Monday, December 24, 2007
America Alone indeed. 142-1. Pride.
Claudia Rosett: America vs the UN Mob
And who was that lone dissenting member state? You guessed it: as Mark Steyn has called it, America Alone.
Is that because 142 member states (including Belarus, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Laos, Libya, Burma, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe) are right? and America is wrong?
Or is it because the UN system is structured to encourage the mob of member states to treat American money as an all-you-can-eat buffet?
American taxpayers bankroll 22%, or $917 million of this whopping biennial core budget — by far the biggest contribution of any one member state — with just a handful of other countries, including Japan and a few from the European Union, accounting for the bulk of the remainder.
This is just the core budget, of course. The UN system-wide budget is about ten times the size (and for that, the U.S. foots an even bigger portion of the bill, or about 25%), thus likely to total well over $40 billion for the same two-year stretch. Though due to a UN system growing like kudzu, and just as impenetrable, the exact numbers are almost impossible to keep up with.
And does all this money go to make a better world? In a statement to the General Assembly, the U.S. ambassador for management reform, Mark Wallace, noted that this budget contains funding for a conference dubbed Durban II, "an event noxious to my country and a disgrace in the International Community."...
Rosett's report on Durban II at NRO, here: Destination: Durban II
More on the vote from the Washington Post: General Assembly Approves UN Budget
...Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed regret in a statement "that the resolution was not adopted by consensus, marking a break with tradition after 20 years."
"The secretary-general urges all member states to return to consensus decision-making and to demonstrate a greater sense of flexibility and compromise, beyond individual national interests and in the common cause of multilateralism for the good of humankind," the statement said...
Shut. Up.
I like what you have to say here, you may have an ally in my blog. Please come and check out my mission, I think you will be in agreement.
First, there was Durban.
Then, there was the Iranian Holocaust Denial Conference
Next, it's Durban II. The turn of the screw.
And only history can alert us to what might be spawned from that event about to take place.
Come on, Sol.....it's almost as though you think this guy didn't know what he was talking about!
http://www.solomonia.com/images/september06/khatami/P1010376.JPG
He looks so jolly!