Dead Cant Rant

I just finished this book tonight, and I have to say it truly is an eye-opener into the sheer insanity that passes for civilized behavior at the United Nations. Actually, though the book purports to be about the UN, only the first 100 or so of it’s 140-odd pages (the rest are an Appendix of photos and document scans) actually deals with the UN itself. The remainder are split between the European Union (spiraling into a Socialist Hell, led by France and Germany) and NATO (Abandon? No. Reform? Yes.).

Babbin’s fundamental thesis is this: The UN has failed to live up to it’s founding principles and therefore has ceased to be relevant as a world body. The US should gradually pull out of the UN, forming a competing organization that is open only to democratic nations committed to certain fundamental human rights (i.e. those in the US Constitution) and has the power to act to further their common interests. Babbin cites the Coalition of the Willing and the Proliferation Security Initiative as prime examples of the way ahead. He shows that waiting for “UN approval” to engage in military action undermines our national security interests by warning the targets and giving them plenty of time to prepare, making our job that much harder. (Witness the Iraqi “resistance” by foreign terrorists, who came into the country during the US/UN debates)

One piece that opened my eyes on the reality behind the UN was the “Group of 77″, a group of Third-World countries who banded together in the 1970s to act as a giant bloc, using the UN General Assembly as a platform to extort the West.

On the European Union, Babbin shows how France and, to a lesser extent, Germany, are using the EU as a means to give themselves “superpower” status on the backs of the other 23 “lesser” European members. France and Germany routinely violate the rules they established (such as the “no more than 3% debt” rule, which Germany insisted upon and then broke) while bullying other nations into accepting the EU charter and demanding they adopt the EU constitution — even though doing so would force the signatories to surrender national sovereignty and not have much sway in the EU Parliament. (since 23 member nations only have 40% of the total population, while two others — yes, France and Germany — have 60%)

Finally, when discussing NATO, Babbin suggests the US lead the way in reforming the aging, Cold War organization. He argues that NATO is an effective organization because it is explicitly not a political alliance but a military one, and offers a three-step program for reform:

1. The US should only obligate itself to mutual defense of nations that have the same core values, i.e. liberty and equality. France is consistently against these values, so must be expelled — an easy task, since they already withdrew militarily, in the 1960s.
2. The US must only defend nations willing to spend realistic amounts on national defense. Proportionally, this means 2.5% or greater of the nation’s GDP. Unlike Germany, which at 1% GDP assumes the US will be willing to clean up any mess they make — again.
3. The US must be willing and able to defend certain nations and territories for no other reason than they are strategically and/or economically significant, both to the US and it’s allies.

Other parts were especially vile and disgusting:

• The UN Human Rights Commission sanctioning “all available means” for the Palestinians to fight Israel, and stating the Palestinian suicide bombings should be ignored.
• A photo of a UN outpost in Lebanon, 15 feet from a Hamas headquarters. People from both camps share phones, coffee, and generally have a good ol’ time.
• A plaque given by a UN representative to a Palestinian Authority member, depicting the whole of Israel under the Palestinian flag (a particularly nasty piece of propaganda the PA uses to demonstrate their desire to drive Israelis into the sea, literally), complete with the UN seal on the image.
• Hamas admitting they have used UN Relief Workers Agency vehicles, including ambulances, to ferry explosives, personnel, and orders to terrorists preparing to commit atrocities against Israelis.

The book is an incredibly quick read, and will not only show you the problems that currently exist, but also how to prevent the same problems in the future.