Dick Morris: The United Nations is Trying to Become the World’s Government

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Photo Credit: United Nations Photo Creative Commons[T]he U.N. is trying to become the world’s government, superseding national sovereignty and making of the world, one nation. And who is to run this global government? The unelected bureaucrats who staff the United Nations. And who will set policy for them? The corrupt, undemocratic nations that comprise the U.N. General Assembly…

The U.N. is an inherently undemocratic institution. Only 45 percent of its members are deemed to be “free” nations by the Freedom Institute. And about one-third of the world’s population –including notably China –are governed, and represented in the U.N., by dictatorial governments.

When the nations of the world sit augustly in the General Assembly chamber behind name plates for each country, the spectacle is deceptive. The delegate from Russia should not be called the representative of the “Russian Federation.” He is the representative of one man — Vladimir Putin. The Chinese delegate should frankly be called the representative of the handful of members of that country’s Politburo. The delegate for Venezuela represents only Hugo Chavez.

To give the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and the other democracies the same one vote each as the U.N. gives dictatorships is a travesty.

When the U.N. was a forum for negotiation to avoid war, it made sense to take the nations as they come, treating free and not free equally. In avoiding war, it doesn’t matter if the Russian representative only speaks for Putin because it is on Putin’s say-so that a war could be launched.

But if we are talking about a global government, how can we accord one man the same power as the elected leaders of democracies elected by hundreds of millions of voters?

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Scientists: Global Warming Ended 16 Years Ago

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The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.

This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.

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International Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Calls for Jihad Against Israel

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center has urged President Obama to publicly condemn the anti-Semitic call for Jihad against Israel by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohammed Badie and to order the cutoff of all contacts with the organization until the threat is withdrawn.

In a speech reported Thursday in al Ahram, Badie said, “The Jews have…spread corruption on earth, spilled the blood of believers and in their actions profane holy places, including their own.” Badie called on Arabs to confront Israel “through Holy Jihad, high sacrifices and all forms of resistance”, adding, “Zionists only understand the language of force and will not relent without duress.”

“Badie’s rant confirms our long held view that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is the most dangerous anti-Semitic organization in the world today,” said Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, founder and dean and associate dean, of the Wiesenthal Center.

“We are not dealing with a YouTube video or a lone extremist Imam, but a call to anti-Semitic violence by a man who has tens of millions of followers and leads the organization that controls Egypt’s future,” they said. “It cannot be business as usual in Washington when such an assault is launched against the Jewish people.”

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Iran May be Preparing for EMP Strike, Would Have Devastating Consequences to US, Europe, Israel

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Just what might happen if the Iranians got their hands on a nuclear weapon? Would they fire it at an Israeli city, causing tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties? Or would they use it as a geopolitical weapon, seeking to dominate the Middle East and forcing the hand of Western powers, either subtly or by overtly threatening death and destruction to those who fail to heed their dictates?

While political scientists and world leaders have debated the likelihood of those two possibilities, there is a third plausible scenario: The use of a nuclear weapon by Iran to carry out an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against Israel, the US, or Europe. Such an attack could cause severe damage to the electrical grid in the targeted nations, to the extent that the routines of daily life — centered around the use of electrical power — could be halted, for a short or even long period of time.

An EMP is an above-atmosphere level detonation of a nuclear device that produces enough radiation to wreak havoc with electrical systems. The blast produces a very brief but intense electromagnetic field that can quickly induce very high currents in electrical devices, shorting them out. The stronger the electromagnetic field — the “pulse” — the stronger the current, and the more likely electrical devices are to “blow out.” It’s akin to a power surge that shorts out your refrigerator or TV when too much voltage surges through the electrical outlet… on a whole other scale.

While there is much speculation as to what exactly an EMP would do to electrical appliances and digital devices — scientists have differences of opinion over how badly they would be affected (the world hasn’t really experienced a direct EMP blast yet, so much of the speculation is based on educated guesses) — the far-greater concern is what an attack would do to the electrical infrastructure in a targeted area. If an EMP strike is large enough, or there are enough such strikes, the blasts could knock out power plants, electrical substations, and other sensitive equipment, causing a massive power failure that may take weeks or months to overcome. Data centers housing servers would likely be badly damaged as well, as would be communications systems.

The EMP issue is hardly being discussed in Israel, said Dr. Emily Landau, director of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University. “There isn’t much discussion of it right now, but when the discussion does begin, there is no doubt that it will focus on the balance between how much it will cost to deal with, versus how likely such an attack may be,” she said.

