By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--June 20, 2018
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I guess it’s an indication of how snowed the left is that you can actually find people today acting like the U.S. withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council is actually some sort of real affront to human rights.
Maybe they don’t know the council is led by human rights bastions like Iran, Cuba and Syria. Maybe they are so clueless that they really don’t see what the problem would be with that. But in all likelihood it’s simply a matter of a narrative working the same way every other left-wing narrative works. “Human rights”? Good! Trump quitting? Enemy of human rights!After more than a year of unsuccessful efforts to fix these fundamental defects, the U.S. delegation announced Tuesday our withdrawal from the council. Our country will no longer be party to this deeply flawed institution, which harms the cause of human rights more than it helps it. There are two major reasons that so many countries have resisted U.S.-led reform efforts. The first is baked into the council’s composition. One look at this rogue’s gallery explains why the organization has such appalling disrespect for the rights Americans take for granted. A credible human-rights council would pose a threat to these countries, so they oppose the steps needed to create one. Instead they obstruct investigations and reports, while interfering with the council’s ability to name and shame the perpetrators of the world’s worst atrocities. The second reason for resistance to reform is even more frustrating. Many countries agree with the U.S. about shunning human-rights violators and supporting Israel—but only behind closed doors. Despite numerous overtures, these countries were unwilling to join the U.S. in a public stand. Some even told us they were fine with the council’s flaws, as long as it let them address their pet issues. This is not a moral compromise we are willing to make. The U.K. has promised to oppose any resolution targeting Israel under Agenda Item 7, and we support that stance. We wish other countries would do the same.
In the end, our allies’ case for the U.S. to stay on the council was actually the most compelling argument to leave. They said American participation was the last shred of credibility left in the organization. But a stamp of legitimacy on the current Human Rights Council is precisely what the U.S. should not provide.The “world community” is freaking out today because the U.S. exit takes away legitimacy from the council. As Haley explains, that’s exactly the idea. This council shouldn’t have any legitimacy. It exists to paper over the atrocities of thugs while pretending Israel is the cause of all problems in the world. The Trump Administration’s tendency to thumb its nose at long-revered institutions has produced a lot of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth. It’s also one of the best things this administration has done, because it’s refused to indulge the fiction that every high-fallutin’ outfit in the world actually does what its name suggests it does. That goes for the UN in general, and it certainly goes for its atrocious “Human Rights Council,” which is about almost anything but human rights – unless the humans we’re talking about are brutal, sadistic, anti-Semitic dictators. Now we need to ask: Why are we still in the UN at all?
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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
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