Rotten To The Core
(With apologies to Crabby Appleton)
Here are two articles (one old, one new) that make a strong case for trashing the current U.N. and starting over again.
From Reform Run Amok (The Washington Post, October 11, 2006):
For all its faults, the previous U.N. [Human Rights] commission occasionally discussed and condemned the regimes most responsible for human rights crimes, such as those in Belarus and Burma. China used to feel compelled to burnish its record before the annual meeting. The new council, in contrast, has so far taken action on only one country, which has dominated the debate at both of its regular meetings and been the sole subject of two extraordinary sessions: Israel.
Western human rights groups sought to focus the council's attention on Darfur, where genocide is occurring, and on Uzbekistan, where a dictator refuses to allow the investigation of a massacre by his security forces. Their efforts have been in vain. Instead, the council has treated itself to report after report on the alleged crimes of the Jewish state; in all, there were six official "rapporteurs" on that subject in the latest session alone. One, Jean Ziegler, is supposed to report on "the right to food." But he, too, delivered a diatribe on Israeli "crimes" in Lebanon.
This ludicrous diplomatic lynch mob has been directed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which accounts for 17 governments on the 47-member council and counts on the support of like-minded dictatorships such as Cuba and China. Council rules allow an extraordinary session to be called at the behest of just one-third of the membership, making it easy for the Islamic association to orchestrate anti-Israel spectacles. Several Muslim governments that boast of a new commitment to democracy and human rights — including Jordan and Morocco — have readily joined in this willful sabotage of those values.
From Anna Bayefsky's Goodbye, UN, Hello United Democratic Nations (Jerusalem Post, September 18, 2006):
Time and time again, the UN has stood opposed to US attempts to ensure a decent world order, for itself and for others. America has tried to galvanize legal and political forces by calling the millions dead, displaced and dying in Sudan "genocide." But the UN reported last year that events in Darfur didn't meet its criteria for genocide.
America has called for immediate sanctions to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But the UN Security Council called only for another report. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that it "remains unable to… verify the correctness and completeness of Iran's declarations with a view to confirming the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program." And we're meant to wait.
America has named Hizbullah a terrorist organization. But the UN refuses to do so — notwithstanding the 3,900 missiles directed at Israeli civilians this summer.
On the contrary, said Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown: "It is not helpful to couch this [Lebanon] war in the language of international terrorism" — this because Hizbullah is "completely separate and different from al-Qaida."
America has worked arduously to support the nascent democracy in Iraq. But the UN has dragged its feet responding to appeals to train Iraqi judges and prosecutors.
America has sought repeatedly to put Chinese violations of the civil rights of a billion people on the UN agenda. But all such attempts have been defeated by maneuvers that take draft resolutions off the table before they can even be put to a vote.
America has called for the Security Council to take action on the dire situation in Burma or Myanmar. But the subject has not even made it to the council's agenda.
America attempted to introduce minimal qualifications for membership on the Human Rights Council relating to actual human rights performance. The General Assembly rejected the idea out of hand....Who are these opponents, wrapped in the UN flag, who inculcate the view that American unilateralism, non-cooperation and support for democratic ally Israel is the root cause of the world's ills?
They are UN staffers like the secretary-general and his deputy, who claim they are hapless functionaries operating at the mercy of member states — notwithstanding self-motivated trips to Iran, handshakes with Hizbullah, "doing business" with Saddam Hussein and blaming Middle American ignorance for the credibility gap. They are the 45 "not free" nations - to use Freedom House labels — who pass judgment on others in the General Assembly.
These are the states sponsors of terrorism. The ones who don't let women vote or drive or kill them in the name of "honor." The ones who raise their children to die while murdering as many others of a different faith as possible. The ones who shoot from behind mothers and babies. The ones who claim that authoring a cartoon, a movie or a book can justify a death sentence.
They are also the 58 "partly-free" countries. Some of these are cronies, others are just cowards. Some are like-minded with their more notorious neighbors, others are very dependent.
Together, these nations represent the majority of the 132 developing states and the majority of 192 UN members.
