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Why is the United States STILL funding, and even involved in this "joke"?

Peter Goodspeed: The UN makes itself a laughing stock. Again
Peter Goodspeed November 10, 2010 – 7:50 am


You would think the very day Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi made a show of ordering his security police to release 20 illegally detained journalists, the rest of the world might take note of a UN human rights report that slams Libya for arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, torture, and prison conditions which don’t meet international standards.
You’d be wrong. Instead, many of the 47 nations, who just last May elected Libya to serve on the UN Human Rights Council, lined up yesterday to compliment the north African state for its “significant progress in the promotion and protection of human rights.”
That is almost as bizzare as a vote expected today in the UN General Assembly that will place Saudi Arabia and Iran on the board that runs a new UN Women agency, a decision branded a “joke” by Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Iran stones women to death for adultry and values a woman’s testimony at just half that of a man. In Saudi Arabia women are forbidden to drive and cannot take major decisions without the permission of a male relative.
The same sort of incongruity was on display yesterday when diplomats from Algeria warmly praised Libya for its “incessant effort to protect human rights.”
Burma, which just held a general election, condemned around the world as a sham, praised Libya for “its achievement of remarkable economic and social progress for the well being of its own people.” And a diplomat from Oman declared, “It is clear to us that the issue of development of human rights has become one of the priorities of the government.” It seems Libya, once a pariah state for sponsoring terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction, can do no wrong at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Not so the United States, which just four days ago had its turn at a similar UN human rights review and was lambasted by friend and foe alike. Last Friday, for the first time ever, the United States agreed to put its human rights record under the microscopes of the UN Human Rights Council as part of the UN body’s Universal Periodic Review, which aims to examine the rights records of all 192 UN member states over the next four years.
In the past, former U.S. President George W. Bush refused to allow U.S. diplomats to participate in the UN review. He shunned the UN Human Rights Council as a sham, run by despotic member states who displayed an unbridled antagonism toward Washington and Israel. But Washington did participate in the review this year as U.S. President Barack Obama tries to “reset” relations with the UN.
As part of the process, all countries submit themselves to human rights commentary by their peers. While Libya was enthusiastically lavished with praise yesterday, Washington was excoriated last week as nations and NGOs submitted 228 recommendations and hundreds of pages of criticism of the U.S. human rights record. Russia and most of Europe urged the United States to abolish the death penalty; Cuba and Iran called on Washington to close its prison and military tribunals at Guantanamo and accused U.S. troops of practising torture abroad.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim state, which yesterday was hosting Mr. Obama on a state visit, urged Washington to do more to promote religious tolerance. Mexico complained of racial profiling by U.S. police and decried the use of lethal force in controlling illegal immigration. Other countries urged Washington to reduce overcrowding in prisons, to ratify international treaties on the rights of women and children, insisted “discrimination permeates all aspects of life in the U.S.” or complained “police are rarely prosecuted for abuses.”
Michael Posner, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor, endured three hours of humiliation at the hands of some of the world’s worst human rights abusers. “We acknowledge imperfection,” he told the council. “Though we are proud of our achievements, we are not satisfied with the status quo.”
Yesterday, Harold Koh, a U.S. State Department legal adviser dismissed the recommendations of countries like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, saying their criticisms were “plainly intended as political provocations and can not be taken seriously.” Dismay with the UN’s apparent hypocrisy rankles many in the United States.
An editorial in yesterday’s Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper captured some of that indignation. “What on earth is this sovereign nation — the one to which oppressed people have looked for centuries as a shining beacon of freedom — doing down on bended knee asking for approval of its policies by such dungeon-ridden hellholes as Venezuela, Uganda, Cuba, Red China, Libya and Mauritania?” it asked.


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