Fifteen years ago our countries launched the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since its entry into force, trade and investment flows have increased, investment has grown, and our economies have become more competitive. The benefits of expanding trade have flowed to businesses, farmers, workers, and consumers.... Today we met to celebrate our achievements and to lay a course for the future.

Yes, you have just read something produced by government bureaucrats working in the ministry of propaganda — the NAFTA Free Trade Commission (FTC) to be exact. For those with a stomach for it, you can read the full version of the FTC's joint statement of October 19 here.

Force is the operative word in the "Free" Trade Commission's opening statement. NAFTA has nothing to do with real free trade. It has always been about managing the flow of money and wealth into the coffers of those who wrote the agreement for their benefit.

G20 representatives have hailed their recent summit as a major step in the battle against the global recession. Gordon Brown, UK prime minister and architect of the global give-away, praised the actions that he said would usher in a “new progressive era of international cooperation,” and the beginning of a “new world order.”

Brown, host of the summit, managed to convince representatives from the 20 industrialized nations to pump $1 trillion into the International Monetary Fund. All of this money, in the form of no-strings-attached low interest rate loans, will then go to “emerging” countries from Eastern Europe, and Africa and Asia. Brown assured the attendees that the plan will set all countries on the road to full recovery. United States president Barack Obama, commenting without the aid of a teleprompter, added “We have a sick patient – I think we applied the right medicine. I think the patient is stabilized.” The implication of course is that the “patient” will need further care in the near future.

Lost in the reverie was the realization that low-interest, no-strings-attached loans are precisely what plunged the US into the present credit crisis that fueled the supercharged recession. Not content with simply throwing money at the IMF, the G20 reps also took action to crackdown on nations which provide tax havens. Offending countries will face a trade blacklist.

Energized by their success, the European-style socialists and their newest recruit, President Obama, also agreed to develop new rules and regulations that would prevent the odious “fat cats,” (formerly known as businessmen), from pocketing ill-gotten bonuses. Commenting on the new regulatory measures, anti-capitalist French prime minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that the clampdown on tax havens indicated that “a page has been turned” on the story of “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism. Presumably, he was referring to the last page.

G20 representatives further agreed to restructure the IMF balance of power by 2011. New reforms call for heads of international organizations to be selected based on merit, rather than nationality. A pledge was also made to resist protectionism. Americans can rest assured that cheap, toxic Chinese products will continue to enjoy the beneficial regulatory measures that have made China our trade master.

Especially noteworthy is the expansion of the Financial Stability Forum into the Financial Stability Board. The new FSB will provide governance and monitor the world economy, along with the IMF's much larger redefined role. Under the expanded FSB, financial regulators and central bankers from G20 nations will determine standards and regulations internationally, including American financial institutions. This is an actual loss of sovereignty in that American elected oficials will no longer govern or set laws for American financial institutions; cross-border policy and financial sector management are the order of the day. While this is not a wholesale surrender to a supranational financial system, it's a gigantic step in that direction.

In the end, the G20 summit used the pretext of a global recession to consolidate more power in the hands of a few while continuing the inexorable march to what Gordon Brown openly referred to as a “new world order.”

Michael E. Telzrow is Executive Director of the National Railroad Museum and a Contributor to The New American magazine.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrated its 60th anniversary last weekend. Part of the festivities, with President Obama amongst the celebrants, included welcoming Croatia and Albania into membership, bringing the total of the alliance’s participants to 27 nations.

Though hardly anyone refers to its full name any more, NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO's most active current operation has tens of thousands of U.S. forces and a sprinkling of troops from other nations fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. To put it mildly, Afghanistan is quite a distance from the North Atlantic. But that doesn’t bother our leaders even a little bit. 

In a recent op-ed column appearing in the Los Angeles Times, Professor Andrew Bacevich, a frequent commentator about military matters, urged that the U.S. quit NATO. He concludes that calling the pact “a successful alliance today is the equivalent of calling General Motors a successful car company.”  In other words according to the professor, NATO has outlived its usefulness.

But there’s more to the story. When NATO was being considered in 1949, internationalist-minded Secretary of State Dean Acheson, the pact’s chief promoter, stated very clearly that the alliance derived its legitimacy from Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and that “it is an essential measure for strengthening the United Nations.” It has lived up to that description for the past 60 years.

Only 13 senators voted against U.S. entry into NATO. They pointed out that the pact requires an attack upon any one of 12 original nations to be considered an attack on all requiring appropriate military response from every participant. (As of this past weekend, an attack on any of the 27 nations would require the U.S. to respond militarily.) Ohio Senator Robert Taft claimed in 1949 that membership in NATO would likely “involve us in disputes where our liberty is not in fact concerned.” A little over a year later, what concerned him became reality.

In June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations responded with a Security Council resolution calling on all nations to aid South Korea. President Truman sent U.S. forces into the fray, but Taft and others objected insisting that, without a constitutionally required declaration of war, the president’s action was illegal. Truman responded by asserting that, if he could send troops to NATO, he could send them into Korea. And he got away with it. Taft insisted, “If this incident is permitted to go by without protest, at least from this body [the Senate], we would have finally terminated for all time the right of Congress to declare war, which is granted to Congress alone by the Constitution of the United States.” He even worried that in the absence of a war declaration, the President’s usurped authority could be used to send troops anywhere, “into “Malaya or Indonesia, or Iran or South America.” Sad to say, he was correct.   

