Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Clinton -- doomed & wagging, Japan collapses, Y2K bug, etc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Fred Ragan who wrote (707)	10/29/1998 12:55:00 PM
From: Sidney Reilly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1151

My Headline would be: American Taxpayers are paying for the New World Order theamericancause.org TAC Files on IMF Ominous Omnibus: A UN Payoff? As we alerted to you last week, "they" are going to cram as much as possible into the omnibus appropriations bill. Now it appears that a $1 BILLION DOLLAR payoff to the UN has been added to the pot: Our contact on the Hill reported on Friday an attempt to slip nearly $1 billion into the final omnibus spending bill to pay alleged U.S. "debts" to the United Nations. Senate Foreign Relations chair Jesse Helms (!) has reportedly joined Democratic Minority Leader Tom Daschle in backing this high priority request from the Clinton Administration. Sen. Helms justifies his support for the $1 billion payoff by linking it to internal U.N. reforms. Yet, critics wonder if any "reforms" carried out by the U.N. bureaucracy can be effective or would do anything to reduce the desires of U.N. officials to expand the organization in ways dangerous to American interests and sovereignty. U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan has been pushing initiatives to "solve" the organization's financial problems by imposing global taxes and to bolster its "peacekeeping" mission by creating its own standing army. While the U.S. has supposedly been withholding dues payments from the U.N. as a lever for reforms, it has not been starving the U.N. for funds from other American sources. A March 1996 General Accounting Office report entitled Peace Operations details that the United States has provided $6.6 billion during fiscal years 1992 through 1995 in support of military and peacekeeping operations of the United Nations. Only about $1.8 billion was credited against assessed contributions to the United Nations and only $79 million was reimbursed to the U.S. by the U. N. This, in effect, provided $4.7 billion gift to the U.N. from American taxpayers. These practices have continued, as the U.S. provides a wide array of logistical and other support to U.N. operations around the world. President Clinton has acknowledged this, but refuses to request reimbursement or a credit, calling these expenditures of American money are "voluntary contributions." Much of this money has come from the Pentagon budget, reducing the funds available to maintain American forces for American defense. Even if a deal is cut between alleged back dues and internal reform, this larger issue of extra contributions to the U.N. will have been swept under the rug. Yet, the U.N. claims the U.S. owes it even more: $1.3 billion. It's not in the best interest of the United States to pay phony debts to the U.N. that do not take into account all of the other assistance the U.S. has provided to an ungrateful United Nations. There is a chance that this $1 billion payoff is not be a done deal. House Appropriations chair Bob Livingston is reported to be opposed to including this money in the omnibus bill. This is because in order to get the White House to accept the money (!), it must be stripped of any restrictions on the use of abortions in international family planning aid. In the House, the anti-abortion movement is very strong and Livingston does not want to provoke a fight with them over the U.N. (This is not a problem in the Senate which has a comfortable pro-abortion majority). Livingston is thus the pressure point for stopping this $1 billion payout to the U.N. Unfortunately, given that Livingston endorsed the grant of $18 billion to the IMF, the odds of stopping the U.N. money are not encouraging.