It’s becoming clear that “New World Order” is not just a fantasy of conspiracy-minded rightwingers. President George Bush popularized its use in 1990 in order to legitimize the Gulf War by resuscitating the then-moribund United Nations.
Like Saddam Hussein, the New World Order concept survived the Gulf War intact, and now we’re seeing the unintended consequences. New World Order is a handy label to describe the various policies that are challenging our sovereignty, trying to bore into our bank account, and turning over U.S. service personnel to the U.N.
The World Trade Organization (WTO), which the United States officially joined when Congress ratified the GATT treaty in its lame-duck session in December 1994, recently ruled against the United States in its first case. Why is anybody surprised! This result was widely predicted.
The adverse WTO ruling is embarrassing to President Clinton and his U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, who had promised the liberals that the WTO would never diminish our environmental regulations. It’s just as embarrassing to the Republican leadership in Congress who promised conservatives that such an attack on our sovereign right to make our own laws would never happen.
At issue was the Clean Air Act’s strict limits on pollutants in gasoline, which Venezuela and Brazil were unable to meet. In the name of “free trade,” they took their complaint to the WTO and won.
Since the United States does not export gasoline to Venezuela or Brazil, in the name of “free trade” the WTO can now order “cross- retaliation” trade sanctions against other U.S. industries that are wholly unrelated to the gasoline industry or the EPA regulations.
It was the 1994 GATT treaty that made this adverse ruling and unfair punishment possible. The old GATT did not allow it.
The second New World Order item is the announcement by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in London that he wants to finance the nearly bankrupt United Nations by imposing a global tax on foreign exchange transactions. A tiny rate of 0.5 percent would produce an incredible $1.5 trillion, while a minuscule rate of 0.05 percent would produce $150 billion.
Another global tax he is toying with that would produce billions of dollars is a surcharge of $1.50 on all international airline tickets. It turns out that one of the chief promoters of these far-out notions is the Clinton-appointed administrator of the UN Development Program, James Gustave Speth.
Some claim that Boutros-Ghali is floating the global tax in order to shame the United States into paying the $1.4 billion the U.N. claims we owe. Some are suggesting that, if we don’t pay up, the U.N. should cut off our U.N. voting rights, hit us with late-payment charges, and impose a ban on hiring U.S. citizens for U.N. jobs.
But Americans don’t think they are getting their money’s worth from our payments to the U.N. Our assessments are 25 percent of the regular U.N. budget and 31 percent of the peacekeeping costs.
The third New World Order item is the court-martial and conviction of an American soldier, Army Specialist Michael New, for refusing to wear the UN uniform on a so-called “peacekeeping” expedition to Macedonia. The other 550 servicemen in his unit donned UN helmets, replaced their U.S. I.D. card with a U.N. I.D. card, and dutifully marched off to Macedonia, where Americans have no business being in the first place.
When Specialist New’s commander gave the U.N.-uniform order to the 550 troops on October 2, 1995 in Schweinfurt, Germany, the only authority he cited consisted of “UN guidelines,” “National Command Authority,” “UN Charter,” “Domestic Law,” “Commander in Chief,” and “UN Security Council Resolutions.” He mocked objections to the U.N. baby-blue helmets by saying, “They look fabulous.”
Actually, the baby-blue UN helmets don’t look either military or masculine. Maybe that’s why they have been seen only very fleetingly on American television.
New argued that the order to alter his uniform was a violation of the Army’s regulation against wearing any unauthorized insignia, decoration, medal or uniform. He said, “I am not a U.N. soldier. I am an American soldier.”
You have to wonder why the Clinton Administration didn’t simply reassign New to some other duty, since the twice-decorated soldier has an exemplary record and was willing to obey any order to go anywhere in the world so long as he could wear a U.S. uniform. But no, Clinton was determined to carry out this first step in transforming American soldiers into U.N. soldiers and wouldn’t let one soldier stand in his way.
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) calls Specialist New an American hero and has been joined by at least 60 other Congressmen in co-sponsoring a bill to declare it unlawful to require a member of the U.S. Armed Services to wear insignia, indicia or headgear indicating any allegiance to or affiliation with the United Nations.
All the Republican Presidential candidates should be addressing these New World Order issues.
