Well, here we are. North Korea says it has conducted a nuclear test. The moment is nigh for the United Nations to follow through on its threat to retaliate with “unspecified action.”
In the UN arsenal of inanities, that could of course mean anything from the Security Council expressing “deep concern” to the World Food Progam doubling its 2006 allocation of $102 million worth of aid – on Kim Jong Il’s terms — for “transitional assistance.”
But seriously, if the UN has any interest whatsoever in addressing the clear and present danger of a nuclear-bomb-brandishing North Korea, there is something the UN could do, pronto. It could expel North Korea. That might not solve the long-festering problem of a totalitarian state that to this day runs a Stalin-style gulag, peddles missiles, narcotics and counterfeit currency, and has starved to death at least one million of its own people and staked its fortunes on a nuclear arsenal. But kicking North Korea out of the UN would at least provide the sort of minimal diplomatic gesture of which the UN is presumably capable. And for those inside North Korea who harbor well-founded doubts about the wisdom of their sociopathic “Dear Leader” and his murderous retinue, such a move would almost certainly come as valuable encouragement.
The UN charter, Chapter II, on membership, spells out in Article 4 that seats are open to “peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present charter,” and adds in Article 6 that “A member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”
Recall that North Korea was admitted to the UN only relatively recently, on the same day as South Korea — Sept. 17, 1991 – in one of those politically-morally-idiotically neutral gestures that have become a trademark of UN policy. Since then, North Korea’s regime has cheated on its nuclear freeze deals, sopped up free fuel and food from the Free World, and set the pace for nuclear-extortion rackets which rogue nations are eyeing with glee, and Iran has clearly embraced.
What has the UN contributed to all this? Money and prestige for Kim Jong-Il; a seat as a member of — I’m not kidding –the UN Conference on Disarmament; and a General Assembly stage upon which Kim’s reprentative, Choe Su Hon, had a chance just last month to strut, fret, and luxuriate in UN membership, along with such notables as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. By now, as North Korea’s regime celebrates its first declared nuclear test, the very least the UN could do is yank the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea placard from its place in the General Assembly hall, revoke all DPRK passes for the UN grounds, and tell Kim and his representative “excellencies” to get out.
Let no one say the UN can’t act in a crisis. With North Korea threatening to conduct an in-our-face nuclear bomb test, the UN Security Council has just wheeled out a threat of its own. If North Korea goes ahead, the UN will respond with — well, go ahead and make a guess:
A) The immediate expulsion of North Korea from the UN.
B) The urgent assembly of a coalition to launch precision missile strikes anywhere that North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il might next pop up, including one of the few dependable heat sources in the country — his motorcade.
C) Public pressure on North Korea’s neighbor, China, to actually comply with its UN treaty obligations on refugees, and offer immediate safe passage or asylum to all North Koreans who wish to flee their country — which might simplify the North Korean problem by emptying the place overnight of almost everyone but Kim Jong Il and the usual visiting Iranian missile-and-bomb experts.
D) “Unspecified action.”
If you guessed D, you are clearly spending precious time following the UN’s abject failure to stop nuclear-armed rogue states, when you could be reading Rep. Mark Foley’s emails. But you guessed right. Of course, “unspecified action” is not the only weapon in the UN arsenal. If that doesn’t work, there’s always “further action,” — or, this being North Korea, maybe another round of “additional action.”
Not only are the suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo Bay getting fat on multicultural cuisine; they are also getting an astounding parade of visitors. In my monthly column for The Philadephia Inquirer, more on a recent trip to Gitmo:
To fly into the damp Caribbean heat of this U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is to enter a place of multifaceted myth, a zone that continues to inflame the imagination of the world. And yet, when it comes to witnesses, monitors and the media, there is probably no more heavily trafficked detention center on the planet.
Since the United States began bringing suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives there more than four years ago, Guantanamo has hosted visits by more than 1,000 members of the media, from more than 500 news organizations – including Qatar’s Al-Jazeera, Egyptian TV, and such Arabic-language newspapers as Al Sharq al Aswat and Al Hayat. More than 300 lawyers have descended, many offering pro bono services to the detainees…. (entire article is here).
So … the UN, while failing utterly to stop Iran’s nuclear bomb program, welcomes Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this month to preach his apocalyptic visions on the General Assembly stage.
Then the UN on Monday anoints as its next Secretary-General –with only the procedural votes left to come — a South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-Moon, who has been deeply immersed for years in the appeasement-driven approach with which South Korea and its allies have failed utterly to stop North Korea’s rogue nuclear bomb and missile program.
And less than 24 hours after Ban clinches the backing he needs to win the keys to the UN executive suite, North Korea announces plans to conduct a nuclear test. Can we connect the dots?
