Originally published on the CGS blog on March 4, 2011.
In a surprising speech during a meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) yesterday, Representative Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) stated that the United States should completely withdraw from the United Nations. Rep. Rohrbacher said that it is “flawed that we look for a global policy when half the members [of the UN] are gangsters, thugs, and lunatics…” No, I’m not making that up. Those were the exact words spoken by a member of Congress, one of the few people who represent us before the diplomats and leaders of the world. And frankly, it’s embarrassing.
To suggest America doesn’t need the United Nations is like suggesting that Michael Jordan, even in his prime, didn’t need any teammates. No one, regardless of talent can win a basketball game alone, one-on-five. And no nation, no matter how powerful can solve the kinds of problems we face today alone. On a number of issues such as peacekeeping, nuclear non-proliferation, and humanitarian aid to third world countries, the UN allows us to do things we would want or need to do anyway but at a much lower cost in money and people.
While the UN does occasionally have problems with mismanagement and corruption, Rep. Rohrbacher’s statement about UN members is, at best, shamefully naïve. Yes, many member states are not democratic, but does that make them “gangsters” or “thugs” or “lunatics”? Of course not! Even if we think some of them don’t practice good governance and don’t offer as many freedoms to their people as we’d like to see, we still have to engage them in debate and use the resources they can provide through the UN to solve problems. In a speech on February 11, U.S. Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice said:
“Now more than ever we need common responses to global problems. And that is why America is so much better off—so much stronger, so much safer and more secure—in a world with the United Nations than we would be in a world without it.”
Later in Rep. Rohrbacher’s rant, he spoke even more combatively, stating that the UN is “an organization dominated by crooks, gangsters, and dictators.” Again, the stupidity and folly behind this statement is baffling. How can we get other nations to work with us to achieve our goals if we insult them like this? We must be wary of the ignorant, bigoted members of our government whose extreme isolationist rhetoric is dangerous not to mention sometimes inappropriate. Now is the time to work harder than ever to ensure that they stay on the fringe of the political spectrum and never garner mainstream support.
