When Will Non-Americans Chant "UN Out of US"?
If you perform a Google search for the phrase "UN out of US," you'll find that most of the people advocating this stance are from the baby seal clubber wing of American politics. However, at least one foreign source took up the chant last October, in an attempt to convince Americans not to re-elect Bush. So, from the pages of Pravda, here is Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey. Emphasis mine:
As a journalist who has the good fortune to write for an international journal with millions of readers around the world, I have the individual responsibility to inform you of the feeling in the international community regarding the outcome of the election on November 2nd.
As citizens of the United States of America, who have the power to endorse or to dismiss the policies of the Bush regime, you have a collective responsibility not only unto yourselves, but to the world, which will hold you accountable for your decision.
I write this letter as a citizen of this international community and as a journalist for a newspaper whose name is Pravda (Truth), I have the obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth....
It is not for foreigners to dictate to the people of the United States of America how to vote, however since the media in the USA is controlled and since people do not have access to the current of opinion in the international community, it is an act of friendship to inform the citizens of the USA how the world feels about the state of affairs today and it is our right as citizens of the world to express our concern, for the Bush administration does not confine itself to its shores....
George Bush and his administration spent four long years breaking every fibre of decency and each and every norm in practice in the diplomatic community. If New York is host to the United Nations Organization, how can it be justified to breach the UN Charter by attacking Iraq outside the auspices of this organization? Each and every resolution bears the express condition that any act of war must be the result of a separate resolution of the UN Security Council.
If Washington and London did not believe this to be the case, why did the USA and UK spend so many energies trying to secure the vote, only to deride this organism when they saw they could not win the day by diplomatic means? Hence the phrase, echoing around the international community: US out of UN or UN out of US....
Here's my suggestion: put the bureaucracy in Geneva or some other city, and have the General Assembly and Security Council hold their meetings in the Secretary General's home country. That should make everybody happy, right?
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