“Our country did violence to the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt last week.”
That is how ranking member of the House International Relations Committee Tom Lantos begins a Baltimore Sun op-ed that excoriates the Bush administration for voting against the Human Rights Council. It’s a stinging column, and well worth a read for those looking for a coherent critique of the US vote.
Lantos also lays out the case for why the US should join the council, despite its vote. But a question he does not address is whether the US can even muster the 96 votes necessary for membership. While it’s patently in our interests to sit on the council so that we can better steer the council’s work towards regimes like Belarus, Zimbabwe, or Sudan, our “no” vote has certainly made obtaining that seat more difficult. To be sure, there are still a number of countries who believe that US membership would be indispensable to the work of the council, but I can’t imagine that the US behavior in the negotiations has necessarily increased the number of countries that would back the US. Further, the vote is conducted by secret ballot, meaning that some of our erstwhile friends will not have to endure the wrath of Ambassador Bolton should they vote against the US.
All this is to say, that our “no” vote, when combined with the zero-sum negotiating tactics that preceded it, have not served US interests all that well.
I thought the article was drivel, personally. The rationales that Lantos states for signing are completely INcoherent. And what about the failure to mention that the US has become a state in which torture and detention without recourse to habeas corpus have been normalized?
Also, what is the problem with language that states an obligation to "protect peoples under foreign occupation"? That is a "vicious" attack on Israel? Well then perhaps Israel, like the US, needs to reconsider its relationship with human rights and international law.
It ... would fly in the face of long-standing U.S. foreign policy, for the United States to say we will not be fully engaged in the new council.
Boy, that just seems like a completely willfull misreading of the history. Especially recent history. Is this guy serious? And Mark, are you serious? This is a "coherent, stinging critique"? To me it reads like political posturing from someone who is supporting the correct stance on an issue by pandering to American exceptionalism.
Matt Emmons
March 24, 2006 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink