The Old Testament of the Bible tells us that the "good kings of Israel," the ones that did well in God’s eyes, hated the idols of foreign gods and had them cut down on the high places and broken to pieces.

By today’s standards, those godly kings would be sharing a cell block with Slobodan Milosevic.

Unlike poor Slobo, who’s been charged with ethnic cleansing, those international villians soon to top the list of the New World Order’s "Ten Most Wanted," are guilty of "artistic cleansing."

If your religion tells you that maintaining images of false gods is wrong, and your form of government allows you to do something about it (as is the case in Afghanistan where the Muslim government is destroying images of the Buddha), you are considered, in the eyes of internationalist do-gooders, a criminal.

We have no case history yet, where the U.N. Art Police may have kicked in a door at midnight to prevent you from burning your own Starving Artists' version of "The Last Supper."

But it appears we’re getting pretty doggoned close.

The Saturday New York Times reports that UNESCO, the UN agency charged with overseeing such cultural questions, has changed its 30-year-policy and decided to aid and abet those "cultural preservationists" who would like to strip Afghanistan of Buddhist and other relics before the Muslim fundamentalist Taliban government can destroy them.

In a strange twist of logic not witnessed since Lt. William Calley ordered his troops to destroy the Vietnamese village of My Lai in order to save it, UNESCO officials claim they are saving Afghan art for the Afghanis by stealing it from them and spiriting it out of the country.

Now, there’s a cause we should all be proud of.

Ignore the killing of millions of unborn babies and save a few useless chunks of stone.

We definitely have our priorities in order, these days.

Somehow, I have the feeling this entire operation may come back to bite the United States in the butt. And soon…

Once you have the United Nations making decisions over what art is acceptable and what may be mandatory, you’ve just poured Crisco oil all over that famous slippery slope.

How’s this for a f’rinstance?

The New York Times reported, in the same Saturday edition, that New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani was well on his way toward putting an art oversight panel in place that would determine which exhibits should appear in publicly funded museums.

First off, let’s ask the good mayor if he ever bothered to get United Nations approval?

No?

Oh…big mistake. We can just picture the jack-booted blue helmets kicking in the mayor’s door and demanding that some new creative outrage, removed for abusing public sensibilities of New Yorkers, be restored to open display.

Faster than you can say Elian Gonzalez, the smut would be in protective custody, and Hizzoner would be left face down on the floor, trying to pull the cleats out of his back.

For those of you skeptics, this might be the perfect time to quote the timeless Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention…"It Can’t Happen Here…"

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