Kick Burma Out of the U.N.

Kick Burma out, yup,,
I agree.
Maybe while we are at it, kick out a few others.
Better yet, maybe we, the U.S.A., and other countries of any civility should just walk out.

Kick Burma Out of the U.N.
May 10, 2008; Page A10

The United Nations this week said the refusal of Burma's government to allow workers into the country's devastated agricultural region was unprecedented in the history of humanitarian relief. The human catastrophe produced by Burma's refusal to permit aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis has stunned the senses of a world that has watched this spectacle for a week.

There are uncounted numbers of persons dead, homeless and orphaned. Bodies still float in water. The World Health Organization has warned there could be outbreaks of cholera and especially malaria. U.N. member-state India warned the junta the deadly cyclone was headed toward Burma on May 1, two days before it hit. Yesterday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said food relief hasn't yet reached the region because "regrettably" the junta won't talk to him.
It's time to kick Burma out of the United Nations. If the U.N. does not put in motion a process to suspend Burma from its U.N. membership, then, clearly, nothing is forbidden.

Chapter II of the U.N. charter provides for the suspension or expulsion of member states by the Security Council, which can also restore membership. We leave it to the lawyers to find words suitable for such a motion. Maybe there's something somewhere in the U.N.'s Declaration of Human Rights, which celebrates its 60th tattered anniversary this year.

Some will say that China, the junta's friend, almost surely would veto any such motion. Then let it do so, on the eve of its torch-besieged Summer Olympics.

Some will say if Burma, then why not Sudan?

Good question.

The person to press this point is John McCain, who has suggested creating a league of genuine democratic states willing to act when the U.N.'s "universal" membership fails.

Booting Burma out of the U.N. would be symbolic. But a whole world watching Burma's generals let their people die of hunger and disease is symbolic of something worse.

If the U.N. can do nothing about Burma, it should at least do something about its own self-respect.

http://http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121037607010681985.html

Radical Islam Over Runs London Streets

I will take 10 illegal Mexican immigrants to one legal Muslim any day.

At least the illegal Mexican immigrant is not about overthrowing the laws and country he comes to. The Mexican wants to work and better his future. The Muslim has no use for local laws and customs. Mexicans are accustomed to western concepts of civility. Western concepts are not foreign to Mexicans, but normal civility is not a part of Islamic peoples.

Presidential Powers

I don't believe it is any secret that I am a great fan of the columnist George F. Will.

So once again, if nobody else seen it, is a great commentary on Presidential Powers.

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, only one delegate (from ever-bellicose South Carolina, naturally) favored vesting presidents with an unfettered power to make war. Presidents, it was then thought, could respond on their own only to repel sudden attacks on the nation. "The Founders," says former representative David Skaggs, a Colorado Democrat, "counted on the competitive ambitions of the three branches to make checks and balances work." Instead, we have seen Congress's powers regarding war "migrate ignominiously to the executive."

And how far have we come?

A crucial event in the migration was Truman's decision to wage war in Korea, made without Congress and never formally ratified by Congress, other than post facto by enabling appropriations, which are not an adequate substitute for the collaborative decision the Constitution's Framers anticipated for war-making. Since Korea, America has engaged in four major wars (Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Operation Iraqi Freedom) and many other exercises of military force, but Congress's constitutional powers relevant to war-making have atrophied from disuse.

This is a column worth reading,,

The Truman Transformation

Oh, and I can say, if ever in or near Independence, Missouri, do drop by the Truman Presidential Library.

It is worth the stop.