The UN Human Rights Council ? NOT
Posted October 24th, 2007 by Da King
The other day, Mitt Romney said the USA should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Much to Romney's chagrin, the USA is already boycotting the UN Human Rights Council, so we don't have a seat. Oops. Mitt made a mistake, but he also said a mouthful.
The former Massachusetts governor said the U.N. Human Rights Council has repeatedly condemned Israel while taking no action against nations with repressive regimes.
"The United Nations has been an extraordinary failure of late," Romney said in response to a question at a pancake house along the coast of early voting South Carolina. "We should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council."
Irwin Cotler, Canadian Parliament member, details some of the discriminatory policies of the UN council in this Boston Globe article. The UN condemns an Israeli attack on Palestinians even as they ignore the Palestinian attack that provoked it. Ditto on battles between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel has been so singled out, that even former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the entire UN loses credibility over the discriminatory and obsessive targeting of Israel. There were even three special sessions held to condemn Israel in 2006 before the Council ever got around to thinking maybe the genocide in Darfur might be a bad thing. I guess they couldn't figure out a way to blame Israel for that. No wonder Mitt Romney also called for a new coalition:
Romney also said he would support a new "coalition of the free nations of the world and bring those nations together so that we can act together".
"We should develop some of our own - if you will - forums and alliances or groups that have the ability to actually watch out for the world and do what's right", Romney said.
I hear you, Mitt.
Ironically, the UN Human Rights Council was started in 2006 due to the disappointing performance of it's predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights. Guess what the big failure of the Commission on Human Rights was ? If you guessed 'discriminating against Israel', you win first prize.
In June 2007, the UN Human Rights Council voted to 'permanently indict' Israel, with Israel being the sole nation in this singular category. No word yet on whether the next special session of the Council to condemn Israel will take place at Auschwitz, so they can put the Jews in yet another 'singular' category. In all, four UN resolutions have been passed against Israel, and none against any other country. None. Maybe the Council heard Ahmadinejad's Columbia speech where Mahmoud said that there aren't any homosexuals in Iran, and forgot about the reason: Iran executes homosexuals. When a member of UN Watch, a United Nations watchdog group, called attention to the inequities of the Council, his speech was banned.
The UN Human Rights Council also condemned 'defamation of religion' following the dustup over cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Somebody tell me what this has to do with human rights, please. The resolution was introduced by Pakistan and passed easily, with 16 of the 17 Council members from the Organization of the Islamic Conference voting for the resolution, along with China, Russia, and South Africa (anybody notice the miserable human rights records of most of these countries ?). Opposing the resolution were all of the European Union, Japan, Ukraine, and South Korea (aka, the non-repressive regimes). It's pretty ironic that a so-called 'Human Rights Council' would advance a resolution stifling freedom of expression, no ? The resolution claimed that things like the Mohammed cartoons cause "negative stereotyping" of religions and "attempts to identify Islam with terrorism". Right. Everyone knows it's those crazy Methodists who are blowing sh*t up all over the world. Looks like politics rule the day over at the UN, and the wrong politics at that. It's time for the nations that really promote freedom to take the lead. This nonsense has gone on long enough. The UN Human Rights Council is a joke.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
"The other day, Mitt Romney said the USA should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council."
Just the Human Rights Council? Why so timid? It would be better to get out of the U.N. entirely and turn U.N. Plaza and the rest of that property along the East River into a dog park.
Can I get an Amen on that, Brother?
October 24th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Amen, Ghost. I so well remember how great I thought the UN would be when it was constructed. I was a junior in high school and like most people that age felt that it was very important for all people to try to be peaceful. I felt that same way about the UN for a long time after that but today have come to realize that the UN is actually run and controlled by Muslim and African nations. We need to stop giving money to them to waste until they do something about situations like Darfur.
The UN functioned as a nothing even in Korea so soon after they had been born. Truman promised troops to aid South Korea and at the same time said he would send them and then let the UN take its two or so weeks to debate whether or not to help the South in its battle with the UN created North. Had he waited it would have been nearly impossible to push the North troops out of the South. The UN is as worthless as teats on a boar and should be allowed to go their merry way and let China and Russia support all its programs and corruption.
We certainly agree about the US and the UN, Ghost.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
King, you are so right about the Human Rights Council of the UN when it is controlled by members of the Muslim organization that has been in on the fight against Israel. That is a very apt picture you put at the beginning of the article.
We have discussed the UN plenty of times and anybody who has seen any of the discussions should know that we think the UN is the most corrupt body in the world. Fortunes are made by people of the third world who never could do it without the UN. The saddest part of it all is that the very country who should have something from the organization, the US, gets slapped in the face all the time. Their behavior toward Israel is so obviously aimed at the US as much as at Israel. Won't it be something when we have to send troops to fight UN?? troops. As if they had troops. The blue helmets have always been nothing but something to get in the way as they never manage to do anything constructive.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:05 am
No, Mitt, you are wrong. The United States should immediately pull out of the U.N., and evict them from our soil.
Get the U.S. out of the U.N.
Get the U.N. out of the U.S.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
It would probably be better to clean up the UN and try to get it back to what it was supposed to be in the beginning. We need to make sure that small, nothing countries don't control it because of the number of them. We need to get left leaning Americans to stop referring to the fact that our representative has used the veto many more times than anyt other members of the Security Council. When I hear this it makes me think that the people who said it aren't interested in what is best for our nation. Anybody, with a brain, would know that we haven't used the veto blithely but have done so in the best interests of our own nation. Most of the rest of the vetoes have been used against the US and not in the best interests of the world.
October 28th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Wow. It IS a wingnut reunion over here.
You guys are too funny.
What you really want to say and are either too shy or something to do it…..is, "Let's get the U.S. out of the U.S."
Admit it. Folks who rant on and on about destroying or leaving the U.N. are simply anti-American warmongers and haters who, in a perverse kind of way, support Israel's apartheid of the Palestine people and America's apartheid-lite program in Iraq.
The hate and intolerance literally seeps out of the sentences.
And you are proud of that??
October 29th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Rev, get a new argument. Calling people racists in order to avoid a discussion of the facts is the refuge of the clueless (aka, argument #2 in the liberal handbook). Most people see through that stuff nowadays. I certainly do, since that argument has been tried and failed against me about a thousand times. You forgot to call us all shils for the rich (argument #1 in the liberal handbook). I guess you couldn't figure out a way to apply that one here.
To everyone else: The UN is so corrupt that I don't know if it can be salvaged. Besides being corrupt, it is also impotent. What situation has the UN helped ? Has the UN intervened in Darfur ? Has the UN stopped Iran from seeking nuclear weapons ? Has the UN prevented the spread of AIDS in Africa ? Has the UN settled the Palestine/Israel conflict ? None of the above.