Sunday, October 21, 2012

Obama is loved at the UN because he is weak, lacks interest in human rights issues as many there do, and declines to provide US leadership (opting to 'lead from behind')

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9/23/2009, “The UN loves Barack Obama because he is weak,” UK Telegraph, Nile Gardiner

“It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits Barack Obama when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly.”…

Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo. The Obama mantra appears to be – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do to atone for your country. This is a message that goes down very well in a world that is still seething with anti-Americanism.

It is natural that much of the UN will embrace an American president who declines to offer strong American leadership. A president who engages dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez will naturally gain respect from the leaders of the more than 100 members of the United Nations who are currently designated as “partly free” or “not free” by respected watchdog Freedom House….
Obama’s clear lack of interest in human rights issues is a big seller at the UN, where
  • at least half its members have poor human rights records.
The president scores highly at the UN for refusing to project American values and military might on the world stage, with rare exceptions like the war against the Taliban. His appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear free world, his siding with Marxists in Honduras, his talk of a climate change deal, have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt.

Simply put, Barack Obama is loved at the UN because he largely fails to advance real American leadership. This is a dangerous strategy of decline that will weaken US power and make her far more vulnerable to attack.

As we saw last week with his shameful surrender to Moscow over missile defence, the president is perfectly happy to undermine America’s allies and gut its strategic defences while currying favour with enemies and strategic competitors. The missile defence debacle is rightly viewed as a betrayal by the Poles and the Czechs, and Washington has clearly give the impression that it cares little about those who have bravely stood shoulder to shoulder with their US allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider war on terror.

The Obama administration is now overseeing and implementing the biggest decline in American global power since Jimmy Carter. Unfortunately it may well take another generation for the United States to recover.”

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In 2010, Obama formally submitted the US for judgement by dictators and terrorists at the UN’s so-called “Human Rights Council.” Thugs and criminals lectured the US about hundreds of ways in which they must improve their human rights. Obama is the first US president to submit the US for this public lashing. US taxpayers obediently pay the majority of bills at the UN but Obama thought that wasn’t enough. So he delivered us to be smacked around by psychotic animals.

3/18/11, “Obama Yields to UN on US ‘Human Rights’ Abuses,” AP, Geneva

The United States on Friday disavowed torture and pledged to treat terror suspects humanely, but set aside calls to drop the death penalty, as the United Nations carried out its first review of Washington’s human rights record.

As part of a groundbreaking commitment to improvement under the Obama administration, the U.S. joined the 47-nation* Human Rights Council in 2009. And in doing so, submitted to more international scrutiny. State Department legal adviser Harold Koh outlined nine key improvement areas Friday, encompassing about 174 of the 228 recommendations the community had urged on Washington in an initial report last November. Nations are held
  • accountable for what they agree to improve.
He said the U.S. would agree to improvements in areas ranging from civil rights to national security to immigration, including intolerance of torture and the humane treatment of suspects at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. …

“To those who desire as a matter of policy to end capital punishment in the United States — and I count myself among those — I note the decision made by the government of Illinois on March 9 to abolish that state’s death penalty,” Koh told the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council.
Cuba, Iran and Venezuela complained the U.S. was brushing too many recommendations aside, while China and Russia said the U.S. was not going far enough on Guantanamo, and called for it to be shut down as President Barack Obama had promised.

Other nations urged the U.S. to reduce overcrowding in prisons, ratify international treaties on the rights of women and children, and take further steps to prevent racial profiling. Koh said Obama also would push to ratify additional measures under the Geneva Conventions and add protections for anyone it detains in an international armed conflict.”…

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*On Libya’s election to the so-called UN Human Rights council in May 2010:
“U.N. Watch said, “If any good could possibly come out of today’s results, perhaps the mere fact of Gaddafi’s presence on the council will serve to expose the already existing hypocrisy and injustice which too often gets covered up by those who – out of career interests or political agenda – portray
  • this kangaroo court as a serious body.””…
3/14/10, “Many ‘Free’ Countries Voted for Libya to Join U.N. Human Rights Council,” CNS News, Goodenough

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Nigerian below holds amputated hand of man punished by Sharia law, 2/15/08. Nigeria is a member of the UN Human Rights Council to which Americans are now subservient.  12/20/12, “U.N. Adopts ‘Religious Intolerance’ Resolution Championed by Obama Administration,” CNS News




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