There has been no congressional declaration of war since December 8, 1941 when Congress responded appropriately to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. None preceded U.S. action in Vietnam, Panama, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In each case, a Security Council resolution was cited as “authorization” for the use of U.S. forces. Once the blinders have been removed, anyone should be able to see how NATO has indeed helped to strengthen the United Nations. There is, therefore, excellent reason for the United States to withdraw from the alliance in order to maintain the independence of our nation.

NATO’s partisans claim that the pact saved Western Europe from further Soviet advance westward. But all during the years that the USSR posed a threat to the West, the Moscow regime was kept alive through massive aid sent from the chief NATO member, the United States. In the meantime, NATO, along with its stepchild SEATO (the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization – now defunct) and the UN itself, dictated how our nation could use its military arm. The war in Korea has never been settled and 45,000 U.S. troops continue on station in the Korean peninsula more than 50 years after the shooting stopped. The Vietnam War ended in defeat after our forces were stymied in how they fought all during its years. American forces are now involved in UN Security Council and NATO-authorized actions in Iraq and Afghanistan where they are tasked to combat, not an enemy nation, but a military tactic – terrorism. Is it any wonder that the struggle continues? No army in history has ever succeeded in fighting a tactic. 

Withdrawing from NATO is certainly called for. But so, too, should the U.S. withdraw from the United Nations. America’s military should never be sent into battle except to protect the lives, liberty and property of the American people. And it should never be used in any war without a formal declaration of war issued by the U.S. Congress. Did entry into NATO initiate the current misuse of U.S. military? Yes, but without entry into the UN, there would be no U.S. involvement in NATO. Exiting both is long overdue. 

President Obama has sent the United Nations Human Rights Council notice that the United States will be bidding for one of three empty regional seats in May, as part of his “new era of engagement,” with the international world.

Obama’s administration admits that the UN’s HRC has been less than a champion of human rights, but by joining, the United States can achieve a better balance and redirect the focus of the organization. That’s the theory, anyway.

The United States is a shoo-in because New Zealand has agreed to withdraw its own bid in order to ensure America’s entry, along with Belgium and Norway. The United States will have a three-year term, with one vote and no veto at the Geneva-based headquarters.

Obama defended his decision saying it would “advance America’s security interests.” Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N stated, "The U.S. is seeking election to the Council because we believe that working from within, we can make the council a more effective forum to promote and protect human rights."

Madame Secretary of State Clinton stated, “Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy. With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system to advance the vision of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights. We believe every nation must live by and help shape global rules that ensure people enjoy the right to live freely and participate fully in their societies.”

But there are critics and then of course, there is the actual record of the UN’s HRC.

Ex-ambassador John Bolton denounced the decision, saying, "This is like getting on board the Titanic after it's hit the iceberg... There is no concrete American interest served by this, and it legitimizes something that doesn't deserve legitimacy."

The HRC has a more than dismal record. Supposedly in put place to promote human rights across the globe through scrutiny of member states, instead it has upheld the rights of the abusers by failing to condemn or outright ignoring the biggest transgressors of human rights.

In 2007 the HRC passed, bypassing regular procedures under highly irregular circumstances, "institution-building” measure 1503 that makes it harder to adopt country-specific resolutions against abusers, thereby weakening any effect it might have had.

Case in point: China.

In February 2009 China’s human rights record was examined under the Universal Periodic Review of the HRC. A report on China was completed but the issues of political and religious persecution were left untouched.

Instead, China was allowed to tout it's economic and educational advancements. The head of the Chinese delegation, Li Bao, in a burst of national pride said: “Huge investment has also been made to protect the religious practices, cultural identities and other heritages of ethnic minorities,” while back home, the Chinese government was busy suppressing and oppressing the Tibetans, Mongols, Uighurs, practitioners of Falun Gong, and Internet users and journalists.

Country after country and speaker after speaker sang the glories of human rights conditions in China. Algeria decried the politicization of China’s record, while Egypt approved China’s excessive use of the death penalty, and troubled Sudan lauded China’s “re-education” labor program.

The conclusion was that everything’s fine in China. No resolution was passed against that country’s well-known human rights violations.

In fact, on April 1, Chinese bosses have vowed to “severely crack down on any separatist activities” by Tibetans who refuse to stay “emancipated.” They were liberated you know, in 1959 by Communist Zhao Enlai. China’s  “death vans” are becoming more commonplace, and there’s another arrest of a Catholic bishop. And the beat goes on, but the HRC looks the other way.

Focus on Cuba, Belarus, North Korea, and Zimbabwe was also redirected under 1503, thereby eliminating the horror of abuses in those countries from ever being discussed.

The UN’s HRC is a forum for polemics and nothing more, having no real bite in the resolutions they do pass. Members do not take human rights violations seriously. The United States should never enter into any engagement with such a fraudulent board, and should sever it’s ties with the UN altogether, posthaste.