FrontPageMag
The Beast from the East River
By
Bill Steigerwald
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 28, 2006
These days nobody but rock stars, actors and grade school kids still seem to love, trust or have much confidence in the United Nations. And Nathan Tabor, a conservative columnist, can tell you more than a few good reasons why. The title of his new book,
The Beast on the East River: The UN Threat to America’s Sovereignty and Security, gives away his major theme. I talked to him by telephone on Tuesday from his home near Winston-Salem, NC:
Q: First we should get the nice stuff out of the way: What’s the best thing the United Nations does for the United States and the world?
A: Very little. But of course the plans to eradicate world poverty, world hunger, stopping the spread of AIDS and stopping the genocide that’s taking place in Third-World countries are all good objectives to have in place.
Q: Are any of these lofty goals being met?
A: In my opinion, no, because you have the oil-for-food scandal. You have reports of molestation and rape in Congo, Somalia and other places. And on the world peacekeeping efforts in Darfur, they are begging and pleading with the United Nations to come in and help and basically getting nowhere.
Q: Everyone is supposed to love the UN. We’re still taught that it’s a wonderful global association of governments that’s designed to bring the benefits of international law, international security, economic development and social equality to the whole world. Does it really?
A: In 1945, the UN was ratified as this world organization to help protect the sovereignty of nations, but at the same time be able to bring people to the table to discuss the issues. But, over the last 30 years, it has turned into an organization that wants full taxing authority, wants full court authority and wants full military authority. They’ve gone from protecting the sovereignty of nations to wanting to undermine, erode and basically take over.
Q: We’ve heard all these criticisms about the UN -- about the bureaucracy, the corruption, the anti-Semitism, about its tenderhearted attitude toward terrorists and the creeps who run hellholes like China or Sudan. But what is its worst sin?
A: I would say the worst sin of the United Nations is its education program. It was set up by Sir John Huxley, a Marxist sympathizer who stated that there were no universal moral absolutes. This is a verbatim quote: “As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education and world-mindedness can produce only rather precarious results. As we have pointed out, it is frequently the family that infects the child with extreme nationalism.â€
Q: Is the UN succeeding in this devious mission?
A: I would say overall in the United States, yes. Pick up your child’s history book or social studies book and look: Are they teaching the Constitution? Are they teaching the Bill of Rights? Are they teaching about the Founding Fathers? Or are they teaching that Thomas Jefferson was a deist? That the Constitution is not a living document; that it only served its purpose 200 years ago and we all need to be looking at becoming part of this global community.
Ronald Reagan got us out of UNESCO. George W. Bush put us back into it because he said it had reformed its “millennium development goals.†The eighth purpose in the millennium development goals is to advance a global partnership for development. “No Child Left Behind†was a UN program adopted by Ted Kennedy and put into place by George W. Bush. That was a leftist Democrat plan and Bush adapted it and pushed it through.
It’s teaching this stuff about being part of a global community -- which sounds good on paper: “Oh, everybody love everybody and everybody get along and everybody be peaceful.†I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is not teaching the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Q: If you found yourself sitting next to a member of
The New York Times editorial page on a plane, how would you prove to that person that the United Nations was, as you say in your book, set up “to deliberately usurp national sovereignty�
A: One of the most shocking and interesting examples out there is the military. I would say to
The New York Times editor, “Look, in 1995, then-President Bill Clinton signed Presidential Directives 13 and 25. At the time they were secret documents, but now it is all public history in the Library of Congress. These directives essentially put loopholes all through the Constitution to allow U.S. soldiers to be under the control of UN generals. Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution says the president, the commander in chief, is to be over all the Army and Navy. Until you amend the Constitution, what Bill Clinton did -- and which is currently still in place -- is both illegal and unconstitutional."
Another example that would be shocking is world heritage sites. The Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Liberty Bell, Mt. Vernon are all under control of the United Nations.
Q: We hear about this all the time on the right-wing talk shows -- that the UN is taking over the national parks. How would you prove that to someone?
A: I would direct them, hopefully, to buy my book. But if not, go to Google and search “world heritage sites.†This was a treaty in 1972. It was UNESCO’s Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Culture and National Heritage. This was ratified by the United States. Currently, there are 812 properties in 137 nations. This is what it says on its Web site: “World heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.â€
Q: There’s nothing that has been implemented? No UN blue helmets at Yellowstone?
A: No, not yet. But if you go to Yellowstone there are plaques that say this is a world heritage site designated by the United Nations. But there is an example of this. In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton got the UN to declare the Yellowstone Park a “world heritage site in danger.†That gave them the so-called “international obligation†to close down a proposed gold mine about to begin operation on private property three miles away -- the Crown Butte Mines. They closed those mines. They were never allowed to start operations on that.
Q: How well is the United States doing at resisting or thwarting this UN power grab?
A: Right now I would say it is kind of 50-50. Bush puts us back into the global education agenda but he takes us out of the international criminal court, which Bill Clinton put us into. The international criminal court is part of this organization that is getting ready to bring Donald Rumsfeld up on war crime charges in Germany. This vast police organization is going to have this unbelievable authority with no distinction between who or what it wants to prosecute. Bush has been good at fighting the UN’s agenda to try to get gun registrations across the United States. He’s been good at fighting the Law of the Sea Treaty. John Bolton has been the U.S. ambassador to the UN. But now with the Democrats taking over control of Congress, it’s almost assured that John Bolton is not going to be ambassador come January.
Q: So what should we do with the United Nations beast?
A: I was just on the Glenn Beck radio program this morning, and he had the idea that we should put everyone in a boat and ship them back. I think we should hook a tug boat up to Turtle Bay, to the building, and just pull it.
In all seriousness, I think we need to elect officials who believe in the sovereignty of the United States, who believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The second thing is that people just need to become educated on what’s taking place in the UN and what its true agenda is.
