(You might be confused by all this if you thought one of the “reforms” the United States wrested a few years back from the would-be “world government” on Turtle Bay was a panel on human rights that actually respected and strengthened them. If so, see John Bolton’s excellent – albeit dispiriting – account in his just-released memoirs, Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad. Amb. Bolton lays bare how the State Department, Europeans and others hostile to U.S. interests begat a new council essentially indistinguishable from its appallingly bad predecessor.)
In the UN’s inimitable fashion, there are now no fewer than five organs charged with advancing the Durban agenda. In addition to Qaddafi’s preparatory commission, these are: the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action; the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent; Five Independent Eminent Experts (I am not making this up) to Follow-up the Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action; and the Ad Hoc Committee of the Human Rights Council on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards.
Even the European Union has begun to balk at this absurd exercise, joining the United States and Israel in a recent vote on a resolution on Durban II promoted by the so-called African Group. As is generally the case in the UN, though, the U.S. and its friends were simply outvoted by those more-or-less-explicitly hostile to freedom.
Two things are clear: First, as is also generally true of all things related to the United Nations, the costs associated with the countless meetings, meals, perks and logistical requirements of these five, self-important entities and eminent experts are exorbitant. The UN Secretary General’s office came up with an initial (and probably conservative) estimate of $7.2 million.
Insult will be added to injury however if oil-rich Durban II promoters like Iran, Libya and Russia and their allies are able to make you pay for the platform with which they intend to revile and hector America and Israel. All other things being equal, they stand to do so if they can get the tab picked up by the UN’s regular budget – of which this country underwrites nearly a quarter.
Second, Durban II’s architects have in mind making us pay even more dearly in another coin. As Rebecca Tobin put it in a December 8th posting on EyeOnTheUN.org: They seek to “create ‘new normative standards aimed at combating all forms of contemporary racism, including incitement to racial and religious hatred’ – in other words to turn the alleged defamation of Islam into a global witch-hunt in the name of human rights.”
Will the Bush Administration and Congress allow a new Durban goat-rope to occur at our expense – literally on our dime and to the detriment of our moral standing, security and other interests? Now is the time to say “No” – No to conclaves that empower and embolden Islamofascists and other racists, and No to any underwriting of them by American taxpayers.