ARMING THE UN by John F. McManus Top-Down Treason In Stage III progressive controlled disarmament and continuously developing principles and procedures of international law would proceed to a point where no state would have the military power to challenge the progressively strengthened U.N. Peace Force .... -- Freedom From War September 1961 When they first hear about the disarmament program our nation has been implementing for over 30 years, many Americans are incredulous that officials in the highest offices of our government would commit such a blatant act of treason. Yet, such a plan exists and is unfolding at an alarming pace. It calls for the United States to disarm itself and simultaneously build the military capability of the United Nations. It all began in September 1961, when President Kennedy formally presented the official U.S. disarmament program described in State Department Publication 7277. Entitled Freedom From War: The United States Program.for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World, the program calls for the nations of the world -- including the U.S. -- to disarm, turn over their military might to the UN, and make the world body an unchallengeable military power. Disarmament enthusiasts have long called upon world leaders to scrap all weapons and eliminate the potential for war. But this program is not about the elimination of weapons, but about placing all military power in the hands of one global power. For several decades, pro-UN propaganda has held that furnishing the world body with enough power to "enforce peace" would benefit mankind and forestall the possibility of future wars. But there are some crucial questions that few consider: If the UN should become all-powerful, who would be left to prevent it from establishing its own brand of tyranny? If the UN were powerful enough to enforce peace, would it not also be powerful enough to enforce the will of its leaders on all mankind? America's national sovereignty is directly threatened by this program, because, in effect, it cedes U.S, independence to the world body -- in order, as most people have been led to believe, to prevent war. But the proper steps the U.S. should take to avoid war are to: 1) be strong enough to discourage attack; 2) stay out of the affairs of other nations; and 3) keep out of entangling alliances. The Kennedy Plan On September 25, 1961, President Kennedy addressed the UN General Assembly, declaring: "The program to be presented to this Assembly for general and complete disarmament under effective international control ... would achieve, under the eyes of an international disarmament organization, a steady reduction in force, both nuclear and conventional, until it has abolished all weapons except those needed for internal order and a new United Nations Peace Force." As unbelievable as it may seem, our national leaders have been implementing this very same treasonous disarmament program for the past three decades. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is part of it; the treaty banning America's use of outer space for defense is part of it; the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is also part of it. Following JFK's address at the UN, this program was rewritten in greater detail. Retitled Blueprint for the Peace Race: Outline of Basic Provisions of a Treaty on General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World, it was presented by President Kennedy to an 18-nation disarmament conference in Geneva, Switzerland on April 18, 1962. The Blueprint didn't cancel any portion of its predecessor document. As stated in its foreword, it merely "elaborates and extends the proposals of September 25, 1961." When questioned about the Blueprint, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency General Council A. Richard Richstein confirmed in a May 11, 1982 letter that "the United States has never formally withdrawn this proposal." When questioned by this author in late 1993 about the continuation of this disarmament program, Dr. William Nary, chief historian for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, confirmed: "The program has not been withdrawn and some of its steps have been implemented." Rendering Nations Powerless The Freedom From War program lists four overall disarmament "objectives," the first of which reads: The disbanding of all national armed forces and the prohibition of their reestablishment in any form whatsoever other than those required to preserve internal order and for contributions to a United Nations Peace Force. This means no more U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps controlled by this nation for the purpose of defending our vital interests. All of our fighting men would be conscripted into a global "Peace Force" -- save for those who would be assigned to a national police force designed to maintain internal order. The second objective of this incredible program is: The elimination from national arsenals of all armaments, including weapons of mass destruction and the means for their delivery, other than those required for a United Nations Peace Force and for maintaining internal order. Not only would nations be required to disband their defense forces, but they would also be forced to divest themselves of all armaments. The UN will take no chances that weapons -- especially those of "mass destruction" -- might fall into the hands of UN opponents. Toward the end of this document, its text states: "The manufacture of armaments would be prohibited except for those agreed types and quantities to be used by the U.N. Peace Force and those required to maintain internal order." This means disarmament of civilians as well -- under international control. (More about UN designs to restrict private firearms ownership appears on page 23.) The United Nations wants no one to have the capability to defend his nation, himself, or his family from its designs. The third objective addresses the need for compliance with UN-imposed obligations. It calls for: The establishment and effective operation of an International Disarmament Organization within the framework of the United Nations to ensure compliance at all times with all disarmament obligations. The UN doesn't intend to take any chances. Therefore, this program calls for an "international" snooping agency empowered to "ensure compliance" with each of the above "obligations." Several existing UN creations have the potential of becoming exactly what this portion of the overall plan calls for -- including the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN Disarmament Commission, and the peacekeeping arm of the Military Staff Committee. Whatever this supranational agency is called, it would, of necessity, operate with powers that supersede the laws and prerogatives of any government -- including the government of this nation. It would assist the UN in the enforcement of the UN's "international law." UN-Defined "Peace" The final objective of the 1961 plan calls for: The institution of effective means for the enforcement of international agreements, for the settlement of disputes, and for the maintenance of peace in accordance with the principles of the United Nations. The peace being maintained would be in accord with the principles of the United Nations. As to what those principles might include, a quick look at Chapter VII of the UN Charter reveals that the "peace" organization retains for itself the power to determine what might constitute: 1) a threat to peace; 2) a breach of peace; or 3) an act of aggression. Whenever the UN decrees that "peace" is not being adhered to, it could then turn to Article 42 of the UN Charter to "take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary" to restore its idea of peace. Such a "peace" could be very costly in lives. The UN is not interested in the kind of peace normal individuals seek and desire. Its very Charter empowers it to enforce and maintain its unimpeded global rule with military action. Moreover, the UN has called for the very powers the U.S. has proposed for it. In 1978, the UN General Assembly adopted a Final Document that called for reducing national armed forces to a level "necessary to maintain internal order and protect the personal security of citizens and in order that States shall support and provide agreed manpower for a United Nations peace force." That "peace force" would have sufficient clout to "effectively deter or suppress any threat or use of arms in violation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations." As noted earlier, the disarmament plan described in Freedom From War, and repeated in Blueprint for the Peace Race, continues as the official policy of the U.S. government. It is the clear intention of our leaders to implement every portion of this treasonous plan. Years ago, a Dallas-based editorialist referred to the three stages of this subversive plan and concluded, "One, two, three, and America's out!" This scheme must be exposed and our leaders must be stopped before it is fully implemented and U.S. sovereignty becomes a bitter memory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TREATIES VERSUS THE CONSTITUTION by William P. Hoar Which Law Is Supreme? One justifiable suspicion that has been expressed concerning UN "covenants" is that they have come to acquire power even over the U.S. Constitution. Misuse and misunderstanding of the treaty power granted to the President in cooperation with the Senate is a main reason for this extra-constitutional aggrandizement. Thomas Jefferson well advised, "In questions of power, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Yet, whereas the Founders spent great pains in framing the Constitution to limit the powers of the federal government, few observers would deny that the Constitution is today more honored in the breach than the observance. The federal power grab has grown so obvious that there has developed a renewed interest in the Tenth Amendment, which reserves undelegated powers to the states or to the people. Would that there were also more concern with international seizures of control. The Constitution, under the Supremacy Clause, does hold that treaties are the "supreme law of the land." Did the Founders mean by this that, merely by entering into a treaty, the President could do what he was otherwise forbidden from doing? Common sense and the historical record contradict this view. Thomas Jefferson, in his Manual of Parliamentary Practice, commented: "If the treaty power is unlimited, then we don't have a Constitution. Surely the President and the Senate cannot do by treaty what the whole government is interdicted from doing in any way." Alexander Hamilton, who often disagreed with Jefferson, on this point held similarly that a "treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country or which infringes any express exceptions to the power of the Constitution of the United States." Nevertheless, a number of Supreme Court decisions, including Missouri v. Holland (1920) and U.S. v. Pink (1942), used treaties to undermine constitutional safeguards. In 1948, Frank Holman, president of the American Bar Association, began a campaign in earnest to protect the rights of Americans from treaty law. The doctrine "that the treaty power is unlimited and omnipotent and may be used to override the Constitution and Bill of Rights," said