China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba Win Seats On UN Human Rights Council, Drawing Scorn

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

Article by: PETER JAMES SPIELMANN , Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS — China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba and Algeria won seats Tuesday on the U.N. Human Rights Council, riling independent human rights groups who said their election undermined the rights watchdog's credibility.

The General Assembly elected 14 new members to the 47-seat Geneva-based council, which can shine a spotlight on rights abuses by adopting resolutions — when it chooses to do so. It also has dozens of special monitors watching problem countries and major issues ranging from executions to drone strikes.

Britain, France, the Maldives, Macedonia, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia and South Africa were also elected to three-year terms.

Human Rights Watch noted that five of the new council members — China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Algeria — have refused to let U.N. investigators visit to check alleged abuses. China, Russia and Algeria have 10 or more unfulfilled requests for visits by U.N. experts, some dating back to 2000, the group said. Saudi Arabia and Vietnam each have seven outstanding requests, they said.

Read more: http://www.startribune.com/world/231533571.html

[iandhr]

1. Wow

One of the reasons the UNHRC is a joke.

[geek tragedy]

2. UNHRC has been a joke for decades now.

Its main function is as a vehicle by which countries try to score political points on their rivals.

[The Stranger]

3. Does worldwide surveillance into intimate personal lives count for anything?

Guess the U.S. doesn't have much room to talk.

[geek tragedy]

4. Whoever guess "post 3" for the first false equivalence being drawn

between the US and China/Saudia Arabia wins the pool.

[leftynyc]

7. I'm surprised it took that long

And people wonder why so many consider the UN a joke.

[The Stranger]

10. Hypocrisie est un hommage que la vice rend à la vertu.

Of course these things must be considered.

That's not false equivalence.

It's true equivalence.

[geek tragedy]

12. Bullshit spoken in French is still bullshit.

The US has a deeply flawed record, but to state that it's every bit on human rights as China and Saudi Arabia is moronic.

On the particular issue you've selected as the most important evah, government surveillance and control over Internet communications (as opposed to, say, the ability to criticize the government without being imprisoned), China is much, much worse than the US.

[The Stranger]

26. There's a false assumption contained in your post.

Stating that the U.S. has no room to talk is not stating it is equivalent to (or worse than) jack fucking shit.

It is stating that for Americans, who are now invading the privacy of millions of people and eroding human rights on an extraordinary scale, have no room to talk.

But there is this. Don't forget that the U.S. is also still keeping people in cages in Cuba for a decade after providing them with absolutely no due process whatsoever.

But the Neocons running that place and waging these weird wars (and their apologists) are always the ones that claim the UN is "a joke."

[geek tragedy]

33. Well, gee, too bad for you that Americans don't need your permission to speak

on any subject.

But, y'all on the anti-American left are a bunch of hypocrites on that--condemn the US and Americans for deriding the human rights record of China and Saudi Arabia, and then turn around and complain that the US doesn't pay enough attention to the human rights records of China and Saudi Arabia when conducting diplomacy.

[go west young man]

42. Excerpt from the article:

"Regrettably, so far neither the U.S. nor the EU have said a word about hypocritical candidacies that will undermine the credibility and effectiveness of the UN human rights system. By turning a blind eye as human rights violators easily join and subvert the council, leading democracies will be complicit in the world body's moral decline.


It's quite probable that the US and Britain are quiet on this matter as they have essentially tossed out our moral high ground on Human Rights by conducting spying, renditions, prisoner abuses, no trial imprisonment, drone strikes that kill innocent people, illegal invasions, wars that lead to a quarter of a million deaths, allying themselves with ruthless dictatorships, the list goes on.

I understand you want to believe we are not like them. Of course we are different. But still similar in some ways. In the worlds eyes it will be quite a while before we are trusted again. The first step is to get rid of your American "exceptionalism". Undrape yourself from your flag and just be a human being. We're capable of amazing things, sure. But just screaming false equivalency isn't going to make it go away.

The US military is right now helping in the Phillipines. That is a good use of our nations military and resources. We need more of it. Personally I think it will take 10 years to undue the damage done by right wingers and go along deems in this country. And underneath it all, everything that has happened that is fucked up in the last 50 years, the liberal left, progressives, and hippies alike were always right about everything. It is the centrists and the righties that have hurt this country more than anyone. So please do us a favor and quit banging on the left. We are the lifeblood of DU and this country. We push it to make change happen. And we will keep on doing so. It would be nice if you could join us instead of constantly deriding us. Peace.