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More Obama Incompetency: Marines Protecting Barbados But Not Benghazi?

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When terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of this year and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, there were no U.S. Marines deployed in Libya to defend U.S. diplomats, diplomatic facilities and classified information and equipment.

However, says the State Department, a Marine Security Detachment was deployed on that day to carry out those duties at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados.

“U.S. Marine Security Guards serve at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, and at other diplomatic missions around the world, to protect and safeguard American diplomacy,” Rebecca Ross, the U.S. Embassy to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Counselor for Public Affairs, said in a statement to CNSNews.com.

“On September 11, 2012, our U.S. Marine Security Detachment carried out its regular duties which include providing internal security, preventing the compromise of classified information and equipment, and providing protection for U.S. citizens and property located within official U.S. facilities,” Ross said.

On August 16, less than a month before the terrorists struck the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the U.S. Marine Security Guard Force in Barbados led a physical fitness test for young athletes.

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United Nations’ Effort to Tax, Regulate Internet Gaining Steam

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U.S. Ambassador Terry Kramer warned on Friday that a proposal to give a United Nations agency more control over the Internet is gaining momentum in other countries.

Proposals to expand the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) authority over the Internet could come up at a treaty conference in Dubai in December. European telecommunications companies are pushing a plan that would create new rules that would allow them to charge more to carry international traffic.

The proposal by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association could force websites like Google, Facebook and Netflix to pay fees to network operators around the world.

Kramer said the idea of an international Internet fee is “gaining more interest in the African states and also in the Arab states.”

He said the United States delegation to the conference will have to redouble its efforts to convince other countries that the proposal would only stifle innovation and economic growth.

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US Troops Now Training Jordanians to Defend Against Syrian Attack

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From the edge of a steep mountain overlooking a desert compound built into an old rock quarry, machine gunfire echoes just outside hangars where U.S. special operations forces are training Jordanian commandos.

The Americans, who arrived in the kingdom a few weeks ago at the request of the Jordanians, are helping them develop techniques to protect civilians in case of a chemical attack from neighboring Syria, according to Jordanian officials.

On the Syrian border farther north, British military officers recently assessed the dangers of rockets constantly falling on the kingdom and ways to shield the Jordanian population and Syrian refugees as President Bashar Assad widens his military offensive against rebel enclaves in the vicinity, according to Jordan-based Western diplomats.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II has repeatedly discussed plans for reinforcing security along the Syrian border and expressed concern over Syria’s chemical stockpiles in meetings with visiting Western allies, according to the two diplomats, who monitor Syria from their base.

They said it is believed that Abdullah has also been shopping around for an anti-missile defense system to shield his densely populated capital, Amman — home to nearly half of Jordan’s population.

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Chavez Wins Again, Opponent Concedes

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It was supposed to be a close vote; some even believed that an upset was in the works. But when the dust settled, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had won another election. This time, however, his margin of victory was considerably reduced, from 25 percentage points six years ago to about 10 percentage points on Sunday. Despite Mr. Chavez’s vow to complete the “Bolivarian revolution” he launched in 1998, he must take into account the views of the many Venezuelans who voted against him. That assumes the president will complete his six-year term — an open question given his health problems.

Mr. Chavez was a retired lieutenant colonel, best known for launching a failed coup in 1992, when he won the presidency 14 years ago. He was then, and remains, a fiery populist who has promised a socialist revolution for his country in the name of the Latin American nationalist Simon Bolivar. During his tenure in office, he has transformed Venezuelan society, using class warfare — he refers to the rich and middle class as “the squalid ones” — to bolster his support: He has nationalized private property and businesses, while providing free medical care, housing, education and food to the country’s poor.

Essential to his success is the flood of oil revenues Venezuela enjoys as a member of OPEC, the global petroleum cartel. With proven reserves putting the country in the ranks of the top 10 oil producers, oil revenues account for about 94 percent of Venezuela’s export earnings, more than half of federal budget revenues, and around 30 percent of gross domestic product. Fonden, the country’s state investment fund, accounts for nearly a third of all investment in Venezuela and half of public investment; in 2011, it received 25 percent of government revenue from the oil industry. Over the last seven years, it has absorbed about $100 billion of Venezuela’s oil revenue — much of it used to buy support for Mr. Chavez.

