1st Step At US Getting Out of UN?

[Kathianne]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06927371.htm



US walking away from U.N. rights forum -diplomats
06 Jun 2008 15:50:07 GMT
Source: Reuters
GENEVA, June 6 (Reuters) - The United States has quietly informed Western allies of its intention to walk away from the U.N. Human Rights Council, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

The U.S. delegation has observer status, with the right to speak, in the 47-member state forum, which meets in Geneva, and has never stood for election to the Council since it was set up two years ago.

Diplomatic sources and rights activists said that U.S. officials had informed the European Union on Friday morning of its intention to halt its involvement in the Council....

[dread]

One can only wish this was the first step in getting out of the UN. Unfortunately Americans are building them or rather improving their building here in NY...Why spend money if we are just going to leave?

[ranger]

It'll make a nice office building for some corporation to take over when the fucking UN is out of here. We should get out of the UN is it is useless and corrupt.

[5stringJeff]

More importantly, we should quit giving money to UN organizations that pursue an anti-US political agenda. Which, IMO, is the whole thing.

[dread]

That wont happen...But it would be nice.

[Kathianne]

Wonderland:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121279497528053595.html?mod=opinion_main_review_ and_outlooks



Your U.N. at Work – IV
June 7, 2008; Page A10

The General Assembly of the United Nations voted this week to elect Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann as its new president. Readers with a long memory will recall Father D'Escoto (he's a Catholic priest) as Nicaragua's foreign minister during the Sandinista regime of the 1980s. He's also the winner of the 1985 Lenin Prize. Only at the U.N. does that count as a recommendation.

The U.N. also voted to name the government of Burma – which otherwise has been busy preventing humanitarian assistance from reaching hundreds of thousands of its own needy victims of last month's devastating cyclone – as one of the Assembly's vice presidents. Only at the U.N. is this not considered an embarrassment.

If that weren't enough, a U.S. official was present for the vote – which was by acclamation – when the U.S. could have at least protested the choice with an empty seat. Nor did the State Department make any effort to offer an alternative to Father d'Escoto, who ran unopposed. Somehow, we don't think this would have happened had John Bolton still been ambassador....