[geek tragedy]

43. The problem isn't American exceptionalism, it's the belief that

we deserve that exceptional status just for being born here. Exceptionalism can work positively if people use it as motivation to do better.

Plenty of people on the left can criticize Saudi Arabia and the United States at the same time. Let each nation own its own crimes.

[go west young man]

45. Agreed...

and I believe a post like Strangers above that you called as false equivalency is actually a very useful post. As it brings to light what is really at stake when a nation wants to claim moral high ground and has lost the ability to do so. Recognizing we have a lot of work to do to fix ourselves is the first step to helping make the world a better place. However, that exceptionalism you write of must come with humility. Not shoved down the worlds throats whether good or not.

[JackRiddler]

59. What about their joint crimes?

Saudi Arabia is a de facto U.S. military protectorate. Its borders were drawn and its monarchical family was set up by the British, from whom the U.S. took over in 1944. This country exists in its present form thanks to the U.S.

[geek tragedy]

64. What are you talking about?

Saudi Arabia was the product of complex internal rivalries that arose largely when it was ruled by the Ottomans.

It would exist in its current form--fundamentalist Islamic totalitarian state dependent on oil--regardless of what the US would have done.

[JackRiddler]

65. Debatable.

The borders of the present-day Middle East were drawn by UK and France after World War I. The UK picked the Saud and Kuwaiti (al-Sabeh) dynasties to run the most oily parts.

Regardless of whether S.A. would have existed in the present form, it became a de facto U.S. military protectorate starting in 1944.

The U.S. intervened to support S.A. in a 10-year war over Yemen against Egypt; a win for the Marxist part of Yemen could have eventually threatened S.A. The U.S. bolstered Iraq against the Iranian threat to S.A. in the 1980s, before destroying Iraq ostensibly to protect S.A. in 1991. The U.S. has sold hundreds of billions in arms to S.A. over the decades, as well as building enormous military bases there and using it as the platform for the first war against Iraq in 1991. U.S. and Saudi work together in foreign policy, the influence is mutual.

Does this stuff really need to be said? That's the prime U.S. ally in the Arab world, right there.

[Wilms]

13. :thumbsup:

[geek tragedy]

14. Perhaps this nuance is too subtle for you, but "the US is better than China and Saudi Arabia"

does not mean "the US is perfect and has never abused human rights."

To put it another way, why don't you post on communistpartyunderground.cn?

Answer is, such things are not allowed in China.

[Wilms]

16. USA1USA! "We're not as bad as the other guys"

Tell me all about...

[geek tragedy]

17. Very curious how some people are so obsessed with denouncing the United States

that they need to derail any discussion about anyone else's human rights abuses into a discussion of how evil the US is.

As has been shown, logic and nuance are pointless when 'discussing' issues with such angry Internet ranters.

[Wilms]

19. Denial is an obsession I find to be the issue.

Beyond that, I'm not really aiming to change your mind. Rather, I want to provide opportunity for more people to be aware of your post.

[geek tragedy]

20. Yes, we disagree. You think Saudi Arabia and China have human rights records

at least as good as the US.

I think the US has a mixed record at best, and very bad in some areas, but is nowhere near as bad as those countries.

I guess people will have to judge which is the reasonable position.

[cosmicone]

21. The US has been the only country to have used nukes on civilians

and the scores of abuses in Vietnam such as Mi Lai massacre followed by rapes by US Servicemen in Okinawa, Philippines etc where the US refuses to let the place of crime try the US rapists.

Then you have scores of abuses in Iraq such as Abu Ghraib.

A criminal is a criminal -- whether one shoplifts 100 times as opposed to 1000 times is a minor difference.

[geek tragedy]

22. If you had your choice, would you live in the US, China, or Saudi Arabia? nt

[JackRiddler]

25. My choice would be for the U.S. to stop supporting Saudi Arabia.

How about yours?

Not only has the U.S. ceded any moral standing to complain about the situation in other nations, it is directly responsible for the situation in several of the nations you are now complaining about:

Imagine if Vietnam had not been invaded in the greatest international crime after 1945. Imagine two million people in Indochina had not died because of the U.S. invasion and war of aggression there. Perhaps conditions in Vietnam would be better today? Perhaps the U.S. would have any kind of moral standing to complain about conditions in Vietnam?

