The United Nations was established on October 24, 1945. According to their web page, this is their purpose:
“The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51 countries committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights. Due to its unique international character, and the powers vested in its founding Charter, the Organization can take action on a wide range of issues, and provide a forum for its 192 Member States to express their views, through the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and other bodies and committees.”
It is a great concept, but as often happens with organizations, people whose intentions were less than honorable have found ways to gain more control than they have earned and to misuse that power. A recent case in point is what has happened as a result of President Obama’s decision to join the Human Rights Council in May of last year. President Bush had refused to join the Council because he felt that the members on the Council were not countries who supported human rights.
Well, yesterday Breitbart.com reported:
“The 12-day session of the 47 member council starting on Monday will include regular “universal periodic reviews” of 16 members of the United Nations, including the United States on November 5.
“Several dozen non governmental organisation are expected to lobby the debate on the US human rights record, while Washington will also defend its record.
“Some 300 US civil liberties and community groups in the US Human Rights Network on Monday called on the Obama administration to bring “substandard human rights practices” in the United States into line with international standards.”
Knowing that some of the members of the UN Human Rights Council (who will be doing the investigation) are Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia, I would like to inquire as to what ‘international standards’ on human rights are according to those nations.
Just to illustrate how ridiculous this is, Stuff.co.nz reported today:
“Saudi Arabia’s top government-sanctioned board of senior Islamic clerics has endorsed a fatwa that calls for a ban on female vendors because it violates the kingdom’s strict segregation of the sexes.”
I’m not even going to talk about Cuba and China and their human rights records.
George Bush was right. George Bush was not a perfect President, but he understood that the United Nations has morphed into an organization where many of its members are tyrannical dictators who have attempted to use the organization as a club to bash those members who support freedom and democracy. It’s time for the United Nations to morph into an organization that is no longer headquartered in New York City and fades slowly into the sunset because it has forgotten its original purpose.