Neocon,
I agree with you that under the U.S. Constitution this can and should not happen, but through the use of Executive orders, Congress is bypassed!...As far as your reference to the U.N. not having its' own army, please see below:
worldnetdaily.com
THURSDAY JULY 6 2000
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THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
U.N. rapid reaction force
House bill pushes for United Nations standing army
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By Jon E. Dougherty
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
A measure that would create a United Nations Rapid Reaction Force, calling
for the U.S. representative to the U.N. to push for the creation of a
6,000-man force capable of deploying to trouble spots on a moment's
notice, has been introduced into the House of Representatives.
The bill, HR 4453, titled the "United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and
Security Force Act of 2000," was referred to the House Committee on
International Relations May 15. First reported nationally by the Asheville
Tribune, the measure was sponsored by Rep. James P.McGovern, D-Mass., and
to date has garnered 19 cosponsors.
According to a bill summary, key portions of the measure require the
president to direct the U.S. representative to the United Nations to use
the voice, vote and influence of the United States to urge the U.N. to:
* establish a United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force
under the authority of the Security Council that is trained to
standardized objectives;
* recruit force personnel; and
* provide equitable and reliable funding.
The bill would require lawmakers to establish clear mission statements as
to when, where and how the force would be used, "including when the
Security Council determines that an imminent threat to the peace requires
a preventive deployment or that ongoing gross violations of human rights
or breaches of the peace require rapid intervention."
The bill also sets a 6,000-man limit on the number of forces that would
constitute such a unit, made up of "volunteers from U.N. member nations
who will be deployed only by Security Council resolution."
Finally, the measure limits deployments to six months and "requires [the
forces'] basing and infrastructure service to be leased from existing
member nations' institutions.
According to lawmakers, the bill is in response to Presidential Decision
Directive 71, which, according to a bill summary, "calls for a stronger
United States response to maintaining order in societies recovering from
conflict." If passed, the bill would "improve coordination of United
States efforts and ... enhance the ability of other countries, the United
Nations, and regional organizations to plan, mount, and sustain operations
in support of the rule of law."
It would not, however, support deployment of a rapid reaction force to an
area where "peace has been restored to a region but the rule of law has
not yet been reestablished."
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who reportedly favors the bill,
said Feb. 24 in response to delayed deployment of U.N.-sponsored police
forces to Kosovo, that "present international capabilities are not
adequate" to deal with such demands.
"In response, we must recognize that old models of peacekeeping don't
always meet current challenges," Albright said. "Peace operations today
often require skills that are neither strictly military nor strictly
police, but rather, a combination of the two.
"The international community needs to identify and train units that are
able to control crowds, deter vigilante actions, prevent looting and
disarm civilian agitators while, at the same time, winning the trust of
the communities in which they are deployed," concluded Albright.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also supports the rapid reaction force.
In his April 2000 report, "We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations
in the 21st Century," Annan said the process the U.N. implements in
launching peacekeeping missions "has sometimes been compared to a
volunteer fire department," a description he said was often "too
generous."
"Every time there is a fire, we must first find fire engines and the funds
to run them before we can start dousing any flames," Annan said. "The
present system relies almost entirely on last-minute, ad hoc arrangements
that guarantee delay, with respect to the provision of civilian personnel
even more so than military."
The House summary also noted that in "July 1999, 4,700 civilian police
officers were requested to be deployed to the Serbian province of Kosovo,
but as of April 17, 2000, the United Nations has deployed only 2,901 of
the requested police officers, resulting in the breakdown of law and order
and the escalation of unrest in Kosovo."
And legislators supportive of a U.N. rapid reaction force say that in the
case of Sierra Leone earlier this year, in Srebrenica, Bosnia, on July 11,
1995, and in a few other recent cases, U.N.-backed troops and civilian law
personnel have been chased out of their assigned duty areas, sometimes
leaving behind equipment and supplies, stolen and used by warring
factions.
Lawmakers also complain that U.N.-sponsored peacekeeping missions are
staffed, almost by design, by "undertrained" personnel, and that such
missions are routinely "understaffed."
Though the measure states that Congress and the U.S. government would
retain the right to back out of any U.N. Security Council decision to
undertake peacekeeping missions "not in the interests of the United
States," critics worry nonetheless that U.S. interests could too easily be
undermined by a supranational world body with no accountability to the
American people.
The measure will likely face stiff opposition in the Senate, where it
would ultimately end up at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired
by vehement U.N. critic Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.
In a speech to the U.N. Security Council in Washington, D.C., on March 30,
Helms offered to work with the U.N. to improve the U.S.-U.N. relationship,
but said, "others want the U.N. to travel down a very different path"
anathema to U.S. national interests.
"They envision a United Nations which has the sole authority to legitimize
the use of force, and to insist on the authority to sit in judgment of the
foreign policy decisions of the United States," said Helms. "They are
pressing for an International Criminal Court that purports to hold
American citizens under its jurisdiction, even if the United States has
neither signed nor ratified the treaty. They see the U.N. as the central
authority of the new international order of global laws and global
governance."
Helms added, "Improved U.S. relations with a U.N. that travels down this
path will be difficult, if not impossible." |
