By Rachel Alexander
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Anti-Americanism at the United Nations is now routine.
Every few days, some kind of statement comes out of the United Nations
condemning the United States. It is impossible to keep up with the criticisms
because there are so many. U.N. hostility toward the United States reached an
all-time high in 2001, when the United States was removed from the U.N. Human
Rights Commission. Instead, the despotic countries Libya, Syria and Sudan were
given seats. The removal was done in retaliation for the United States' defense
of Israel.
One of the recent attacks coming from the United Nations
has reached another outrageous level. “U.N. expert” Richard Falk wrote an
article about the Boston bombings asserting that Boston had it coming. Falk,
who is Jewish, has a history of anti-Israel sentiments. He issued this warning
condemning both the United States and our relationship with Israel, "[A]s
long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment,
those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy."
The United Nations appointed Falk, an American, in 2008 as the U.N. Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories. The
Obama administration pays 22 percent of Falk's costs in this position.
25 Congressional leaders submitted letters to Obama and
to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling for Falk's removal from the U.N.
Human Rights Council. Even the Obama administration admitted Falk went too far.
Controversial U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice tweeted, “Outraged by Richard Falk's
highly offensive Boston comments. Someone who spews such vitriol has no place
at the UN. Past time for him to go." This isn't the first time Falk has
been denounced by the Obama administration for anti-Semitism. Anne Bayefsky,
director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, has
documented past instances where the administration has admonished Falk.
The remarks were also too much for Ban Ki-moon, who
responded by saying that Falk's statements undermined the credibility and work
of the United Nations. But notably, he did not remove him from his post.
Ki-moon reprimanded Falk two years ago for promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories
that alleged the United States was responsible. Keeping him on in this
position, against the wishes of even the liberal Obama administration, whose
attitude toward Israel has been rather subdued, speaks volumes about how the
United Nations really views us.
Another anti-American initiative coming from the United
Nations recently is the Small Arms Treaty, which was adopted in April. It may
very well affect the United States more negatively than any other country. The
United States is one of a few countries that protect the right to keep and bear
arms. The treaty prohibits countries that ratify it from exporting conventional
weapons – which include personal firearms - to countries with poor human rights
records. 154 countries voted to pass it, and most of them can be expected to
ratify it. The United States is the biggest importer of conventional weapons,
and has been accused by U.N. officials of violating human rights, so it would
be easy for the United Nations to instruct other countries to stop exporting
conventional weapons to us. The treaty also contains language that instructs
nations to create a universal registration of gun imports down to the final
purchaser, which could easily lead to private gun confiscation.
Scrolling through the U.N.'s latest news, it is easy to
find attacks on the United States. A few days ago, the United Nations issued a
statement castigating U.S. business practices for allegedly failing to protect
human rights. “The UN experts heard allegations of significant and widespread
labour practices that, if correct, would be both illegal under US laws, as well
as fall below international standards,” the Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a news release. Tellingly, only five readers
had clicked “like” on the article at the time of this writing, very likely an
indication of how little the public cares about the U.N.'s opinion.
The United Nations creates standards and laws based upon
the whims of member nations with divergent interests to the United States. Many
of its nation members are dictatorships that don't represent their citizens
democratically, and are much smaller than the United States - yet each one has
a vote equal to us. The United Nations is not a true representative democracy
like the United States, yet it is steadily passing more and more treaties and
regulations that supersede our laws. Many of those decisions will result in the
United States being ordered to pay monetary penalties for things contrary to
our interests, such as the Kyoto Treaty, which would require us to pay monetary
penalties for the large amount of carbon fuels we expend (we would have to
purchase carbon credits from other nations to account for our higher level of
carbon emissions). So far, the U.S. Senate has refused to ratify Kyoto.
Even though every U.N. member country gets a vote equal
to each other member country, the United States contributes far more money to
the United Nations than any other country, 22 percent of the U.N.'s budget. The
next biggest contributor is Japan, which contributes less than half that
amount, just over 10 percent of the budget. It seems a bit ludicrous that we
are the largest contributor to an organization that may hate us the most of all
of its members. It is even more troubling considering all of the waste and
corruption that has taken place there in recent years, such as the Oil-for-Food
scandal with Saddam Hussein.
Some critics want the United States to drop out of the
United Nations; others think it can be reformed. Former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul
(R-Texas) introduced legislation every year he was in Congress to withdraw our
membership. Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, a longtime critic of the U.N.,
once said, “...there is no United Nations... there is an international
community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the
world, and that´s the United States, when it suits our interests, and when we
can get others to go along.” Americans' approval rating of the United Nations
has declined over the years. According to a Gallup poll from February, only 35
percent now believe that the United Nations is doing a good job.
Under President George W. Bush, the United States didn't
even bother trying to reapply to the Human Rights Commission. In contrast, the
Obama administration has embraced the Commission. Considering the country is so
financially broke that sequestration went into effect, most Americans should
agree on this: why aren't efforts being made to reduce our generous
contributions to the United Nations?
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