The "global democratic revolution": behind the false flag of a worldwide campaign of liberation, the Bush administration and its allies are strengthening the institutions of global governance--including the UN.

"There comes a time," pronounced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an April 28 address in Santiago, Chile, "when the spark of freedom flashes in the minds of all oppressed people, and they raise their voices against tyranny. The Community of Democracies must match the bravery of these men and women with the courage of their own convictions. We on the right side of freedom's divide have an obligation to help those on the wrong side of that divide."

Rice's imagery recalled President Bush's second inaugural address, in which he claimed that his administration had ignited "a fire in the minds of men"--a phrase, significantly, first used to describe the embryonic Communist revolution in 19th century Russia. From the president on down, administration officials have extolled the vision of a U.S.-led "global democratic revolution," an open-ended campaign to upend autocratic regimes throughout the Middle East and elsewhere.

Although the Bush administration's global crusade is commonly perceived to be an outgrowth of the post-9/11 "war on terror," it actually represents a continuation of the globalist foreign policy of the Clinton and Bush I administrations. And as with those earlier campaigns, the Bush administration's crusade is helping to strengthen institutions of global governance.

"Empire of Liberty"?

Secretary Rice had traveled to Santiago to address the opening plenary session of the Community of Democracies. "To advance our democratic consensus, all free nations must insist that upholding democratic principles is the surest path to greater international status," stated Rice. "The Community of Democracies is one of a growing number of international organizations that make democracy an actual condition for membership."

"The democratic character of states must become the cornerstone of a new, principled multilateralism," she continued. "International organizations like the Community of Democracies can help to create a balance of power that favors freedom." One way to accomplish that end, she stated, "is to work through the United Nations Democracy Caucus to support reform of the United Nations. In particular, we should encourage the creation of a legitimate human rights body within the United Nations." She also urged support for the UN Democracy Fund, a new multilateral foreign aid program proposed by President Bush in a September 2004 address to the UN General Assembly.

It's not difficult to imagine the torrential outpouring of indignant abuse that would ensue from conservative commentators were such proposals offered by a president named Bill Clinton, and a secretary of state named Madeleine Albright. But because of the administration's unearned reputation for unilateralism, what would then have been denounced as wooly-headed globalism is now celebrated as visionary patriotism.

"With the rekindling of his Christian faith, President Bush clearly sees the purpose of the United States and its global mission through the United Nations," rhapsodized former State Department official Patrick Mendis in a June 1 Washington Times column. "For this mission, America needs to support the reform-minded president to advance his global agenda because he manifests himself as an instrument of [a] higher power as reflected in our credo, annuit coeptis, 'providence has favored our undertakings.'"

To accomplish this supposedly sacred mission, continues Mendis, we need "a global body" that acts upon "universal values that are essentially enshrined in the American founding documents--which are indeed spiritual .... Now is the time to support Mr. Bush and our congressional leaders to see a greater destiny that has begun in the Middle East and elsewhere. Our intentions are neither colonial nor imperial but to transform the global body into an 'empire of liberty.'"

The Community of Democracies and the United Nations Democracy Caucus are just two avenues through which the Bush administration seeks to build a UN-centered "empire of liberty." Another route is offered by the annual Jerusalem Summit.

Participants at the Jerusalem Summit have included religious, political, academic, and military luminaries from the U.S., Europe, and Israel. Prominent neo-conservative figures such as former Defense Department adviser Richard Perle have also attended, as have conservative commentators such as Alan Keyes, Cal Thomas, and Joseph Farah. Most of the participants have been vocal critics of the United Nations, often to the point of calling for the organization's abolition. Yet they apparently see nothing amiss in endorsing the creation of an alternative world body that would perform the same functions and promote the same principles as the UN--as long as membership in that new organization is restricted only to "democratic" nations, and it displays its commitment to "moral clarity" by endorsing and promoting the Bush administration's "Global Democratic Revolution."

A "Democratic" World Body

"The civilized world would be better off were the United Nations in its present form to disappear," opined Isi Leibler, senior vice president of the World Jewish Congress (and an organizer of the Jerusalem Summit) in an op-ed column. "Such views are being increasingly expressed by many people, including sober analysts of the international scene."

As the "sole superpower and leading democracy in the world," he continued, "the U.S. should now consider creating a new multilateral association of states limited to countries that are broadly democratic and display respect for human rights. Such a body could also provide genuine collective responsibility and serve as a vehicle to promote democracy throughout the world."

The same idea has been endorsed by Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, whose book The Case for Democracy has been publicly endorsed by President Bush as something of a manifesto for the "Global Democratic Revolution." The official "Jerusalem Declaration" fleshes out that concept.

