Editor:

In his speech at the United Nations on Sept. 23, President Obama let the world know that he will institute no change in our nation's subservience to the world body. Instead, the U.S. commitment will grow deeper. Part of what he stated follows:

"We've also re-engaged the United Nations. We have paid our bills. We have fully embraced the Millenium Development Goals. And we address our priorities here, in the institution -- for instance, through the Security Council meeting that I will chair tomorrow on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. This is what we have already done. But this is just the beginning."

The United States has never disengaged from the UN. So Mr. Obama's claim that our nation has "re-engaged" is completely misleading. Among the 192 UN member nations, there is none that is more engaged.

For instance, the U.S. has been waging "war" in Iraq since March 2003 under authorization supplied by UN Security Council resolutions. A mere handful of other nations have also contributed forces, but the six-plus years of struggle in Iraq have been led by the U.S. almost entirely. The constitutional requirements for a congressional declaration of war has been ignored, as it was in the wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq 1991.

The blatant disregarding of their solemn oath to the Constitution by a succession of presidents and members of Congress stems in part from the little-known Article 25 of the UN Charter. In its entirety, the passage states, "The members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter."

That commitment clearly trumps the U.S. Constitution. Incredibly, 89 senators registered their approval of this commitment in 1945 when they voted to accept the Charter and place our nation in the world body. Each of the wars our nation has conducted since then have been UN directed: the Korean War and the two Iraq wars directly and the other two via the UN-established "Regional Arrangements," SEATO (Vietnam and NATO (Afghanistan).

Even though Article 25 requires all UN member nations to "accept and carry out" Security Council mandates, very few nations do so. But the U.S always leads the way, even when a full-scale war does not result as has occurred in Samalia, Bosnia and elsewhere. Many Americans believe that the United Nations is "taking over" our nation. It would be more correct to state that the U.S. is being delivered to the world body by our own leaders.

Obama has not "re-engaged the United Nations." He has more deeply energized the delivery of our nation to the world today. The Millennium Development Goals he has "fully embraced" call for the U.S. and other nations to commit 0.7 percent of their Gross National Produce to UN-directed efforts to reduce world poverty, lower child morality, fight diseases such a AIDS, and create a global partnership for development by the year 2015. All of this may sound admirable to the unwary, but what the program really entails amounts to a huge growth in empowerment for the UN. Those funds will be used by various agencies to strengthen the world body's grip on the world.

Gordon Norman

Springville