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"The reason highly abusive governments flock to the commission is to prevent condemnation of themselves and their kind, and most of the time they succeed," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "If you're a thug, you want to be on the committee that tries to condemn thugs."

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[ 01 January 2006: Message edited by: Sven ]

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
Arguably, the same could be and should be said about the current US government, who's time on the Security Council is way past expiry date.

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Why didn't I anticipate a response like this? It's like any critique of any country invariably drags in a critique that equates the USA with that country.

[ 01 January 2006: Message edited by: Sirrhosis ]

Libya's infant mortality:
24.6 deaths / 1000 live births

Angola exports oil to the U.S.A. while Angolese continue losing arms, legs and lives to land mines and abject poverty.

153 deaths / 1000 live births

Who's a monster ?. Which evil empire promotes what amounts to planned and enforced infanticide around the world including its own backyard ?. The UN sec. council is a multi-headed hydra with no respect for basic human rights. They make mock of humanity.

[ 01 January 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

And they have no civil rights there. Changing the subject to speak of social rights is irrelevant, because those issues don't come within UNHCR jurisdiction.

But Anne Cameron is wrong to think the UN does nothing. Kofi Annan declared the war in Iraq illegal, and the Security Council refused to be forced into war by the lies of the Bush administration.

Stephen Lewis's work to bring AIDS-in-Africa to the attention of the world, and keep it there, was substantially a consequence of his being UN Special Envoy for AIDS.

And then, there was Louise Arbour:

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UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 7 -- The U.S.-led fight against terrorism is eroding the time-honored international prohibition of torture and other forms of cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners, the top U.N. human rights official said Wednesday in a statement commemorating Human Rights Day.

Louise Arbour, the high commissioner for human rights at the United Nations, presented the most forceful criticism to date of U.S. detention policies by a senior U.N. official, asserting that holding suspects incommunicado in itself amounts to torture.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120702189.html

There have been much more prosaic and concrete things, too, such as the tsunami relief effort, co-ordinated at the UN:

http://www.tsunamispecialenvoy.org/default.aspx

It is important to understand that it is the Bush Administration which wants us to believe that the UN does nothing; that it is a corrupt and useless institution.

I think my criticism of the UN comes from a place of deep and sad disappointment. When the biggest bully on the block can intimidate even the "block watch" what use, then, is the block watch?

I'm not sure what "the answer" is. Maybe there isn't one. But Amerikkka has always been very quick to use "sanctions" and "embargo", even to the point of committing piracy on the high seas to prevent supplies from getting to Cuba. A boycott on South African goods was very instrumental in helping get rid of Apartheid... I wonder what would happen if the UN declared sanctions against the USA because of Iraq and because of the kidnapping of people who are then sent to torture prisons?

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Originally posted by anne cameron:
Jeff, you are correct, of course. And what good does it do to say the invasion and occupation is illegal and then DO NOTHING ABOUT THAT?

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It's frustrating to say the least. Is it because the UN member nations are not all in the same select group called the security council nations ?. There's also this issue of veto power, and it seems the US and Israel have, very often, vetoed various UN security council resolutions and declarations proposed by the majority of its member nations. I think many scholars and commentators consider the security council a lopsided, undemocratic clique led by the U.S. and its poorer capitalist cousins.