Uncle Sam, Not Uncle Globocop by John F. McManus The John Birch Society Bulletin Less Government, More Responsibility, And - With God's Help - A Better World No. 404 - January 1993 Outgoing President George Bush, as determined as ever to "reinvigorate" the United Nations so that it "performs as envisioned by its founders," announced on November 25th his willingness to commit tens of thousands of U.S. troops to the tragic nation of Somalia Thus began another major step toward the UN's acquisition of global power No one disputes the fact that tens of thousands of Somalis have died or are about to die. Our own television newscasts, aided by dramatic photos in newspapers and magazines, have driven images of emaciated children and rotting corpses into the consciousness of virtually every American. No one who has any sense of decency can fail to be persuaded that "something" must be done. But what? Is it the responsibility of the United States to answer the UN's call for military assistance to alleviate the suffering? Can our troops accomplish such a goal for more than a few days? Should our leaders place the conduct of U.S. foreign policy under the UN's ever widening umbrella? The answer to each of these questions is a resounding No. It's All Wrong-and Dangerous It is not the responsibility of the U.S. government to settle fights between tribal warlords in Somalia no matter how many human beings they victimize. And it must be remembered that although much has been made of drought conditions in Africa, local Somali leaders and their followers are responsible for the death tolls, not some natural disaster. A nation of 4.5 million, Somalia has endured fierce fighting among indigenous clans since President Barre was ousted by a coup in 1991. As frequently happens in such circumstances, the coup leaders then turned on each other. Warring bands have forced two million natives off their lands, prevented farmers from planting crops, and destroyed livestock. Observers expect that a minimum of one-third of the population has perished or will perish before mid-1993. Huge amounts of food aid have been sent to the nation but up to 80 percent of these shipments have been stolen and kept from needy recipients. A few days after Mr. Bush announced his intention to dispatch troops, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Smith Hempstone sent a strongly worded message to his superior at the State Department claiming that the planned deployment would be a fruitless and expensive gesture. "The warlords will fade away and wait us out," he warned in his December 1st dispatch. "Then when we leave, they will go back." Instead of seeking new ways to build the world body's authority and prestige, our leaders should be completely disentangling this nation from any and all UN ties. But Mr. Bush has indeed found a new way to boost the UN with Operation Restore Hope. This latest UN action sets a precedent that will almost surely be used to further erode national sovereignty. Henceforth, suffering people within the borders of a supposedly sovereign nation can expect the world body to intervene on their behalf. Might such a precedent be cited in the future to deal with real or imagined claims of oppression issued by militant American Indians? Or Jesse Jackson-inflamed Blacks? Homosexuals? Homeless? Unemployed? Worriers about ozone depletion, global warming, acid rain, etc.? Could the day not be too far off when the UN authorizes troops from other nations to settle squabbles within our own borders? A Wide Array of Dissenters While he was far from alone in strongly questioning the President's decision, Ambassador Hempstone's comments were the most forceful and high-ranking. In blunt language he likely expected would never reach the media, he challenged the Bush plan, asking, "To what end? To keep tens of thousands of Somali kids from starving to death in 1993 who, in all probability, will starve to death in 1994 (unless we are prepared to remain through 1994)?" The former executive editor of the Washington Times added: "I do not think Somalia is amenable to the quick fix so beloved of Americans " He recommended instead that the Somalis be left alone "to work out their own destiny, brutal as it may be." Hempstone's advice strikingly parallels a similar assessment given in 1989 by our nation's military attache at the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu. As he ended his tour of duty in the Somali capital, Colonel Girardi stated, "Sooner or later, the country will be thrown into prolonged and violent tribal conflict and no amount of U.S. assistance will change that." Then, in a surprising departure from his usual course, columnist James J. Kilpatrick sharply parted company with Mr. Bush. His December 5th column correctly noted that proper U.S. policy calls for sending in the troops when "clear national interests are at stake and all recourse short of war have been exhausted." But what about the situation in Somalia? Pointedly noting that he supported U.S. military intervention in Grenada (1983) and Iraq (1991), Kilpatrick then wrote, "The blunt, inescapable answer is that the national interest of the United States is not involved in any way in Somalia." In his December 6th column, Carl Rowan also supplied some sound perspective when he cited Thomas Jefferson's belief that our nation should avoid all "entangling alliances." It was gratifying to see the following in print: More and more, this world body is asking the United States to become the policeman of a violent and troubled world, even in places where national sovereignty would be violated and U.S. troops would be viewed as the forerunners of a new - imperialism. We are seeing an unprecedented injection of U.S. military into a faraway land strictly for humanitarian" reasons. That's hard to believe and difficult to support willy-nilly. Rowan may have missed the point when he suggested that the UN asked the United States to do the policing. And he may have meant only "very surprising" when he claimed that Mr. Bush's description of the mission as solely "humanitarian" was "hard to believe." But, as shall be noted later in this analysis, the Administration's insistence that humanitarian reasons alone prompted Operation Restore Hope is literally "hard to believe." Joining these two columnists in expressing dismay over the use of our troops in Somalia were several members of Congress who had been strong backers of U.S. military action in Iraq. Rep. John Murtha (DPA) loudly complained about the cost, the "fundamental change in policy" that has the Administration deploying troops when there is no "national threat," and the positioning of the U.S. as "the policeman of the world." Similarly, Sen. Hank Brown (R-CO) spoke out about the absence of any military threat and the presence of a "dead end" in the Somali venture. The UN Role After President Bush announced his willingness to send our military into Somalia, the UN Security Council rushed to pass a resolution authorizing the move and also authorizing the Secretary-General and the participating member states "to make the necessary arrangements for the unified command and control of the forces involved...." That unified command is to be under U.S. control. Ever-mindful of the need to pay lip service to its own