Post-ed Again!

This appears in Canada's best national paper today:

Democracy was never a UN objective
Re: The UN’s Real Role, letter to the editor, Aug. 9.
While I agree with the sentiment of Bob Hoye’s letter and share in his displeasure with the decline of the United Nations, his assessment of the UN’s original mandate is inaccurate. The idea of “making the world safe for democracy” was Woodrow Wilson’s vision for the League of Nations. Harry Truman sought to “stand up for free peoples everywhere” when he announced the Truman Doctrine and involved the United States in global affairs to extend democratic peace, while containing the spread of Soviet communism. Democracy promotion is an American objective, not a UN objective. The United Nations has never had a mandate to promote and secure democracy; rather, it is an organization predicated upon the sovereignty of states with a mandate to secure peace among “equal” member states. It would be a wonderful thing if the UN, or some alternative, shared the cause of the United States and its democratic allies, including Canada, but this is sadly not the case. Richard McAdam, Halifax

This is the original letter that prompted the response:

The UN’s real role
Re: Anti-Israel Bias on Full Display, Aug. 5.
Steven Edwards writes that the United Nations has little motivation to enforce its own resolution to disarm Hezbollah. This marks the ultimate slide to corruption. Initially regarded as an agency that would “make the world safe for democracy,” the UN had slipped considerably by the 1980s when William Buckley observed that its objective had changed to “making the world safe for socialism.”
Then Saddam became a blatant offender of UN resolutions and, in not acting, the mandate became “making the world safe for dictatorships.” Regrettably, with the lack of initiative to disarm Hezbollah, the objective has now been warped to “making the world safe for terrorism.”
Bob Hoye, Vancouver.

I will note that though this is the 4th letter I've written that's appeared in the Post, it's the first one that is on the subject of my true forte: international relations. I'm glad that I got to work in the names of two of my favourite US presidents and my favourite global objective: extending the democratic peace. Yeah. Any thoughts?