Secretary General, Kofi Annan, told the British press, that the U.S. war in Iraq is "illegal." He does not understand, or accept the fact that U.S. military action is made "legal" by the U.S. Congress, not by anything the U.N. may do or say.

Had the U.N. effectively enforced any of its resolutions on Iraq, adopted since the first Gulf War, perhaps the U.S. would not have been forced into war. The U.N. has become completely ineffective.

How long has this bloated institution been discussing, debating, and delaying action to stop the slaughter of innocent people in Sudan by government agents? The same government, incidentally, that was chosen to sit on the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission in 2001, while the U.S. was kicked off the Commission.

If the U.N. is good at anything, it is concealment, cover-up and corruption. There is no better example of this attribute than the unfolding "Oil for Food" scam run directly out of Kofi Annan's office since 1997.

The U.N. ignored allegations of corruption prior to the fall of Saddam. Not until U.S. troops moved into Iraq and confiscated a truckload of records did the magnitude of the scam come into focus. It is now known that at least $10 billion was skimmed from the program for Saddam and his cronies. Saddam's "cronies" seem to include high-level officials at the U.N. and government officials in France, Russia and Germany, as well. There is growing evidence that the bombs and bullets used by the insurgents in Iraq were bought with money from this scam.

Still, Kofi Annan refuses to release the records for independent review.

The U.N. is beyond reform, beyond rescue, beyond hope.

The United States is charting a new course. In the last four years, the United States has walked away from the Kyoto Protocol, withdrawn from the International Criminal Court, blocked the U.N. global taxation scheme and launched a war without the U.N.'s approval. The United States is beginning to lead the world away from global governance administered by a corrupt, moribund global bureaucracy, toward a world where national sovereignty is supreme. Moreover, the United States has declared that sovereign nations, shadowy organizations or misguided individuals who use terrorist tactics against America are targets for elimination.

This new direction has spawned enemies abroad and at home. The global governance proponents know that their dreams will die without the participation of the United States. Dictators and tyrants know that their dreams will die if their rule is replaced by representative governments, which allow people to be free to pursue their own prosperity.

This new direction is in its infancy. If allowed to continue, it can transform the world, not by regulatory control, as is the essence of global governance, but by unleashed opportunity, as is the essence of freedom.

If the people of Iraq and Afghanistan can build a representative government, in which the people make their laws based on the principles of freedom, these nations will become beacons of hope throughout the Middle East.

President Bush told the U.N. General Assembly this week that the advance of freedom always comes at great cost. The United States paid that cost for the people of Europe a half-century ago. Now, the U.S. and its coalition partners are paying the cost for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The cost of freedom is always painful for those who are called upon to pay. But the pain is far less than that endured by the innocent victims of ruthless terror. Failure to act – as is the chief characteristic of the U.N. – or refusal to pay the cost allows and encourages the terrorists – who delight in videotaping the beheading of innocent victims, who capture a school full of innocent children and shoot them for sport, who fly fully-loaded airplanes into the World Trade Center, and who continue to try desperately to prevent the birth of democracy in Iraq.

The United Nations has chosen not to pay the cost of advancing freedom in Iraq, or the cost of relief in Sudan, or the cost of honesty in the Oil for Food scam. The United States, on the other hand, has established a clear and honorable goal: the birth and nurture of freedom as the only remedy to terrorism, and a new and brighter future for the world.