Holman, is "a doctrine of recent origin...." In response to the threat, Clarence Manion of Notre Dame Law School, along with the American Bar Association, a substantial number of other professional and patriotic groups, and most of the United States Senate, backed the so-called Bricker Amendment. First introduced in 1952, the Bricker Amendment was designed to limit treaty law, and would have reinforced constitutional protections. Although the Bricker Amendment seemed a shoo-in, the vigorous opposition of Dwight Eisenhower eventually beat back the measure in 1954, and a subsequent weaker amendment failed two-thirds passage in the Senate by a solitary vote. The original Bricker language declared that "a provision of a treaty or other international agreement which conflicts with this Constitution shall not be of any force or effect." There can be little doubt that Eisenhower wanted to maintain, however wrongful the interpretation, the power to cut across the Bill of Rights. Why? Manion noted in his book, The Conservative American, that the Bricker Amendment would have run counter to any move to "surrender our sovereignty and our federal form of government through adherence by treaty to international organizations. As against the United Nations or other such supranational bodies, the Bricker Amendment would have imposed the same restrictions against the power of international organizations that the Tenth Amendment now imposes against our own federal government." The worst case did not play out in Reid v. Covert (1957), in which the Supreme Court properly held that an Executive agreement or treaty may not contravene a freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights or other amendments. However, beyond such limitations, the treaty power, noted Professor Burns Weston of the University of Iowa in the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, "is perceived as a broad power." It extends "to all matters of 'international concern,' a phrase that some claim limits the treaty power, but that the courts have used to illustrate the power's broad scope. Ordinarily it is difficult to show that a treaty matter is not of international concern even in the presence of domestic effects." This contention was made as long ago as 1950 in the Truman State Department Publication 3972, which held that "there is no longer any real difference between domestic and foreign affairs." Internationalists don't want the U.S. to enjoy the protections adopted by our Founders, which is why they have eroded the Constitution, fought the insurance that would have been provided by the Bricker Amendment, and continue today to seek to tie the U.S. with so many UN bonds. If you fancy having such United Nations diktats as the "supreme law of the land," there is a good way to ensure it: You simply need do nothing at all. -------------------------------------------------------------------- UN CLICH=C9S by Robert W. Lee A Few Tired Bromides For half a century, proponents of the United Nations have parroted misleading clich=E9s intended to short-circuit rational evaluation of the world body's inherent flaws and actual record. Following are some of the more well-worn bromides that have been used to justify, the existence of the UN -- and the reasons they make no sense. The UN is mankind's last best hope for peace. For five decades the UN has sponsored wars, passed one-sided or unenforceable resolutions, served as a forum for nations to publicly berate each other, and imposed selective justice that typically persecutes anti-Marxist countries while bolstering regimes run by terrorists, communists, and other collectivists. The UN is a war-making, not a "peacekeeping," organization. To label the UN's war-making proficiency as "peacekeeping" is equivalent to claiming that poisonous toadstools are nourishing mushrooms. After the UN Charter was ratified by the Senate in 1945, but before it went into effect, former Undersecretary of State and Ambassador to Mexico J. Reuben Clark Jr., one of the most astute international lawyers our nation has produced, drafted a cursory analysis of the document in which he asserted, "The Charter is built to prepare for war, not to promote peace .... The Charter is a war document not a peace document...." Clark concluded: "Not only does the Charter Organization not prevent future wars, but it makes it practically certain that we shall have future wars, and as to such wars it takes from us the power to declare them, to choose the side on which we shall fight, to determine what forces and military equipment we shall use in the war, and to control and command our sons who do the fighting." The subsequent UN record, from Korea and Vietnam to the Persian Gulf and Somalia, confirm the prophetic truth of Clark's analysis. A federation of nations under the UN Charter is comparable to the federation of American states under the U.S. Constitution. The implication that federalism precludes wars was disproven by our own War Between the States, one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. It was fought despite the many factors the original 13 colonies had in their favor (a common language; similar manners, customs, and religious values; attachments to the same principles of government; etc.), none of which are found in the United Nations. But more important than the lack of common bonds among the members of the UN is the fact that the UN system is irreconcilable with the U.S. system. The U.S. system is based on the concept that rights come from God and that the purpose of government is to protect God-given rights. The UN does not recognize the supremacy of God and views itself as the source of "rights." Nowhere does power