Obama's U.N. - Defending the Indefensible
This article by Anne Bayefsky appears today on National Review Online
<http://eyeontheun.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=779a7657507fa1127185b036a&id=fce83468b9&e=96e585893a>
.
While attention was focused on a possible government shutdown last week,
another event on Capitol Hill slipped by virtually unnoticed. U.N. Ambassador
Susan Rice appeared before both a House Appropriations subcommittee and the
Foreign Affairs Committee — and her testimony indicated that America is now
perched on a foreign-relations precipice at least as dangerous as the looming
economic abyss.
Rice’s oral and written testimony offers the most detailed defense yet of the
central foreign-policy plank of the Obama administration, known as
“engagement.” In short, the Obama doctrine has outfitted American interests
with U.N.-made cement shoes. Rice’s apologia, therefore, hands Republican
presidential hopefuls a cornucopia of opportunities to articulate a plan to
reverse President Obama’s abdication of leadership and responsibility to the
United Nations.
Rice’s case had two prongs. The first was a series of unsubstantiated claims of
“dramatic” success. The second placed the democratic state of Israel in Obama’s
crosshairs, regardless of anything else that has taken, is taking, or will take
place across the democratically challenged Arab and Muslim world.
Ultimately, according to Rice, “the United Nations is so important to our
national security . . . [that] when we meet our financial obligations to the
U.N., we make Americans safer,” and “the U.N. promotes universal values
Americans hold dear.” Both of these assertions are demonstrably false.
Rice boasted that “the U.N. helps halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons”
and that “strong and sustained U.N. action makes crystal clear to governments
that defy their international nuclear obligations that they will face isolation
and significant consequences.” In fact, U.N. action on Iran has amounted to a
two-decades-long cover-up by the International Atomic Energy Agency and its
former chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, followed by years of dithering over feeble
U.N. resolutions. The only thing crystal clear is that subcontracting American
national security to the U.N. has made the Iranian acquisition of nuclear
weapons inevitable, barring direct non-U.N. intervention in the very near
future.
On terrorism, Rice contended that “the U.N. helps isolate terrorists.” In fact,
to this day the United Nations has no definition of terrorism because Arab and
Islamic states believe murdering Israelis, American “occupiers,” or anyone else
standing in the way of their idea of “self-determination” doesn’t count. The
United Nations Security Council currently has the representative of a terrorist
organization as a full member, namely, Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. The U.N.’s
central Counter-Terrorism Committee, created as its response to 9/11, has never
named a single terrorist, terrorist organization, or state sponsor of
terrorism. And this week, a U.N. General Assembly committee charged back in
1996 with drafting a comprehensive anti-terrorism convention reconvened to keep
blathering about what the U.N. itself describes as “the long-stalled draft
text.”
On human rights, Rice claimed: “While no U.N. body can expect to have only
countries with perfect records on it, we are focused on keeping the most
egregious and disruptive human-rights abusers off the [Human Rights] Council,
as we did last year when Iran sought a seat. . . . We succeeded in getting Iran
to withdraw its candidacy last year.” What Rice means by “not perfect” Council
members are at least a dozen states that Freedom House places in the lowest
echelons of its freedom scale — including Angola, China, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia, and Saudi Arabia. And the only reason Iran withdrew its candidacy for
the U.N.’s top human-rights body was that the Obama administration agreed not
to make a fuss about giving Iran a seat on the U.N.’s top women’s-rights body,
where it is now firmly ensconced.
Rice’s peacekeeping apologetics ought to be an embarrassment to any
self-respecting liberal. According to Rice: “One rape is one too many. But . .
. we must remain mindful that the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC] is a
country the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River.” Gang
rapes are systematically carried out in the DRC and impunity for the rapists is
standard practice. Victims include baby boys and women over 100 years of age.
In the summer of 2010, for example, U.N. peacekeepers stationed just 20 miles
away, despite having been specifically warned of imminent violence in a
particular town, did nothing to stop 240 rapes over a four-day period. And yet
Rice whined: “Some 20,000 peacekeepers with only a couple dozen helicopters
cannot be everywhere they may be needed all the time.”
Over and over again, Rice spoke about the administration’s “pushing” this and
that policy, failing to mention that the U.N. majority was busy pushing in the
other direction. Rice declared: “The United States has pushed for a serious
review of the Human Rights Council.” But all the significant recommendations
made by the U.S. — 39 over a five-month review period — were rejected outright
on March 25, 2011, by the Council. Rice boasted: “We pushed to ensure that
countries can no longer claim an international sanction for blasphemy laws.”
But on April 6, 2011, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights sent a mass
e-mail across the U.N. system requesting “input for a report by the
Secretary-General to the General Assembly” on “combating defamation of
religions.”
And Rice crowed: “We will continue to push for strong action by the Council and
the General Assembly to hold the Iranian government accountable for future
violations.” That must be a relief to the Iranian democracy-seekers that the
Obama administration has left to rot following past violations.
The biggest “engagement” sham of all was her excuse for throwing Israel to the
U.N. wolf pack. In Rice’s words: “The results there [at the Human Rights
Council] were worse when America sat on the sidelines. . . . Israel was
relentlessly bashed. . . . U.S. engagement and leadership are paying
dividends.” In fact, at its March session with the Obama administration
squarely in the middle of it all, the Council adopted more resolutions bashing
Israel than at any other session in its history.
Rice’s written submission contained a section called “singling out Israel” that
was intended to be about the U.N., rather than the Obama administration. But
she herself said the following: “Israeli settlement activity is illegitimate,
undermines Israel’s security, and corrodes hopes for peace and stability in the
region.”
This inflammatory statement comes just a few weeks after Palestinian terrorists
decapitated a three-month old Jewish baby (and murdered four other members of
her family) for the crime of existing on a plot of land whose legal ownership
is undecided and subject to negotiation. Until President Obama came into
office, a rule prohibiting Jews from living on any Palestinian-claimed land was
not American policy. But after Obama’s 2010 General Assembly speech naming an
artificial 2011 deadline for the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinians
have been emboldened to use the U.N. to make apartheid-Palestine a fait
accompli.
It is time to save America and democracy from President Obama’s UN.
For more United Nations coverage see www.EYEontheUN.org
<http://eyeontheun.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=779a7657507fa1127185b036a&id=cbd916e5e9&e=96e585893a>
.
EYEontheUN monitors the UN direct from UN Headquarters in New York. EYEontheUN
brings to light the real UN record on the key threats to democracy, human
rights, and peace and security in our time. EYEontheUN provides a unique
information base for the re-evaluation of priorities and directions for
modern-day democratic societies.
We need your support to continue our crucial work. Donate to EYEontheUN online
HERE
<http://eyeontheun.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=779a7657507fa1127185b036a&id=a614604c34&e=96e585893a>
.
Were you forwarded this e-mail by a friend or colleague?
<http://eyeontheun.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=779a7657507fa1127185b036a&id=4f86cbb6e5&e=96e585893a>
Subscribe here.
Unsubscribe here
<http://eyeontheun.us1.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=779a7657507fa1127185b036a&id=1ada44f1ed&e=96e585893a&c=f59f31d3a0>
.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
--------------------------
Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list,
[email protected].
--------------------------
Brooks Isoldi, editor
[email protected]
http://www.intellnet.org
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe: [email protected]
Unsubscribe: [email protected]
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has
not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of
The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT
YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of
intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods,
techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other
intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use
this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,'
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtmlYahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
