BETRAYING AN ALLY
November 11, 2009
Breaking promises and betraying an ally at the U.N.
By Ed Lasky
The American Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, lobbied for the United States to join the egregious United Nations Human Rights Council — a body dedicated to bashing America and Israel and shielding the true human rights violators around the world (many of whom have sat as members of the Council for years). She promised a new direction for the Council and pledged that America would use its prestige to change the nature of the Council and specifically promised that the U.S. would battle “the anti-Israel crap.”
Since her arrival at the U.N., the Goldstone Report has been produced, severely and unfairly condemning Israel for its operations in Gaza to halt rocket attacks from there into Israel. Meanwhile giving Hamas was given an all but free pass. In all fairness, the wheels were already in motion to create the Goldstone report when she joined. But there are several steps America could take and has not taken to minimize the impact. The report was sent for debate to the U.N. General Assembly. The Assembly will vote to endorse the report after the debate. Where is America? Is Susan Rice debating the merits of the report, is she battling the “anti-Israel crap”?*
The United States on Wednesday openly eschewed a United Nations General Assembly debate on a resolution that would call on Israel and the Palestinians to investigate charges of war crimes during the Gaza war detailed in the Goldstone Commission’s report.
The nonbinding resolution on the Goldstone report, which looked certain to be approved by the 192-nation assembly, also requests that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon submit the 575-page report to the Security Council.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice skipped the discussion and sent her deputy, Alejandro Wolff, as an observer instead.
Israel’s ally the United States was one of a small number of countries expected to vote against the resolution. In a clear warning to the administration, the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday urged President Barack Obama to oppose UN endorsement of Goldstone’s findings (emphasis mine). (Haaretz)
Why would the administration need such a “warning”? After all Susan Rice promised when she lobbied to have the US join the Human Rights Council that her goal would be to “fight the anti-Israel crap”. Debating, dissuading, citing bias and factual errors, siding with a long-time ally, “speaking truth to power” that is how one fights — not by sending an observer. It is the equivalent of voting present. A disgrace is unfolding while America watches. Where is Pat Moynihan when you need him? A Democrat who served, at one time, as the Ambassador to the United Nations, who understood that the basic principles of American that include standing up for our values and for our allies, defending against calumnies and assaults from tyrants? While America stood mute, the Goldstone report was endorsed by the General Assembly, a body dominated by the sort of thugocacies that the Obama team has one stance towards: servility.
Israel may yet again be confronted with a spectacle of its leaders and brave soldiers being dragged to (and lynched at) the International Criminal Court — as could America and our allies. Does the administration look ahead at all? Maybe it does, always looking for ways to constrain American autonomy, sovereignty, and power.
This is shameful and dangerous. But it gets worse. The Goldstone report — if it continues along its present path — is also a Trojan Horse that might end up claiming America as a victim. The arguments of the Goldstone report can be used against America and our allies when we battle terrorists overseas (say in Afghanistan). This might be one reason why our adversaries are promoting it and pushing it along with such fervor.
If it is taken seriously, the Goldstone logic could (and eventually will) be applied to NATO tactics in Afghanistan, where civilians are also sometimes killed in the course of anti-Taliban operations. This may well be a U.N. goal-the preamble in a process that could lead to, say, Director Leon Panetta in the dock at the Hague.
The Wall Street Journal from, which the above excerpt was drawn, also stated that “having now joined the Human Rights Council — a point the president underscored, to applause, in his speech yesterday at the U.N. — it now has an obligation to police that body and call it out on its charades, lest it become complicit.” Complicit we appear to be.
The Goldstone report may constrain American actions to defend ourselves from terrorism and empower our adversaries, who can act with even more impunity to spread violence and death around the world, safer than ever before. The latest presidential outreach to Iran makes clear that apathy toward dangers will be our operative principle. This week, in the face of cries from reform protesters for Obama to help them, our president betrayed them by promising the mullahs of Iran that we do not “interfere in the internal affairs of Iran”.
Cutting off funding for Iranian opposition groups — even human rights groups that merely want to remember the victims of the regime or promote democracy in Iran – is a strategy following this cold-hearted, brutal logic.
Does the Obama refusal to interfere in the internal affairs of a nation also apply to Darfur?
We take such steps backwards at our — and the world’s — peril. The Bush preemption doctrine is dead and terror groups can proliferate in friendly host nations around the world. John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, and every President for the past few generations, whether Republican or Democrat, stood up for the oppressed and endangered of the world.
We can take pride that at one time America had a leader who symbolized our idealism and our creed with these words:
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world!
(John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 1961)
Were those “just words” to Barack Obama? Apparently so. We are not just betraying an ally, we are betraying our own principles.
*Rice isn’t defending America either. Under her watch, a brand new initiative has come forth. The U.N. Human Rights Council is sending an investigator around American to report back on “housing violations.” The “special rapporteur” is a person whose focus has been on discrimination in housing . One of the cities she is going to visit is Chicago. Barack Obama worked and failed as a community organizer in Chicago. Is he now hoping to fulfill his mission of securing adequate housing for the poor of Chicago by endorsing an international review of that city’s housing policy? Will the special rapporteur deign to visit Atgeld Gardens — a devastated area that he failed to improve during his years as a “community organizer” ? Will she also find time to inspect the wretched housing that Valerie Jarrett (who headed the Habitat Company, a real estate company) left behind when she flew off to Washington, D.C. to serve as a special adviser to the President? Me thinks not.
Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.
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