PATHETIC, JUST PATHETIC – AT 10:43 A.M. ET:  Related to the story just below, the United States continues to cozy up to third-world dictatorships, the better to be "understood" by those advanced societies.  Anne Bayefsky reports on the latest chapter in our decline as a nation:

Just as Iranians were reminded of their stolen June 2009 election and continued oppression, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) decided to kick them while they’re down. On June 10, with the active involvement and approval of the Obama administration, the Council adopted a decision on human rights in Iran that was a sentence long and contained no condemnation whatsoever.

The context was a review by the Council of Iran’s human rights record, as part of the Council’s consideration of all 192 UN states. The review featured a vigorous defense by Iranian representatives of Iran’s stellar human rights achievements, followed by Iran’s rejection of a host of “recommendations” made to improve its actual behavior. The “outcome” was a sentence identical for dictatorships and democracies alike, in which the Council merely refers to a bundle of documents containing praise, criticisms and responses without drawing any conclusion attributable to the Council itself.

The incomprehensible UN decision reads: "The Human Rights Council...Adopts…the report of the Working Group on the Islamic Republic of Iran, together with the views of the Islamic Republic of Iran concerning the recommendations and/or conclusions, as well as its voluntary commitments and its replies presented before the adoption of the outcome by the plenary to questions or issues that were not sufficiently addressed during the interactive dialogue in the Working Group.”

The reaction from the Obama administration was to declare victory and to manufacture something positive to say about Iran. On June 10, U.S. Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe rushed to the UN microphones in Geneva to announce repeatedly: “I have to emphasize that we are very pleased that Iran was willing to participate at all…. In the case of Iran, we applaud the willingness to participate at all…. We’re pleased that at least they were willing to show up.”

COMMENT:  What a pathetic embarrassment.  We praise the Iranian thugs for showing up.  What is equally pathetic is that there has not been a single resignation in protest from the Obama administration.  We expected more of Hillary Clinton, but she's fallen in line. 

We joined the Human Rights Council, ostensibly to improve it, after it was boycotted by President Bush (who looks better and better every day).  Instead, we've adapted to the Council's ways.  How chic and third-world we've become.

June 15, 2010