Can there now be any doubt…?
UNITED NATIONS, May 3 — For the first time since Eleanor Roosevelt led the opening session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in 1947, the United States failed to win re-election to the body Thursday. U.S. officials said they were disappointed with the result, which observers attributed to dismay over several foreign policy initiatives by the Bush administration, including its opposition to the Kyoto climate change treaty and its pursuit of a missile defense shield.
Full story from MSNBC here.
Here’s one of the most amazing things about this story:
“Countries elected to the commission included Bahrain, South Korea and Pakistan from the Asia Group, as well as Croatia and Armenia from the Eastern Europe Group. The Latin America Group selected Chile and Mexico without a vote, and the African Group chose Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo and Uganda, also without a vote.
Think about it: Sierra Leone & Armenia! Without a vote!! Elected to the U.N. Human Rights commission!!! That the U.S. didn't make it onto!!!!!!!
The international reputation of the U.S. under Dubya has sunk lower than that of Sierra Leone. A country whose human rights record is, to put it mildly, “characterized by serious problems” – problems that include government-sanctioned political executions and “extrajudicial killings”, torture, arbitrary arrest, exile, arbitrary and random state interference with personal privacy. In fact, according to the annual reports published by the United Nations, Sierra Leone fails to come up even close to acceptable standards in every single category of the human rights charter, with violations of basic human rights, civil liberties, political rights, discrimination and workers rights.
Yet Sierra Leone is elected to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The U.S. isn’t.
In times like this, you know you can always depend on hard-boiled Cro-Magnon Republican Henry Hyde to let us know exactly what the Shrub’s peers and backers really think on the issue: “This is emblematic of the increasing irrelevancy of some international organizations,” he said today.
Which is, of course, nicely emblematic of the increasing illiteracy of the Republican Congress.
UNITED NATIONS, May 3 — For the first time since Eleanor Roosevelt led the opening session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in 1947, the United States failed to win re-election to the body Thursday. U.S. officials said they were disappointed with the result, which observers attributed to dismay over several foreign policy initiatives by the Bush administration, including its opposition to the Kyoto climate change treaty and its pursuit of a missile defense shield.
Full story from MSNBC here.
Here’s one of the most amazing things about this story:
“Countries elected to the commission included Bahrain, South Korea and Pakistan from the Asia Group, as well as Croatia and Armenia from the Eastern Europe Group. The Latin America Group selected Chile and Mexico without a vote, and the African Group chose Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo and Uganda, also without a vote.
Think about it: Sierra Leone & Armenia! Without a vote!! Elected to the U.N. Human Rights commission!!! That the U.S. didn't make it onto!!!!!!!
The international reputation of the U.S. under Dubya has sunk lower than that of Sierra Leone. A country whose human rights record is, to put it mildly, “characterized by serious problems” – problems that include government-sanctioned political executions and “extrajudicial killings”, torture, arbitrary arrest, exile, arbitrary and random state interference with personal privacy. In fact, according to the annual reports published by the United Nations, Sierra Leone fails to come up even close to acceptable standards in every single category of the human rights charter, with violations of basic human rights, civil liberties, political rights, discrimination and workers rights.
Yet Sierra Leone is elected to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The U.S. isn’t.
In times like this, you know you can always depend on hard-boiled Cro-Magnon Republican Henry Hyde to let us know exactly what the Shrub’s peers and backers really think on the issue: “This is emblematic of the increasing irrelevancy of some international organizations,” he said today.
Which is, of course, nicely emblematic of the increasing illiteracy of the Republican Congress.
