Abort the United Nations

WASHINGTON — I don’t know. Maybe it’s me. But I’m a little confused. I get that way when I visit Washington. Apparently, so do some of the folks who live here.

Let me try to sort it out. The Republican leadership in Congress decided to teach Bill Clinton a lesson last week by approving his request to pay nearly a billion dollars in “debt” to the United Nations — but only with a rider supposedly prohibiting the use of the money to support abortion.

The thinking in the Capitol is that Clinton will now veto the bill because of the restriction.

Huh? What’s the point? What exactly is the message that Congress is trying to send the president and the American people with this action?

Here are a few possibilities:

The only bad thing about the United Nations is that it propagates abortion.

It’s time to test whether Bill Clinton is more excited about killing unborn babies or supporting world government.

The Congress doesn’t have the courage to say “no” to the United Nations.

The Congress doesn’t have the courage simply to say “no” to subsidizing abortion on a worldwide scale.

While here in Washington I had the oppportunity to hear House Majority Leader Dick Armey explain how happy he was that President Clinton was planning to veto the U.N. payment because of the abortion rider. It seems to me, however, that the Congress is mixing apples and oranges — confusing the real issues at stake.

Sure it’s bad that the U.N. spends some of its money subsidizing International Planned Parenthood and other population control organizations and programs throughout the world. But is that the only evil Congress sees as far as the U.N. is concerned?

Worse yet, the Congress appears to be conceding that the United States actually owes the United Nations money. That is simply not true. It is provably and demonstrably false. As a new report by the CATO Institute clearly shows, it is in fact the U.N. which owes the United States lots and lots of money.

Over the past five years, the United States, through the executive branch, has illegally and unconstitutionally provided between $11 billion and $15 billion in military and other assistance to the U.N. for which it has not been reimbursed.

How does the administration justify expenditures without the approval of Congress? In 1994, the White House issued Presidential Decision Directive 25. What we know about PDD25, we know from leaks in the press. But PDD25 remains a secret document never released to the public or even the Congress. Apparently, this dictatorial directive is all the justification Bill Clinton thinks he needs to continue to spend your money and mine on supporting the U.N.’s worldwide police operations.

Can you imagine what the Founding Fathers of this country would have thought about such an outrage?

Yet, the ultimate watchdog of the government — the press — accepts such imperial decisions by the administration. The Congress not only continues to abdicate its own responsibility in representing the interests of the people on matters of spending money and war-making, it helps cover up the illegal activities of the administration. Is it any wonder we can’t get answers with regard to other scandals enveloping this White House?

So, there you have it, my friends. The so-called U.S. debt to the United Nations is as phony as the so-called “budget surplus” we keep hearing about from the president, Congress and the establishment press.

This is your money being sent abroad for mischievous reasons. They are your sons and daughters risking their lives for the ignoble cause of world government. Now you now the real story. Are you going to stand by and allow it to happen? Or are you going to do something about it?

The answer is not attaching weak-kneed anti-abortion riders to U.N. funding bills. The answer is aborting our relationship with the U.N.