US OUT OF THE UN--AND THIS TIME LET'S MEAN IT

When I was a child, there was a big billboard next to a bridge in town that read, "US OUT OF THE UN." It was sponsored by the John Birch Society.

Whenever we drove past it, my Democrat mother would let out an exasperated sigh and look away with a look of disgust. So I knew that had to be a bad idea. At the very least, a Republican one.

After I became a Christian, I began to understand the scandal and the disgrace that the UN represented. But the billboard was long gone, and it seemed unlikely that the sentiment would find popularity again among any but the most isolationist of Americans (like Pat Buchanan.)

But now, a new day is dawning, and we re-visit the idea again--seriously, this time. It's not just a slogan any more. It's being seriously talked about in the houses of Congress and the homes of Americans.

The ever-widening Oil-for-Food scandal has laid bare the clear reason why the world was against our action against Iraq. After all, you don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, and that's exactly what President Bush--unbeknownst to him--was proposing when he went before the "world body" and urged them to do something about the dictator they had been threatening for more than a decade.

Little did he know that Saddam was serving as an open cash register for France, Germany, and Russia. We knew we couldn't trust them; but it seems we didn't know why (another thing Porter Goss should be looking into--why didn't our own CIA know the program was rife with corruption? They could at least have warned the president about the extent of opposition he would face.) The powerful members of the Security Council, who moved heaven and earth to prevent President Bush from being true to his word, had less than no interest in deposing Saddam. "Regime change" was not on their agenda, as long as "slush fund" was on their bank statements.

This is only the final nail in the coffin, the tip of an iceberg that conservatives have been tracking underwater for decades. While moderates are content to disdain the United Nations as a "glorified debating society," chiding it for its ineffectiveness, conservatives object most to those things the U.N. actually does do--bashing Israel, handing out condoms, undermining the culture and tradition of third=world countries, undermining national sovereignty, and attempting to impose one-world government on passionately patriotic countries like the United States.

As we watch the story unravel, let us cheer on the moderates--and, yes, the liberals as even they sicken at the nepotistic fraud of the Annan family and the corporate corruption that is the UN--in their efforts to "mend it, not end it." Fine. Let them see if they can fix it.

But know this: the conservatives had it right first, and the institution is on its last legs.

And we'll be there to shoot it when it falls.