Entangling Alliances: George Washington vs. the UN
By Tom DeWeese
web
posted March 4, 2003
There are a lot of people in this country who
don't believe the United Nations is a threat to American sovereignty and independence.
Many on Capitol Hill will tell you that there is not a single word in a single
UN document that says the UN will control land in this country. Technically that's
true. In fact, most UN documents take great pains to include language to specifically
state that each nation will maintain its own sovereignty.
Here's why the
UN is in fact a threat and how it all works. Sovereignty is the answer to the
question: "who's in charge?" You have to answer that question before
you can answer the parallel question: "who's responsible?" To have true
sovereignty over our land we the people, through our elected representatives,
must be in charge of decisions over it and we must have the responsibility to
carry out those decisions.
Keep in mind that you can voluntarily give
up both control and responsibility. However, even if it is voluntary, it's still
loss of control. The United States has been taking that path of voluntary surrender
of control for several years through acceptance of a number of United Nations
treaties and agreements. It is through this matrix, this spider's web of so-called
"international law" that this nation cedes control to the United Nations.
Consider just a few of the UN treaties and agreements that the United States
has already agreed to abide. They include the World Heritage Sites Treaty, UNESCO,
Agenda 21, the Convention on Climate Change, and The Man and the Biosphere program.
Each of these is part of an agenda called "Sustainable Development"
which calls for changing the very infrastructure of our nation, away from private
ownership and control of property to nothing short of national zoning and a whole
lot more.
In 1796, George Washington warned his new nation "…Against
the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow
citizens) the jealousy of a free people out to be constantly awake, since history
and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of
republican government." Washington said "The great rule of conduct for
us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have
with them as little political connection as possible."
Sustainable
Development combines social welfare programs with partnerships between business
and government, using environmental issues to make it all appear to be urgent.
This environmental agenda is driven by the United Nations through two specific
UN organizations, the United Nations Environmental Program and the International
Union of Conservation and Nature.
Would it surprise you to learn that
six agencies of the United States government are active members of the International
Union of Conservation and Nature, including the Departments of State, Interior,
Agriculture and the Fish and Wildlife service? These agencies send representatives
to all meetings of the UN Environmental Program.
This kind of intergovernmental
cooperation with UN policy led to a showdown over the issue of control in 1995
when radical environmentalists and the Department of Interior wanted to stop the
building of a gold mine on private land, several miles from Yellowstone National
Park. This federal department simply called in the UN's World Heritage Committee
to visit Yellowstone, whereupon the committee declared the park to be the world's
first endangered heritage site. That designation was enough to stop the building
of private enterprise and clearly establish who was in control.
By joining the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Culture and National Heritage, adopted in November 1972 at the 17th General Conference of UNESCO, the United States ceded control over Yellowstone National Park, the Everglades National Park, the Grand Canyon National Park, the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, Yosemite National Park, the Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and, you will find this astounding, Monticello, Jefferson's home, and the Statue of Liberty!
Webster's defines
"sovereignty" as "undisputed political power." We no longer
have this precious right, gained by the blood of patriots, over these and other
so-called World Heritage sites.
Through all of the treaties, agreements
and meetings, there grows an interlocking web of policy that takes root through
these federal agencies, even driving down into state and local community governments.
The treaties are the roots of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the
Endangered Species Act. For Congress to back out of these laws or even to consider
reducing some of the regulations that are destroying industry or private property
rights would put the United States in violation of the UN treaties!
It
is not just about environmental policy that's involved. There are equally binding
UN treaties and agreements covering education programs, child welfare, women's
rights, as well as gun control.
Most recently, the UN abandoned all pretense
of respecting sovereign independence.
The International Criminal Court
was approved when only 60 nations ratified it, but according to UN policy, the
court has jurisdiction over all nations, whether they ratified it or not. Never
in the history of international relations has such a policy even been proposed,
let alone adopted.
Now, many of you rightly complain that you keep electing
politicians who promise to corral the size and scope of government and reinstate
the rule of the Constitution, but it never seems to happen. Why? Because we are
bound by UN treaties that say we can't and by a Federal government that says we
won't.
Now ask yourselves the question again: Who's in charge? And who's
responsible?
Neither George Washington nor any of the Founding Fathers
would ever have put their names to the United Nations Charter or agreed to any
of these intrusive, interlocking treaties and agreements for the simple reason
that they diminish American control, American responsibility and American sovereignty.
The only way for the United States of America to reassert and reestablish
its sovereignty is to get out of the United Nations. 
Tom
DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report, a monthly newsletter, and
president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank headquartered
in Warrenton, VA. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy.org.
© Tom DeWeese, 2003
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