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's most horrible regimes, no doubt. And it exists thanks to UK and U.S. imperialism. It is the most important U.S. ally in the key Middle East region alongside Israel.

Cuba, the target of a U.S. invasion and long-running blockade, absolutely merits a seat on that council, if any state does. Compare its history to those countries in the region that were unable to resist U.S. imperialism, like El Salvador or Guatemala, where U.S.-backed death squads killed hundreds of thousands. Also, probably the only torture chambers in Cuba are found in the U.S. military base at Guantanamo. Cuba's human rights violations are by any measure a) to be condemned and b) not comparable to the United States's, even on U.S. soil where a "war on drugs" rages and the highest imprisonment rate in the world obtains.

Russia is in a special class since it is the only nation that can be said to be quite in the same league as the United States - the only other one that has launched wars of aggression in recent years, and thus committed the highest of all international crimes, according to Nuremberg principles.

[geek tragedy]

30. Vietnam would be a dictatorship regardless of what the US had done.

We're on much better terms with them lately, and they're still a surveillance society dictatorship that puts our NSA to shame.

Saudi Arabia was founded as a backwards dictatorship in 1902 without any help from the US. Its failure to progress is its own. We buy their oil, as does the rest of the world.

There is no blockade of Cuba, only an embargo. And you seem to be confused--you blame us for Saudi Arabia because we trade with them, and then blame us for Cuba being a dictatorship because we refuse to trade with them.

You forgot about China. Maybe you felt their abuses aren't worth mentioning.

[cosmicone]

40. That is not a fair question.

That is like asking "if you had a choice of eating horse-dung, steamed cockroaches or dog food, which one would you eat?" Most people would choose dog food even though it is not their real preference.

[geek tragedy]

41. Cute analogy. You must live somewhere with a perfect history nt

[cosmicone]

53. It is not so much about a perfect history

but it is about hypocrisy.

We have no right to act like self-righteous, pious champions of human rights while we have never apologized for any wrongdoing we have perpetrated around the globe.

People who haven't brushed their teeth shouldn't claim to have a fresher breath.

[geek tragedy]

56. Hmmmm.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014127099#post6

Pakistan if a fucked up non-state

I wish we had invaded Pakistan instead of Iraq and put it to bed forever.

Your reaction to US drone strike victims in Pakistan:

Reminds me of the Kuwaiti Ambassador's daughter

telling about how Iraqis stole pediatric incubators from a hospital after discarding the infants they contained.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=494964

I love Obama for the drone strategy.

It has kept terrorists on the run and broken their back despite funding from the Pakistani military.

It has also created an anti-military movement in Pakistan which swept Nawaz Sharif to power and broken the radical islamists' back.

Go Obama!

[cosmicone]

61. No contradiction there.

Pakistan has been funding terrorists who attack American interests -- so those acts are in self-defense.

My only problem is with our claiming that we are the pious, sacrosanct good guys and everyone else is evil. If we stopped claiming that and said that we are not as much of an asshole as the other assholes out there, I have no problem.

[okaawhatever]

57. You're glossing over a few things here. First, it was American soldiers who ended My Lai and

tried to get help for the wounded. It also marked a turning point in how soldiers were allowed to interpret commands. There is no longer a blanket "do whatever command tells you" but rather "an illegal order can be disobeyed".

Second, it is not the United States who does not allow American servicemen and women to be tried in other countries. Both Japan and the Philippines agreed as well. It is customary for service people in foreign countries to be exempt to their laws and tried in military courts-martial instead. It's one of the reasons we've left Iraq and won't keep a peacekeeping force there. Even here in the United States military members are typically tried by the military and not the civilians.

While Abu Ghraib shouldn't have happened and was wrong, it is nothing compared to our soldiers held captive in Korea or Vietnam. We do not have the worst record, or even near the worst record when it comes to treating foreign prisoners of war.

Anyone who suggests we're even in the same league as other countries in human rights violations is delusional. It's not that we've shoplifted 100 times as opposed to say, China or Russia shoplifting 1000 times. We have shoplifted and they've committed first degree murder. Don't kid yourself.

[The Stranger]

31. You keep running around posting this false assumjption

that everyone thinks the U.S. is "equal" (whatever the fuck that would mean) to China and Saudi Arabia.

