Is the United Nations attempting self-parody? Posted on 02/07/2005 8:16:52 AM PST by SheLion
Is the United Nations attempting self-parody?
How else to explain the announcement that a panel has been elected to decide which complaints will be heard by the U.N. Human Rights Commission at its annual meeting in Geneva this spring -- and that three of the five members are Cuba, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia?
Placement on the diplomatically-named Working Group on Situations virtually guarantees that these abject human rights abusers won't be criticized, censured or sanctioned no matter what crimes they have committed, are committing or plan to commit.
If any senior U.N. officials are troubled by this system, they are too discreet to say so publicly.
The composition of the broader Human Rights Commission remains no less Orwellian. Currently, it includes not only China and Russia but also Sudan, just elected to another three-year term despite Khartoum's role in what the United States government calls genocide against black Muslims in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.
Last week, members of a separate U.N. commission appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan demurred. They said they were unable to find “sufficient evidence” to conclude that those responsible for the mass murders, rapes, home burnings and ethnic cleansing acted with “genocidal intent.” Instead, they said that what had taken place were “crimes against humanity with an ethnic dimension.”
Predictably, Sudanese officials announced that the U.N. had “exonerated” them.
Then there is the World Heath Organization, a United Nations “special agency.” WHO's Director General has just awarded its prize for “best anti-smoking and nutrition” programs to al Manar – the television station owned and operated by Hezbollah, among the world's most lethal terrorist organizations.
In fact, Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization other than al Qaeda. Al Manar routinely broadcasts programs to millions in the Middle East inciting suicide bombings against Americans in Iraq and against Israelis wherever they may be found.
The U.S. government has placed al Manar itself on the “Terrorism Exclusion List” and even France has banned the TV station for violating that country's hate laws. (Examples: in November, al Manar ran programs accusing Jews of spreading AIDS in the Middle East; earlier, it ran dramatizations depicting Jews using the blood of Christian children to bake holiday pastries.)
But in the view of the World Health Organization, al Manar is doing important work by warning viewers that smoking is bad for the health – and, incidentally, instructing them that massacring infidels in good for the soul. A catchy slogan for both campaigns might be: “Blow up! But don't light up!”
The U.N. was not supposed to be such a burlesque. Between aggressors and victims, the U.N. was not meant to be neutral.
But, over the years, the U.N. fell into bad habits. When the Khmer Rouge was slaughtering the population of Cambodia, the U.N. failed to act. When genocide against the Tutsis was carried out in Rwanda, the U.N. sat on its hands. Actually, it was worse than that: A small U.N. force that was in the country was pulled back -- lest anyone wearing a blue helmet be killed along with the intended victims.
When mass murder was waged against the people of Bosnia and Kosovo, the U.N. exacerbated the situation. Srebrenica was the site of the worst case of genocide in Europe since World War II. In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army invaded a U.N. safe area – and with no opposition from U.N. peacekeepers -- separated Muslim families and murdered over 7,000 men and boys.
Yet when President Clinton intervened militarily in Bosnia and Kosovo, it had to be without U.N. authorization.
The U.N. turned a blind eye when Afghanistan was hijacked by al Qaeda terrorists. As Somalia collapsed into anarchy, it fecklessly negotiated with war lords who were interested only in stealing foreign aid from the mouths of starving children.
And then, of course, there is the steady drip of revelations regarding the U.N. Oil for Food Program in Iraq, the largest financial swindle in history. In recent days, questions have arisen, too, about the impartiality of the U.N.'s own investigation into this scandal.
On top of that are disclosures about U.N. peacekeepers in the Congo sexually abusing girls as young as 13.
Where terrorism is concerned, the U.N. has shown little interest. On the contrary, a General Assembly resolution virtually licenses the mass murder of civilians by those who claim to represent “national liberation movements.”
What does trouble the U.N.? Shashi Tharoor, a senior official, says that it is “the exercise of American power” that “may well be the central issue in world politics today.”
Is it not high time at least to consider alternatives to the U.N., to explore the possibility of developing new organizations in which democratic societies would work together against common enemies and for common goals?
Free Iraq could be a charter member along with liberated Afghanistan, democratic Taiwan (barred by Beijing from having even “observer status” at the U.N.) as well as Israel, the U.N.'s perennial whipping boy. The emerging democracies of Eastern Europe would surely sign up as well.
A little competition would be healthy for the U.N., an organization whose current policies and practices mock the intentions of its founders, an organization that American taxpayers may not be willing to underwrite indefinitely.
Clifford D. May is the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and a Townhall.com member group.
Also another link that long-term archives:
Is the UN the center of all evil?
ROFL!!!!!!!........you beat me to it by 2 minutes!!!!
Damn! Sorry. I know how much work it is to post a thread. Sorry about that Sis.
Burn that damn building down, I say! I'm sick of the corruption coming out of it. And that smell is going to rub off, believe me, especially since it is located in the United States!!
The UN is a big joke played on the people of the U.S..
i wouldn't say thet they're attempting self-parody - i'd say htet they were doing a pretty derned good job of acheiving it!
Yes it is, and it's long past due for the American people to wake up to this fact.
I hear about the UN every single day and there is nothing good. Just evil and garbage coming out of there. Throw the bums out!
I'm not sure I would go quite that far........it is located in NYC, afterall.......
I was born and raised in NYC, and never once in my life have I ever been inside that particular cesspool.....thankfully.
Very good point.......for that I will refill the vat!
hee hee! well thanx fer the consideration. That big tanker thruck outside, that looks like a commercial milk truck has the beer. that thing that looks like a fire hose is what you use dear.
I shall be sitting at the wet bar with me marteroni and me stogie and watch the show.
thankie midarlin.
Yes it is.
I was born and raised in NYC, and never once in my life have I ever been inside that particular cesspool.....thankfully.
NYC!! Heheh! The poor good people in New York City. My heart goes out to them.
And this is what we could have had running our Country.
FnKerry fits right in with that stink at the UN, doesn't he!
I sure wouldn't want to run into this clown in a dark alley.
Good job, btw.
I can't understand what is taking so long with this investigation into them. If that was you or I, we would be in PRISON already.
Talk about dragging the feet! Hoping that this will all go away and everyone will forget again. This is ridiculous the time they are taking to weed the bums out.
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