Get the United Nations Out of the United States

IRVINE, CA-- Understandably, the call for Kofi Annan's head grows louder as details emerge in the Iraqi "oil for food" scandal.

But this particular scandal is only the tip of the iceberg of the United Nations' evil, said Dr. Andrew Bernstein, senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. "The fundamental evil of the United Nations is that it draws no moral distinction between free nations and dictatorships. For example, Sudan's regime enslaves tens of thousands of its black citizens, and Iran is the source of Islamist anti-Western terrorism--but both are UN members in good standing. When President Bush seeks the UN's permission to defend America, he seeks that permission in part from the very regimes which threaten the lives of American citizens."

"It's obvious," said Dr. Bernstein, "what evil regimes gain from UN membership: the cloak of civility and the spoils of unearned money, both awarded to them through the participation of free nations. What does the United States gain from UN membership? Nothing. It only loses."

Dr. Bernstein recalled a slogan from the 1960s "that offers the only solution to the problem of the UN: ‘U.S. out of the UN, UN out of the U.S.' If one wonders what to do with the vacated UN headquarters in New York, it could be used to house an organization of free nations; in doing so, the U.S. would be declaring to the world that it no longer tolerates the evasion of the life-and-death moral difference between freedom and dictatorship."