"The United Nations Organization has betrayed its democratic principles, turning into a tribalized confederation hijacked by Third World dictatorships, eager to aid and abet radical Islam in any way possible," asserts the declaration. "While the West is the founder and the financial sponsor of the UN, this agency in its present form cannot guarantee the survival of our civilization." (Emphasis added.) Accordingly, the document calls for creation of a Council of Civilizations with the mandate to "reach an agreement on common moral values and adhere to them in promoting brotherly co-existence of different nations on earth. It will support international laws, foster security and advocate equitable economic and environmental policies."

To most honest observers, this proposal appears to call for an organization that would supplement the UN, rather than supplanting it. As the declaration acknowledges, this is exactly the case: "The emergence of the Civilizations Council will not render the UN obsolete; the latter can still perform a number of useful functions, including humanitarian tasks, though power should not be used to prop up totalitarian regimes whose very existence contradicts the UN charter and the laws of humanity."

But this amounts to a double bait-and-switch. First, rather than ending the drive to global government, the approach offered by the Jerusalem Summit would simply alter the model of vehicle being employed. Second, since the proposed council would be devoted to upholding the UN Charter and aiding the work of existing UN agencies, it would be an appendage of the existing world body, rather than a replacement for it.

One favored refrain of the administration and its supporters is that in the wake of 9/11, we have no choice but to wage a global war for democracy. A central theme of the Jerusalem Summits has been that creation of a Council of Civilizations is necessary to provide "moral clarity" in that global struggle.

"In the days following September 11," recounted Representative Bob Beauprez (R-Colo.) in a keynote address at the November 2004 Jerusalem Summit, "President Bush made it clear to the world that regardless of what they call themselves or where they hide, if your mission is terror, then the United States of America is going to find you and put you out of business."

"And so, George Bush went to the United Nations and made his case against Saddam Hussein, and challenged the UN to 'be relevant,'" continued the congressman. "He asked the UN to simply demonstrate that they meant what they said in passing a multitude of resolutions ... which Saddam had violated. And as has become the standard, the UN backed down."

This was typical of the "dysfunctional" UN, insisted Beauprez, condemning the body as well for its supposed reluctance to aid the Bush administration's Glorious Global Democratic Revolution. Promoting freedom worldwide, declared the congressman, will require "leadership with moral clarity and the willingness and conviction to call evil by its name, and take aggressive action against it.... If the UN continues to be dysfunctional, then we seek other means. This Summit is a good example...."

Although Rep. Beauprez endorsed creation of the council, he also made it clear that the UN should not be abandoned outright. "Many of us have concern with the UN," he observed, "but amid the problems there is much good"--for example, the work of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which he said "demonstrates the power of education and understanding to the people of the world."

While few Americans have heard of the Jerusalem Summit and the proposed Council of Civilizations, the concept has become embedded in discussion of various proposals to "reform" the UN, particularly among neo-conservative academics and pundits. And it is just one aspect of an ongoing campaign to misdirect the public by transmuting widespread and growing hostility toward the UN into support for false alternatives that would actually strengthen the institutions of global governance.

Militarization, Not Abolition

As geopolitical analyst Anne Williamson points out, terrifyingly few Americans understand the dire implications of the Bush administration's efforts to "reform" the UN into a suitable instrument of the Global Democratic Revolution.

The "Average Joe is left thinking the administration wants to clean the place up, what with the oil-for-food scandal and the UN peacekeepers' sexual abuse, and, he thinks, that's probably a good thing," observed Williamson in a recent essay for Sanders Research Associates (a British intelligence news service). "If it doesn't work, then Bush will just shut it down, and ... that, too, would be a good thing." Unfortunately, this is not what's really going on.

Instead of cleaning it up or shutting it down, the Bush administration actually seeks to "militarize the UN" as a way of sharing the financial and manpower burdens of its global revolution. "In exchange for militarization," predicts Williamson, "the Bush administration may well offer an international tax ... so that all countries might share in the global 'responsibility' of Bush's War on Terror."

This would also include a "blood tax" on American families in the form of a return to conscription. Working in collaboration with the "enterprising left," warns Williamson, the Bush administration will likely devise "a palatable framework of 'universal service' ... in which all of America's young people will be registered for national service and, drawing on personal information gleaned from the giant governmental databases now being built [via the No Child Left Behind law], will be assigned to community service, combat service, or homeland defense"--or UN-supervised overseas "peacekeeping" duty.

America's Founding Fathers well understood, and clearly warned about, the dangers of embarking on open-ended international crusades on behalf of "democracy" or other abstractions. By enlisting under "banners other than our own," even though they be the banners of foreign liberty, warned John Quincy Adams, our government's mission would insensibly be turned from liberty to force; our national independence would be stolen from us; and we would find ourselves enslaved.

The Bush administration's Global Democratic Revolution, in which the drive to "reform" the UN plays a central role, is the very embodiment of what Adams warned our nation to avoid.