A resolution calling for the United States to leave the United Nations is expected to be discussed on the Utah House floor by the end of the week.

If passed, the resolution would be sent to the U.S. Congress as a statement of the House's beliefs.

The resolution was met with surprise after a House committee approved it last week for full House consideration.

"I was as dumbfounded as anybody," said Loraine Pace, R-Logan, one of two committee members who opposed the resolution. "I didn't think it would pass committee. That amazed me."

Some see the resolution as a waste of the Legislature's time.

"I think it's ridiculous, and rather silly, that our representatives are spending so much time on talking about getting out of the U.N.," said John Collins, who works with BYU's Model United Nations as a teaching assistant.

Collins and Dave Shuler, coordinator for international field studies at the Kennedy Center, said the Legislature should direct its attention elsewhere.

"We have a lot of serious things to talk about and decide, and this would be wasted time and energy," Shuler said.

Rep. Don Bush, R-Clearfield, sponsor of House Resolution 7, said the resolution is needed.

"It's not a waste of time to let Congress know how you feel," Bush said. "We send resolutions back there all the time."

Bush said the United Nations is a financial drain on U.S. funds.

"We're the main supporter of it, as far as finances go," Bush said. "We're expending hundreds of millions of dollars every year to support the U.N."

The money could be better used elsewhere, Bush said.

"We've got people here who need the money," Bush said. "Our own government is having bad financial straits right now."

Pace agreed that belonging to the United Nations may not benefit the United States financially, but said benefits from the United States' membership override any fiscal loss.

"I know it's costing us some money," Pace said. "We've been in there so many years, and are we better off? No, we probably aren't. But I think the rest of the world is better off. We have some obligations ... being the biggest and the strongest and the richest - and I think this is part of it."

Pace said another part of that obligation is participation in world discussions.

"As the world power, we need to be at the table," Pace said. "If you have the strongest power in the world, who's not willing to sit down and discuss with their world leaders. I just think it makes no sense."

Collins said he thinks the United Nations provides an ideal setting for these discussions.

"The U.N. actually provides a forum where countries can come together and talk," Collins said.

Shuler said this discussion in the United Nations is vital to world peace.

"All conflict resolution strategies have to incorporate a lot of communications and dialogues and mediation, and when you pull out, there's no more mediation, there's no more discussion," Shuler said. "Silence creates more misunderstandings and more misconceptions. And we've already got plenty of those."

Bliss Tew, a coordinator for the John Birch Society, an organization opposed to the United States' membership in the United Nations, said that since its creation, the United Nations has not been intended as a simple forum, but rather, a form of government.

"It's not just this benign, peacekeeping forum for debate," Tew said. "The United Nations was designed and brought about by men who planned to empower it and increase its authority until it could become a world government."

Tew said the power of the United Nations is further reaching than it should be.

"They have courts, they can pass sentences on individuals. They conduct military operations called peacekeeping operations. The U.N. makes treaties with nations," Tew said. "They have a world bank, their hope is to gain the ability to tax people around the world. What but a government intends to tax people? There is evidence that the U.N. is a government already and it's being empowered into having more and more sovereignty over the nations and people of the world."

Pace said the United Nation's structure isn't a threat to the United States.

"I'm not worried about our sovereignty," Pace said. "We're the strongest nation in the world. Who do we think is going to take over our sovereignty?"

Bush said the U.S. would be better off without the United Nations.

"We're a sovereign nation and we should do things because we want to do them," Bush said. "As far as things around the world that need help, like people where there's poverty and starvation, the United States is the one that is always there to take care of it anyway, and I'm sure we would, without the U.N. We do it all the time."

Tew said the United States' membership in the United Nations is being taken advantage of.

"We are becoming the global, international police enforcers for the new world order -- the United Nations," Tew said. "We're being involved in every international dispute anywhere in the world, including internal disputes in countries."

Pace said she agrees the United Nations is not perfect.

"I know there's problems with it," Pace said. "And there have been as long as it's been created."

However, Pace said the United States has not lost control over itself.

"They were implying in the meeting that some other nation is responsible for us going to war," Pace said. "I asked them what country they thought was calling up these troops. It's us."

Collins said the United States needs to participate in the United Nations because it is part of a global world.

"What one country does directly affects another country," Collins said. "If we try to close ourselves off like we did after World War I, are we really helping anybody? Are we really trying to make things better, or are we just thinking about ourselves? And really, can we do it alone, anyway?"

Bush said history teaches a different lesson.

"The Korean war was a police action by the U.N. that we took the brunt of," Bush said. "If the U.N. hadn't been so involved in that, we wouldn't have a North and South Korea at that time -- we'd be one Korea. If it had been like in World War I, we'd have gone ahead and taken care of that job and we'd have had a united Korea that was friendly to the United States."

Pace said the timing of the resolution also prompted her opposition.

"I just think the timing couldn't be worse," Pace said. "When we are facing a possible war, to even suggest cutting off dialogue with other nations does not make sense to me. I think it sends the wrong message to our troops that we're calling up."

Shuler also thinks the resolution would send the wrong message.

"I think it would be an unfortunate thing for the state and the state's image," Shuler said. "It would not look very good for the state of Utah, for us to be sort of leading the charge, or be the only state that's having serious discussion about it."

Utahns have a history of opposing the United Nations. The La Verkin and Virgin city councils in 2001 considered ordinances declaring themselves United Nations-free zones. La Verkin's ordinance passed, making it the first city in the U.S. to make such a declaration.

The council voted six months later to repeal the ordinance. La Verkin and Virgin made national headlines, prompting other western cities to follow suit, including Bingham, New Mexico, and Grant County, Oregon.



Copyright Brigham Young University 19 Feb 2003