UN'S FAILURES

"The U.N.'s failures just in the last twenty years are legion — in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, and currently in Sudan, hundreds of thousands have been brutalized, mutilated, raped, and slaughtered, often right under the noses of U.N. forces and observers. This failure to prevent violence and keep the peace reflects the false assumption that created the United Nations. Like its earlier incarnation, the League of Nations, the U.N. was the fruit of an old Enlightenment dream: that negotiation, diplomacy, and rational discussion could manage crises and avoid the use of force in settling conflict. Such global parliaments had been the stuff of numerous utopias over the years, a dream particularly attractive for those horrified by the nationalist-inspired carnage of modern warfare and enamored of the idea that humans could progress beyond war and violence, which were considered primitive vestiges of a less civilized world rather than eternal realities of human nature.

So instead of seeking the approval and sanction of a weak and morally exhausted U.N., we should be confident that our own political virtues and institutions will rightly guide America in the pursuit of our principles, security, and interests. The real issue we should be discussing, then, is not John Bolton's suitability for being the U.S. representative to the U.N., but the UN's suitability for advancing the interests of the United States."

Read the rest of Victor David Hanson's article here.