The Saddest Of Jokes
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Foreign Affairs | The United Nations — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I would really like to be a fan of the United Nations. Honestly. It would be very nice to think that there can be a forum for the nations of the world to come together and solve various problems.
Then I read this and realize that sadly, my hopes on this score are pretty much in vain:
A new U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
On March 26, Richard Falk, Milbank professor of international law emeritus at Princeton University, was named by unanimous vote to a newly created position to report on human rights in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. While Mr. Falk's specialty is human rights and international law, since the attacks in 2001, he has devoted some of his time to challenging what he calls the "9-11 official version."
On March 24 in an interview with a radio host and former University of Wisconsin instructor, Kevin Barrett, Mr. Falk said, "It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Whether they are innocent about the contention that they made that something happen or not, I don't think we can answer definitively at this point. All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official investigation of the sort the 9/11 commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess."
Mr. Barrett, who is the co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, said in an interview yesterday of Mr. Falk, "I would put him on a list of scholars who are sympathetic to the 9/11 truth movement."
[. . .]
When asked for a comment about the appointment of Mr. Falk, a former American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton said, "This is exactly why we voted against the new human rights council." A spokesman for the American embassy at the United Nations offered no comment yesterday when asked.
Falk's rhetorical history is hardly what one would call "promising":
In a February 16, 1979, op-ed for the New York Times, Mr. Falk praised Ayatollah Khomeini and bemoaned his ill treatment in the American press. He wrote, "The depiction of him as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false." Nearly nine months later, student followers of Khomeini invaded the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 diplomats hostage for the following 444 days.
Pretty lousy call there, no?
« So Tell Me, Mr. Immelt, Why Are You Killing American Servicemen? — Comments (30) | Barack Obama Discloses His Strategy for Negotiating with the Chinese — Comments (71) »
The Saddest Of Jokes 5 Comments (0 topical, 5 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Volunteer
"HRCs are nothing more than vicious thought police."
In a clear moment of my coffee ridden mind, I agreed, then rethought the premise.
Initially, the HRCs were devoted to actually doing good around the globe by monitoring horrendous violations of human's lives. Individuals on scene reported the atrocities, the data was collected and advertised. Then the ends began to justify the means. As the HRC were emboldened, the controllers within sensed the power of the press, the presentations to Congress, etal. Gradually, the attention overcame the orginal intent, IE to expose atrocities.
Sadly, the HRC have devolved into watch dogs over ALL human activity. The focus has shifted from observing to casting blame, and this is easily led into blame for the USA. The HRC have been overtaken as a vehicle for the Blame Game re the USA and this is sad. If the original premise was maintained, IE Watching out for the down trodden, the oppressed where ever, then the HRCs could accomplish more. Simply laying the blame on the easy target of the USA is now the goal and this is flat wrong.
end
appointment of someone from Zimbabwe wherever but I guess they thought they'd find an American for balance..........
with this: "I would really like to be a fan of the United Nations. Honestly. It would be very nice to think that there can be a forum for the nations of the world to come together and solve various problems." But news such as this keeps killing any optimism I might have.
And I agree that, in general, the UN is approaching worthlessness, at least on security matters and human rights (I guess I've had more patience than others). The league of democracies idea keeps sounding better and better, though I remain moderately cynical about mankind's ability to work together on a global scale on anything other than limited humanitarian efforts and relatively short-term security alliances.
Nice work, Pejman.
He has quite a track record.
"I have never since my childhood supported a shooting war in which the United States was involved, although in retrospect I think the NATO war in Kosovo achieved beneficial results."
-- Richard Falk, 11 October 2001
[It is] "inescapable that an objective observer would reach the conclusion that this Iraq war is a war of aggression, and as such, that it amounts to a Crime against Peace of the sort for which surviving German leaders were indicted, prosecuted and punished at the Nuremberg trials conducted shortly after the Second World War."
-- Richard Falk, 12 April 2003
are very busy discrediting themselves. The term itself has become an oxymoron. This latest is a kissing cousin of the HRC in Canada targeting Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant and all Canadian conservatives and all conservative thought. HRCs are nothing more than vicious thought police.
Unlike many, I not only don't respect the U.N. but I don't believe in the concept. A free-thinking League of Nations, yes. The Star Wars Bar Scene of political thuggery and genocidal dictators, no. And a sinkhole of $billions ($trillions?) to boot.
You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.