Before committing U.S. forces to the “humanitarian” relief of Syrian “rebels,” Obama, his National Security Council, Congress and interested citizens should read former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick’s book Making War to Keep Peace. If intellectual, diplomatic and cultural acuity meant anything within the beltway, Jeanne Kirkpatrick should have been the first woman president – not the previous president pro tem who served beside her husband and who seeks the office now. It’s been said a politician thinks of the next election whereas a Statesman thinks of the next generation. America lost its’ last icon of statesmanship when she died in 2006.
Her truth-to-power approach at the U.N. earned her the accolade “the most dangerous woman in the world” – high praise from Russian president Gorbachev. Here’s why statesmanship is dead:
The Obama administration is falling prey to the same syndrome presidents from George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Bush, Jr. have succumbed to for the last twenty years – the CNN Effect. CNN (and almost all media now) either does not have America’s best interest at heart or they do not understand what “America’s national security interests” are. However, as Ms. Kirkpatrick points out, the average American citizen does -and they are asking “Why?” Just because his press puppet mouths “it is in the best interest of the United States” doesn’t make it so. The American electorate has been fed that line for several decades with dismal results: Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, Haiti, Somalia and Desert Storm to name a few.
In Making War to Keep Peace: Trials and Errors in American Foreign Policy from Kuwait to Baghdad, Jeanne Kirkpatrick describes America’s historical foreign policy consisting of three goals and values: 1. preservation of our own freedom, independence and well-being; 2. to help (within available resources) preserve and expand democratic governments in the world; and 3. help prevent violent expansionist leaders from gaining control of governments of major states. The latter goal is necessary because history has proven once violent elites gain access to resources of states they begin with murder and denial of freedom in their own countries and move on to war with other states.
I was incredulous when I heard President George H. W. Bush call for a “new world order” in which international organizations and alliances should be the primary arbiters of policy within the borders of independent nations. But it was Roosevelt who started this slippery slope of surrender to the whim of the United Nations when he assured a joint session of Congress on March 1, 1945 that the Yalta Conference spelled “the end of the system of unilateral action, exclusive alliances and spheres of influence, and balances of power …..which have been tried for centuries and always failed.” Well, it wasn’t true. Those factors ensured the preservation of free and democratic societies. Subsequent “international” efforts at keeping the peace have all failed miserably. In the interim our leaders have surrendered America’s right to act independently for our real national security interests. “World peace” is not an achievable goal with multinational governments imposing their varied national interests.
The preamble to the Charter of the United Nations cites its’ goal “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” by requiring in Article Two that members “respect the sovereign equality of all states, the peaceful resolution of disputes, the nonuse or threat of force, and non-intervention in internal affairs of others.” Yet, in 1945, shortly after FDR’s death, the U.N. failed to protect the territorial integrity of Eastern Europe. Not only has it failed to preserve democratic governments in every instance, it has violated its’ own charter by becoming an active intruder on the internal policies of independent states.
Kirkpatrick believes Bush ’41’s interminable efforts to get the U.N. to act on Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait delayed a military response and allowed Iraqi troops to continue murdering, raping and destroying Kuwait. Clinton’s capitulation to U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali’s demand for direct command and control of UN troops in Somalia led to rules of engagement that emboldened the warring clans and killed American troops. According to the U.N. Charter, once the U.N. Security Council passes resolutions authorizing military intervention, command decisions are those of the ground force commander – not the U.N. Secretary General. Boutros-Ghali claimed this authority not only in Somalia but went further to micromanage tactical decisions in Bosnia. His unqualified ineptitude for commanding troops on the ground from his comfortable office in U.N. headquarters -as well as his continuous denial to provide air support to beleaguered U.N. forces and starving civilians- created rules of engagement allowing the massive slaughter of civilians and the deaths of U.N. troops. This was the largest power grab in the history of international relations…..and our presidents genuflected in response.
According to a Mossad agent who saw it, Bush ’44’s acquiescence to the U.N. gave Saddam Hussein time to move his WMD’s to Syria. This- like his father before him- only postponed an effective unilateral response creating the “crisis” in Syria today. The U.N. Charter specifically prohibits intervention in an independent nation’s internal issues – including civil war. Where is the Organization of Arab States? They are doing the same thing they did in Kuwait: sitting on the grandstands gleefully calling U.S. military “slaves” for fighting their issues. We have no national security interest in Syria… but stand by for Bosnia Part Deux.