But those investments have been less than effective. The country suffers from power shortages and regular blackouts, a decaying infrastructure, failure to provide other basic services and a pall of corruption and favoritism that hangs over all segments of the economy. More ominous still, Venezuela has the world’s fourth highest murder rate — at least it is estimated as such, since the government stopped publishing official crime statistics in 2004.

That is fertile soil for an opposition movement, and after years of division, the various groups coalesced around a candidate, Mr. Henrique Capriles. He is the 40-year old governor of Miranda state, which includes Caracas. The son of a real estate developer, he devoted special energy to press-the-flesh campaigning to counter Mr. Chavez’s message that his opponent was an elitist who cared little about the concerns of ordinary citizens.

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Syria and Turkey are on the Brink of All-out War, Threatens US-Russian Involvement

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The cross-border bombardments that Restoring Liberty has been reporting on have now become daily occurrences. Some pundits believe that the conflict could erupt into a regional war, and worse. Here’s one report from the front lines:

If anyone believed that Syria’s bloodshed would stay inside the country’s borders, the events of the last week should have put them right. I’m in southern Turkey, near the frontier with Syria, and this area feels like the new front line of the battle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Convoys of Turkish army vehicles ply the roads down to the border and, quietly, civilians are trickling away to safer areas.

The reason is simple: cross-border artillery and mortar bombardments have become daily events. Last Friday, I went to the scene of the bloodiest incident so far, when a Syrian mortar bomb landed outside a family home in the Turkish town of Akçakale. By malign chance, a mother, her six daughters and a female relative happened to be outside, making dinner under an olive tree, when the weapon exploded beside them. They were, quite simply, cut to pieces. When I arrived, a severed human finger, covered in flies, was still lying on the ground. Three of the girls survived with critical injuries; the mother, three daughters and the visiting relative were all killed.

Additionally, the increasingly Islamic Turkey, a NATO member country that the United States is obligated to defend by treaty, forced down a Russian plane yesterday and is at risk of direct conflict with Russia:

Adding to strains with Turkey over the conflict in Syria, Russia demanded an explanation on Thursday after Turkish warplanes forced a Syrian passenger plane flying from Moscow to Damascus to land in Ankara on suspicion of carrying military cargo.

The episode on Wednesday also marked a sharp escalation of Turkey’s confrontation with Syria as authorities in Ankara ordered Turkish civilian airplanes to avoid Syria’s airspace and warned of increasingly forceful responses if Syrian artillery gunners keep lobbing shells across the border.

The forced landing exposed new fissures of dispute as the Russian Foreign Ministry demanded an explanation from Turkey, and other officials in Moscow denied that there were weapons or other military supplies on board the plane, which was carrying some Russian passengers.

Moscow’s complaints brought a quick response from Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag, who was quoted by the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency as saying “materials that infringed international regulations” had been confiscated when Turkish officials searched the aircraft.

Russia and Turkey are already at odds over the Syrian crisis with Ankara joining Western and many Arab nations in support of insurgents seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad while Moscow has consistently shielded Mr. Assad, its main regional ally. Russia is Syria’s main arms supplier.

In Surprise Move, Standard & Poor’s Cuts Spain’s Debt Rating to One Step Beyond Junk Status

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Spain’s debt rating was cut to one level above junk by Standard & Poor’s, which cited euro-region peers’ backtracking on a pledge to severe the link between the sovereign and its banks as it considers a second bailout.

The country was lowered two levels to BBB- from BBB+, New York-based S&P said in a statement yesterday. S&P assigned a negative outlook to the nation’s long-term rating and lowered the short-term sovereign level to A-3 from A-2.

The downgrade comes after Spain announced a fifth austerity package in less than a year and published details about stress tests of its banks. Creditworthiness concerns have grown since the government requested as much as 100 billion euros ($129 billion) in European Union aid in June to shore up its lenders and amid signals that the deficit target is in jeopardy.

S&P said the government’s action will probably be constrained by “a policy-setting framework among the euro-zone governments that still lacks predictability.” Recent statements on the European Stability Mechanism’s involvement in bank recapitalizations put into question the mutualization of loans to Spanish banks among euro-region nations, it said.

That possibility was a key factor in S&P’s decision to affirm ratings on Spain on Aug. 1 as it would enable Spanish net general government debt to remain under 80 percent of gross domestic product beyond 2015, it said.

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