Withdraw from the UN

Withdraw from the UN

In 1974, Ayn Rand addressed the graduating cadets at West Point. An abridged version of her remarks follows: “Our armed services have preserved three characteristics that were typical of America’s birth, but are virtually non-existent today. They are earnestness, dedication and a sense of honor. Honor is self-esteem made visible in action. The army of a free nation has the responsibility to use force as an instrument of self-defense, which means the defense of a man’s individual rights. The principle subordinating might to right is to use force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use. The highest integrity and sense of honor are required for such a task. No other army has achieved it. ...To all the men of West Point, past, present and future: Thank you.” Ayn Rand came to this country from the USSR, a country guilty of the worst tyranny on earth. She expressed her appreciation for the supreme value US soldiers would defend.

The September 11 attacks led us to ask why do terrorists hate the U.S.? We can pose the same question to those who oppose war with Iraq. The anti-war view is not a demonstration against military aggressions of Russia or Iraq. It is solely America, retaliating against the threat of aggression that evokes widespread hostility. It is anti-American because our country has declared a moral right to uphold its self-interest. Protestors oppose individualism that lies at America’s foundation. They despise capitalism where the individual is sovereign, free to live his own life and pursue his own values. They despise the idea that America has the sovereign right to defend its self-interest, irrespective of the wishes of the international community.

Anti-war protestors are not against an invasion of Iraq, if authorized by the U.N. They don’t want the decision to be made by the United States. They seek America’s deferral to the UN, as “a higher power.” But it is one’s moral right to uphold one’s self interest. Undercutting America’s sovereignty by surrendering the principal of individualism to the principle of collectivism is their motive.

Islamic terrorists seek that as well. They want us to renounce individualism and bow to theocratic dictates. “Anti-war” activists want the individual to subordinate his freedom to the collective of his community. They want the government of a free people to subordinate the liberty of its citizens to the collective of the international community.

Peter Schwartz wrote on March 17, “We are smeared as “unilateralists” if we defend our interests by engaging in military action ... We are smeared as “isolationists” if we defend our interests by not sending troops on altruistic, “peacekeeping” missions. Every refusal to sacrifice ourselves to the demands of others provokes the same essential response.”

The United States will not capitulate to anti-American protestors. We will not mollify the U.N. We will act on our moral right to defend ourselves, regardless of the wishes of any other nation. The choice of how the United States defends itself is not to be made by the collective called the U.N. Can any American believe that cynical France, resentful Russia, and the enlightened powers of Angola, Cameroon and Chile should decide our security? The only thing that gives the U.N. legitimacy is the United States, i.e., our money, our might and our moral sanction.

We should withdraw from the U.N. and let it fail as a debating society. This would permanently unshackle U.S. foreign policy from the debilitating consensus of the corrupt collection of regimes that run it.