Sam Gejdenson: “I think again we have to understand the fundamental principle. What the U.N. does in the post-cold-war era is carry out…”

“I think again we have to understand the fundamental principle. What the U.N. does in the post-cold-war era is carry out American foreign policy interests. If it is not in America's foreign policy interests, we use our veto to stop it. Therefore, the choice here is we continue to operate within the United Nations or we will end up having to do these things unilaterally; or even worse, we will wait until a crisis in a region explodes to a far greater crisis, to far greater costs in both human life and dollars. Mr. Chairman, the principal impact of this piece of legislation and this section would be that Saudi Arabia would not pay its U.N. dues for the next 50 years. Japan, France, and the Soviet Union, along with the United States, would ask for additional payment from Bangladesh and other impoverished countries. Think about what we are saying here. These are our national policy interests. The President of the United States, President Bush, mobilizes the world through the United Nations to stop Saddham Hussein's cut off of oil. Because it is a United Nations operation, rather than an American unilateral operation, we are able to get the Saudis and the Japanese and others to pay for the major portion of this activity. Now we would all go back to the United Nations and ask the most impoverished countries of the world to pay for our military action, to protect the West's oil supplies.”