Thursday, April 06, 2006

But can we keep Guantanamo?

Acknowledging the fact that its human rights reputation has taken a beating lately - you know, secret prisons, rumors of torture, spying on its citizens - the United States has taken steps toward regaining the world's trust by opposing the United Nations' new Human Rights Council.

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me, either.


U.S. Will Pass on Rights Council, for Now

By Nick Wadhams, Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS - The United States has decided not to seek a seat on the new U.N. Human Rights Council for now, preferring instead to see how it takes shape, a U.S. official said Thursday.

"We're going to take a wait and see attitude," the U.S. official said, speaking from Washington on condition of anonymity because the announcement was not expected to be made public until later in the day.

The United States was virtually alone in voting against the council when the U.N. General Assembly approved its creation last month. U.S. officials claimed not enough was done to prevent abusive countries from becoming members.

I can't really argue with that; after all, they invited us to join.

1 comment:

Eric said...

You always force me to think about topical, pertinent things of actual significance. I don't know why I feel compelled to try and contribute. My mind is only suited to random inanity. Here goes nothing though:

Basically we're saying, "We're going to wait and see if they are going to try to make us stop being dicks. If they do, we're going to fuck them up bad and disband the whiney bastards."

I really wonder how long it will be before the U.S.A. makes its play to be the actual totalitarian world leader pretend that it wants so badly to be. Sure we do some pretty serious de facto manipulation of the world scene economically, and even a little mucking around here and there militarily and with our "intelligence" forces. How long though until we just send out shock troops all over the globe without even trying to feign attempting to garner the support of other countries? Of course, the infrastructure here, especially the economic infrastructure here, may fall apart before that can be supported. Here's hoping!