tend to become so concentrated, all-pervasive, and absolute as in government. And the bigger the government, the more the corruption. Needless to say, the biggest (and most corrupt) of all governments would be an economically collectivist world government with sufficient military power to enforce its decrees planet-wide. World government is necessary to solve global problems, since national governments have been unable to do so. It is hardly a surprise that national governments have failed to solve global problems, since they have also failed to solve their own domestic problems. Here in the United States, our federal government has created and/or sustained most domestic problems by increasing its power and resources under the guise of "solving" them. Governments don't solve problems; they create them. People, on the other hand, can solve problems if government keeps out of their way. There is simply no reason to believe that huge government entities at the international level can "solve" global problems any better than big national governments have "solved" such domestic problems as inflation, debt, crime, welfare, poverty, drug trafficking, health care, etc. If the nations of the world know more about each other, they will be less likely to go to war against each other. True enough, if what we learn is that a potential adversary is far stronger than we are. But the implication that increased knowledge decreases friction between parties depends on the circumstances. Few nations on earth understood each other better than did England and Germany, yet they fought bitterly in both world wars. The UN provides a useful forum for airing grievances, and when nations are talking, they are not warring with each other. Such reasoning is predicated on the faulty assumption that the only alternatives are talking or shooting. But as G. Edward Griffin has pointed out in his book The Fearful Master: A Second Look at the United Nations, the "best way to get yourself into a barroom brawl with a bunch of thugs is to go into the bar and start talking with them. The smart thing to do is to stay out and mind your own business!" Griffin explains, with a useful analogy, why traditional diplomacy is preferable to the UN "public forum" approach: "Consider what would happen if every time a small spat arose between a husband and wife they called the entire neighborhood together and took turns airing their complaints in front of the whole group. Gone would be any chance of reconciliation. Instead of working out their problems, the ugly necessity of saving face, proving points, and winning popular sympathy would likely drive them further apart. Likewise, public debates in the UN intensify international tensions. By shouting their grievances at each other, countries allow their differences to assume a magnitude they would otherwise never have reached. Quiet diplomacy is always more conducive to progress than diplomacy on the stage." Nationalism fosters jealousy, suspicion, and hatred of other countries, which in turn raises the threat of war. This claim is based on the false premise that loving one's own country means hating all others. It makes as little sense as it would to maintain that a man who loves his own wife best hates all other women. As Teddy Roosevelt once wrote, "Patriotism stands in national matters as love of family does in private life. Nationalism corresponds to the love a man bears for his wife and children." UN efforts help to eliminate such roots of war as hunger, poverty, ignorance, and disease. Hunger, poverty, ignorance, and disease are indeed serious problems which merit concern and solution, but they are not the roots of war. Expensive armaments and large armies are required to fight a big war. Nations hovering on the brink of poverty and disease are too sick and hungry to produce sufficient armaments and effectively field armies, and too poor to keep a war going (unless their military preparations are assisted from outside by the affluent nations or the UN). In contrast, Germany's economic and social status ranked among the highest in the world prior to World War I, and there was little economic distress or unemployment in Germany at the start of World War II. History shows that it has been advanced nations, rather than backward countries, that have most disturbed world peace. The economic system best equipped to solve the problems of poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, etc., is free enterprise. It emphasizes the production of new wealth and the right of individuals to own and control private property, thereby enhancing their incentive to produce. The UN, however, champions collectivist economic policies which emphasize the redistribution of existing wealth. If the UN and its specialized agencies were empowered to take everything Americans have and redistribute it to the world's poor, overall misery in the world would scarcely be affected. There are simply too many of them, and too few of us. But if we could assist the backward nations in throwing off the shackles of socialism that are keeping them backward, and adopting instead the basic economic techniques that have been largely responsible for our own unprecedented abundance, we would be making an unparalleled contribution to world stability and well-being. The UN stands as a huge roadblock to such sorely-needed change. The UN concept of human rights is similar to that of our own Bill of Rights. There are essentially two basic concepts of the origin of rights. One holds that they derive from government, which means that government can modify or abolish them at whim. The other asserts that rights come from a source outside of government, and