle cable lines or energy-saving devices, while most of the existing equipment has become too old to maintain. The UN, under that plan, was seeking to pay for the project incrementally, over twenty-five years. Okay, so far the applicant is asking for a loan, using fiscally sound reasoning. However that was the plan discussed in 2000.

Suddenly, in late 2002, it was apparently abandoned as the UN announced a grand new scheme calling for an additional 30-floor building with the whole project being financed by an interest-free loan from the United States. So we must now take a closer look at the reasons why the UN needs such a grand design, almost doubling office space.

The UN's plans for growth aren't new. It has been working behind the scenes to expand its reach and power for the better part of two decades. Many Americans and most members of Congress argue that the UN's urgent mission is to provide a place for nations to hold debates and air differences as a prevention to war. This is the UN's image as the world focuses on the activities of the Security Council, but behind the scenes the UN is rapidly changing, expanding its reach through a series of treaties and commissions designed to create a mechanism for "global governance."

In 1995, the UN released a report from the Commission on Global Governance entitled "Our Global Neighborhood." The report set forth very specific recommendations to achieve the vision of global governance. Once the report was issued, a network of NGO's (non-government organizations) was created to advance the report's agenda. As a result, the agenda outlined in "Our Global Neighborhood" was re-issued in a shorter, easy to read report called the Charter for Global Democracy.

Specifically, the Charter for Global Democracy outlined twelve goals necessary to achieve global governance. These included:

1) Consolidation of all international agencies under direct authority of the United Nations;

2) Regulations by the UN of all transnational corporations and financial institutions;

6) Require UN registration of all arms and the reduction of all national armies.

7) Require individual and national compliance with all UN Human Rights treaties;

8) Activate the International Criminal Court and make it compulsory for all nations.

9) New institutions to establish economic and environmental Sustainable Development;

11) A declaration that climate change is an essential global security interest that requires the creation of a "high level action team" to allocate carbon emission based on equal per-capita rights (Kyoto Global Warming Treaty);

12) Calls for the cancellation of all debt owed by the poorest nations, global poverty reductions and the "equitable sharing of global resources" as allocated by the UN.

Obviously, the UN is planning to expand its operation from the world-wide perception of simply a place where nations can meet to air their differences to the implementation of a global government, complete with taxes, armies and criminal courts; actions historically undertaken only by governments. Plans for a bigger complex of buildings would be necessary as the UN headquarters is transformed into the world capital building.

The American taxpayers very quickly should tell their elected representatives and the State Department that any loan application from the United Nations is dead on arrival - unless they can come up with a suitable co-signer. Better yet, perhaps the UN should just take its business elsewhere.

Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, VA. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy.org.