Charter that forbids the UN "to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state," the December 3rd resolution claimed that the situation in Somalia "constitutes a threat to international peace and security." That kind of label could be attached to anything that occurs anywhere. The United Nations already had a large contingent of non-military personnel in Somalia to distribute humanitarian assistance and to act as "peacekeepers." Operation Restore Hope, however, is the first UN-authorized intervention in a country's internal affairs with a mandate to use offensiveforce if necessary. (Although UN troops were used in the early 1960s to crush the tiny anti-communist country of Katanga, they were deployed with the assurance that they would not interfere with that country's internal affairs.) The UN Resolution for deploying forces in Somalia authorizes the U.S. military to use "all necessary means to establish as soon as possible a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations." If shooting is necessary, shots will be fired. American service personnel may be killed or wounded in the process, but the UN's prestige and power will be enhanced. In our view, this is another instance when the Insiders in this nation have taken advantage of an incident to build the power and prestige of the United Nations. Strange though it may seem to some, the policy of America's leaders for close to 50 years has been to use the UN both to build the world body and to destroy the sovereignty of every nation - including our own. These Insiders have no loyalty whatsoever to America; they want world government. If the incident in Somalia hadn't been assessed as more attractive than the ongoing carnage in Bosnia, Mr. Bush would probably have decided to send our troops to Bosnia-and then helped to obtain a UN resolution to authorize the move. And, if it hadn't been Somalia or Bosnia, then it could have been Liberia, Nagorno-Karabahk, Haiti, India, Cambodia, or numerous other nations overrun with civil unrest or humanitarian catastrophes. Adding More Red Ink From the earliest days of the John Birch Society, Robert Welch frequently pointed to the Conspiracy's ability to obtain "multiple gains" from the activities it spawns. While Operation Restore Hope will indeed build the power and prestige of the UN, no one should overlook another plus for the Conspiracy that seeks to destroy our nation and make of it a mere province in a satanically-inspired world government. To that conspiratorial goal must be added the cost of this operation that will add billions to an already horrendous national debt. It will be welcomed only by those who want to see our nation continue down the path to fiscal suicide. At a time when every department of government should be cut back in order to wipe out the annual deficit and begin to retire the national debt, the Insiders have arranged for another extremely expensive adventure on the other side of the globe. At our Society's founding meeting in 1958, Mr. Welch outlined the plans of the conspirators of that day to take advantage of a then-current incident to further their domestic agenda. He spelled out the first of ten gains he felt these enemies were seeking to achieve as follows: "Greatly expanded government spending ... for foreign aid, for every conceivable means of getting rid of ever larger sums of money-as wastefully as possible." More unnecessary spending has to be considered as one of the "multiple gains" sought by the Conspiracy with this decision to create Operation Restore Hope. Could America be destroyed by debt? Yes indeed. If we continue to do nothing but add to our red ink totals, the day is not too far off when the dollar will be repudiated, first by foreigners, and the "saviour" offered to us will be world currency under the UN. If we are forced to accept UN world currency, we will have abandoned any pretense of national sovereignty. Both the recent presidential candidacy of Ross Perot and some new books about the frightening consequences of America's massive indebtedness have brought many Americans to an awareness of the seriousness of this situation. But both Perot and the books in question fail to outline the proper way out of the financial mess into which we have been put. Once again, the John Birch Society has the correct answer with TRIM and its emphasis on the House of Representatives. Clinton Equally Committed President-elect Clinton has put his stamp of approval on all that the Bush Administration has done regarding Somalia and the UN. Though he will surely inherit a situation where our troops are deployed in this faraway country, he finds no difficulty with any of the objections raised about the operation. Why should he? As a sitting member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, he has eagerly surrounded himself with the thinking and the personnel of each for many years. He may, in fact, be more heavily disposed toward CFR and TC goals than his soon-to-be predecessor, a proclivity he seemed to be telegraphing with his mention of the debt he owes to Carroll Quigley during his speech last summer accepting the Democratic Party's nomination. Even before his cabinet and senior advisers have been named, it is safe to say that the disastrous course being pursued by our nation's leaders will continue. The way to stop the treachery and climb out of the entanglements already in place is through the educational program of our Society. William Jasper's new book, Global Tyranny... Step By Step, has arrived at a most propitious moment. When anyone expresses the naive belief that the UN is needed, or that it is doing a good job, this book will help to expose the reality of the world body. Having read this book thoroughly, I can assure you that it is attractive, easy to understand, thoroughly documented, and frightening. It contains some sorely needed lessons about the wonders of the American system now in grave jeopardy. Its many photos will entice a casual reader to become a serious reader. It even addresses in its very first chapter the Insiders' plan to create a UN standing army to deal with whatever the UN decides "constitutes a threat to international peace and security." Will this book help to recruit more members for JBS? It certainly will! If we recall Mr. Welch' s admonition to watch for "multiple gains," we will have no trouble realizing that the current UN-authorized action in Somalia will also be cited as reason to create such a standing army for the world body. It took the New York Times only two days to follow Mr. Bush's November 25th decision to send troops to Somalia with an editorial entitled "Help the U . N . Arm for Peace . " Arm for peace? George Orwell's Newspeak lives! Exciting plans have already been created to counter the Conspiracy's latest move and build the resistance needed to save this nation. See what we are planning on page 11. Let's start 1993 off with a really intense determination to undermine UN popularity, wake up many Americans, and take our own leap forward toward breaking the Conspiracy's grip on this nation. It can be done. ---- Original copies of this material may be ordered from: The John Birch Society Post Office Box 8040 Appleton, Wisconsin 54913 (414) 749-3780 ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)