government's job is to protect (not infringe or abolish) them. As we have already indicated, the U.S. system is based on the former view and the UN system on the latter. This fundamental difference is perhaps best illustrated by comparing the First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights with Article 29, paragraph 3 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The First Amendment clearly states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. " In stark contrast, Article 29, paragraph 3 of the Universal Declaration asserts (referring to the supposed rights and freedoms specified elsewhere in the document): "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." Soviet spokesman Andrei Vishinsky was expressing the Universal Declaration's view of rights when he stated during the debate on its adoption: "The rights of human beings cannot be considered outside the prerogatives of governments, and the very understanding of human rights is a government concept." We must not turn back the clock to a period of isolationism. Withdrawal from the UN would not mean a retreat into so-called "isolation" anymore than absence of the UN prior to 1945 meant that the United States was "isolated." As William F. Jasper noted in his book Global Tyranny ... Step by Step, "Isolationism is a bogeyman internationalists trot out every time the American people begin to rebel against globalist, interventionist plotting. The truth is that America has never been 'isolationist.'" Indeed not. Writing in the March 27, 1965 issue of the newsletter Correction, Please! And a Review of the News, noted scholar Dr. Francis X. Gannon reminded his readers, "During our history as a confederation and Republic prior to 1945, we had established diplomatic relations with more than seventy-five powers, representative of every continent. Treaties, arrangements, and conventions between the United States and other powers embraced every conceivable relationship in international affairs: trade and commerce, arbitration, postal agreements, copyright arrangements, narcotics traffic, smuggling, exchange of official publications, naturalization agreements, visas, tenure and disposition of real and personal property, and communications." After listing specific examples of U.S. involvement throughout the world, from Latin America (Monroe Doctrine and Panama Canal) to the Pacific and Far East (Open Door Policy and Stimson Doctrine), and running back to the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, Dr. Gannon concluded by noting, "We engaged heavily in the import-export trade; American whaling vessels were familiar sights to foreigners; America's China trade became the foundation of many a familial financial empire; American scholars studied at European universities while scholars from all over the world came to the United States; American tourists and businessmen and technicians and missionaries travelled to all continents; and, the United States added to its population with immigrants from every country in the world." If you don't like the UN, with what would you replace it? The question is equivalent to a patient, upon being told by his doctor that he has a cancer that must be removed, asking, "But doctor, what will you replace it with?" When something is evil and dangerous, it is neither necessary nor wise spending time searching for a substitute. Nevertheless, there is an answer, and an obvious one: Why not try freedom? G. Edward Griffin explains that it would mean "freedom for all people, everywhere, to live as they please with no super-government directing them; freedom to succeed or to fail and to try again; freedom to make mistakes and even to be foolish in the eyes of others." Indeed, "until all nations follow the concept of limited government, it is unlikely that universal peace will ever be attained." An honestly intended federation of nations, united for the legitimate purpose of increasing the freedom of individuals, goods, and cultures to cross national boundaries, and to decrease governmental restrictions on individuals, is something most Americans could support wholeheartedly, since it would be in line with Richard Cobden's observation that "Peace will come to this earth when her peoples have as much as possible to do with each other; their governments the least possible." The UN is today, as it has been since its founding, a force pushing in the opposite direction. The pressure of world opinion that the UN brings can be a significant deterrent to conflict. The "world opinion" argument has been, from the start, a misleading hoax that has hamstrung the U.S. and the free world in many ways. It has, for instance, encouraged anti-American regimes around the world to fearlessly stick out their tongues at us, and vote against us in the UN, because they know we will not retaliate in any meaningful way that might offend "world opinion." The supposed moral pressure of world opinion elicits response only from those who are morally sensitive. The communists, for instance, are not morally sensitive, and throughout the Cold War they dismissed world opinion entirely unless it coincided with their goals. While the United States meekly revamped its foreign policy to meet the demands of an alleged UN world opinion, the communists simply continued grabbing and oppressing one country after another, shrugging off world opinion all along the way. Some advocates of the UN have asserted that the "force of world public opinion" is the UN's greatest strength. But it is a strength which has, in practice, been mostly exerted against the free world. --------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1997 - American Opinion Publishing, Inc.