U.N. Friends Silent on Foreign Ops

Yesterday, on an 81 to 12 vote, the Senate passed the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2008, HR 2764. Over all this is a very good bill that has increased funding for peacekeeping, international organizations, and U.S. diplomatic capacity. The good news is that we dodged some bullets on a few bad amendments including one by Senator John Ensign who would have removed language that, at least for this year, fixed the "peacekeeping cap" that has generated about $150 million in U.N. arrears. Two amendments by Senator Thomas Coburn where also rejected that would have moved development funds from multilateral to unilateral efforts.

But unfortunately two amendments passed by large majorities that were disappointing not only in their content but by the lack of opposition to them during debate. In fact, other than a brief intervention by Senator Patrick Leahy, the bills manager, not one Senator stood up to rebut an assortment of anti-United Nations distortions.

Senator David Vitter's amendment won my "Red Herring" award and is a good example of how the Senate floor is being used to pander to the black helicopter crowd. (Vitter's the guy whose name was recently found to be in the address book of a Washington "madam".) His amendment prohibits the funding of international organizations (including the U.N.) that require the registration of, or taxes guns owned by citizens of the United States. It passed by a vote of 81 to 10.

Now on the surface this is not a problem since no international organization can, or is trying to do this. The amendment made a whole lot of 2nd Amendment gun advocates sleep easier at no cost to anyone. But here's the problem. In the debate Vitter accused the U.N. of trying to do this. He pointed the finger at the International Action Network on Small Arms, a network of 700 civil society organizations working in 100 countries to stop the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons. You can search their website high and low and look around the U.N.'s site as well on this issue and not find a word about registering and taxing U.S. guns. What you will find is how the United States sabotaged efforts to control small arms going into conflict zones. But Vitter didn't want facts to get in the way of a good story. He said:

"It is about an effort in the United Nations to bring gun control to various countries through that international organization. Unfortunately, that has been an ongoing effort which poses a real threat. This goes back to 1995, when this issue of international gun control was first put before the U.N. General Assembly. Then, in 2001, the General Assembly adopted a program of action designed to infringe on second amendment rights. In fact, from July 11 to 15 they met at the U.N. in New York City to finalize some agreements on that."

I suppose you can't blame a politician for trying to take care of his base, but it would have been nice if at least one of the 10 senators who had the guts to vote against this to stand up and say "bull." But from the U.N.'s friends and supporters not a word was said.

One more example of the "sounds of silence" before I finish this rant. Senator Coburn offered an amendment that withholds all funds to the U.N. (including all subsidiary bodies or any organization that "is authorized to use the United Nations logo" until the Secretary of State certifies that it is "fully and publically transparent" with a website that publically displays all contract, grants, awards, all audits and program reviews, and other financial information.

On the surface this seems reasonable, but it will take more than an act of Congress to get the other U.N. members states to agree, it will take diplomacy and resources (not provided) to make this happen. The bottom line is that withholding U.N. dues makes the anti-U.N. crowd happy, but doesn't go a long way towards accomplishing anything at the U.N. other than making the U.S. look like a bully. A letter written in 2005 by 8 former U.N. ambassadors still says it best:

"Reforming the United Nations is the right goal. Withholding our dues to the UN is the wrong methodology. When we last built debt with the UN, the United States isolated ourselves from our allies within the UN and made diplomacy a near impossible task. Modernizing the United Nations to be more capable and effective must be done through engaging our allies and being a leader for creating a UN for a new century.

Withholding US dues to the United Nations may sound like smart policy but would be counterproductive. It would create resentment, build animosity and actually strengthen opponents of reform. It would place in jeopardy the reform initiatives most important to US interests. The fact is reforms cost money and withholding dues impair the UN's ability to make the changes needed."

It would have been nice if at least one Senator stood up and said this. My thanks go out to Senator Richard Lugar who was the only senator on either side of the aisle with the guts to vote against this amendment. In my opinion he just earned himself some extra credit in our next Report Card.

Hopefully the bill can be fixed in conference.