Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00324)

Zack Lansdowne wrote:
> The following remarks by Dr. Robert Muller are being circulated around the
> Internet. I don't know who the original author is.
The U.N. is a wonderful example of a case where, if a body does not 
evolve, it is dead.

There is certainly a need for a central group for international 
diplomacy. The question is whether or not the U.N. is capable of 
handling the job, and, if not, can it be reformed so that it is. The 
United Nations was built on the world as it was immediately after WWII. 
For all intents and purposes, it still is built based on those attitudes.

Also, it was built on an idealism which may have been a bit too 
forward-looking, in terms of human evolution. Checks and balances, such 
as were put in the United States Constitution to prevent a majority from 
tyrannizing a minority, do not exist in the United Nations. The result 
is that a coalition of tiny countries can dictate rules to the majority 
of the world's population, and exclude themselves from those rules (or 
make rules which are oppressive to other countries, but irrelevant to 
them). The result has been the many resolutions which have been treated 
as jokes, to the point where the U.N. is teetering very near to becoming 
a joke itself. Anarchy, or even pure democracy, without proper checks 
and balances, inevitably leads to feudalism, at least in our current 
level of evolution (this is why Communism has failed; it is built on the 
assumption that anarchy leads to Communism, and that in a Communist 
system, greed and evil will no longer exist; the latter is especially 
key, because a Communist system does not contain protections against 
either).

I have seen a TS Lodge where the president decided that peace was more 
important than the fiduciary duties of the Lodge. The result was a lot 
of money wasted, and a Board unable to get anything done, because one or 
two members would threaten to break the peace if they didn't get their way.

As long as there are those who refuse to accept peace, peace is 
impossible. A government which supports an army bears responsibility for 
that army, even if the army pretends that it has no connection to that 
government.

Now, sometimes, when two sides are involved, it is hard to determine 
which is the war-monger, and which is willing to live in peace. The key 
is the question, who is willing to back down? If one side says, "We'll 
stop killing you if you stop killing us", and the other side says, 
"We'll not stop killing you until every man, woman, and child is dead", 
then it is clear which one is the war monger.

In the case of Iraq, they invaded a neighboring country. A war was 
fought. They lost, but the government was allowed to remain in power. 
One condition of that government remaining in power was that they 
disarm. They have refused to do so. For 12 years. Until there was a 
threat of military reprisal, they didn't even pretend that they intended 
to disarm. Even now, the attitude is, "We'll get rid of any weapon if 
you can find where we're hiding it. And we will deny we even have the 
weapons until you find them."

The United States is being called a war monger. But there are two sides 
to a treaty. The countries that fought against Iraq have kept their 
promises. Iraq has not kept its promises. The terms of surrender 
included penalties, should Iraq not keep its agreement. The question is 
when, if ever, these penalties should be enacted. Countries like France 
and Germany, who have been enriching themselves at the cost of the 
oppression of the people of Iraq, want to keep the status quo. The 
United States, however, has discovered that keeping a country contained 
will not keep it from using armies who use the fact that they don't wear 
uniforms to disassociate themselves from the countries for whom they 
fight against the United States. It doesn't particularly matter if the 
army that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001 is an Iraqi 
army; since Iraq's surrender, the United States and their allies have 
been attacked by armies which ARE supported by Iraq. And if Iraq 
supports those armies, there is no reason not to expect Iraq to give 
those armies weapons; if Iraq is willing to use them against its own 
people, it has shown no reason to believe that they won't use them 
against a country they consider to be an enemy.

While it is true that facing down a bully will not always cause the 
bully to back down, it is also true that giving in to a bully will NEVER 
make the bully back down. Iraq has been waging an indirect war against 
the United States and its allies, even since 1991. If anybody can find a 
way other than war to make it stop, then the United States will gladly 
back down.

Bart Lidofsky