[geek tragedy]

34. Well, you don't think Americans should even pay attention to China and Saudi Arabia's

human rights records, so obviously you don't think they're terribly noteworthy.

[go west young man]

36. I thought it was only Faux news

who screamed that people were "angry" when in actuality it was themselves. I do believe it's called projection.

[geek tragedy]

37. Let me sum up the story and the reactions to it amongst a certain crowd here

Story: China, Russia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Cuba get UN Human Rights Commission seats

Reaction: The United States sucks!

Some people have one-track minds.

[go west young man]

46. It's highly possible those people would like to see

a better United States. The same as you. They just have a different belief when it comes to achieving it. I too criticize the US and every other country. But it's in the hope that change will one day come about. I think you scream quite loudly in your own posts and that it hurts your own arguments. It's much better to be rational, kind, and respected if you want people on a liberal website to have faith in your cause.

[geek tragedy]

47. Well, yeah, but what fun is that?

Peace.

[go west young man]

50. Are you implying that your high post rate and

contentious posts are really all just the work of an inflated ego that just needs to be fed? Because if that's the case your not doing DU (or the world) any favors by that behavior. Serious discussion that changes the world for the better is what I believe every posters motivation should be on a site like Democratic Underground. I wish you the best but hope you decide to truly "fight" for better more noble reasons. And by fight I do mean that the pen is mightier than the sword.

[geek tragedy]

51. Just trying to inject some humor into the conversation while tacitly acknowledging

the merits of your post.

I would hope in turn that you avoid being a condescending, insulting scold.

Peace. Last word is yours.

[go west young man]

54. I'm not trying to be condescending.

I truly do wish you the best. Peace fellow Du'er.

[dbackjon]

55. No doubt

Disgusting attitude, when as a gay man I can be executed in Saudi Arabia, beaten legally in Russia, etc.


The US, for all of OUR flaws, is still light-years ahead of these nations.

To deny that shows either ignorance, or just an Anti-American agenda.

[JackRiddler]

27. "Except for those we support."

Sure, life in the U.S. is about a thousand times better than in Saudi Arabia.

So tell me, why is the U.S. maintaining this most horrific of regimes as a military protectorate. If you're responsible for something, you're responsible for it, even if it is found in another country.

[Wilms]

49. Well, for one, they give us cover.

We can go on to speak of the "support" the USA!1! provided Latin American Dictay, er, administrations over the decades.

[The Stranger]

28. You set the bar so low that you don't make sense any more and, worse,

you excuse (or try to ignore) what is absolutely inexcusable for any Progressive.

No Progressive in their right mind could look at that picture and utter the word "perfect" in the same sentence as "human rights."

[geek tragedy]

35. So, you've invented rules of grammar and syntax for progressives?

Too bad you don't make the rules for anyone but yourself.

[Posteritatis]

32. Damn, missed. My vote was "post 1" or "actually in the OP" for that. (nt)

[denverbill]

5. Is that for the same reason we appoint bankers to regulate banks and drugs exec to run the FDA?

After all, who better to spot the human rights violators than countries who violate rights regularly?

[christx30]

6. That's why we should get

Uganda to help plan the Pride parade this year.

[JackRiddler]

29. Uganda is another close U.S. ally.

Museveni is a long-running U.S. client dictator. The army that took over Rwanda was trained and armed by U.S. and based in Uganda. And of course the Ugandan gay-murdering campaign has the backing of U.S. Christianists.

The U.S. might have moral standing to complain once it stops supporting these regimes.

[go west young man]

39. In all fairness the US did successfully act to stop The Uganda "kill the gays bill".

http://gaycitynews.com/wikileaks-cables-show-us-swedish-pressure-vs-uganda-kill-the-gays-bill/

The US and Sweden brought pressure to bear that stopped the passing of the bill into law.

I by no means think the US is completely clean when it comes to human rights but in the Uganda case a noble act was implemented by the US. I would like to see more of it. I think Obama understands this and is working towards changing our bad standing in the world.

[KamaAina]

8. North Korea missed out?

[jessie04]

9. And this is why the UN is a pathetic joke.

.

[SoapBox]

11. Seriously?

Surprised they didn't add a special seat for North Korea.

[iamthebandfanman]

15. Ugh.

change is going to have to happen when it comes to the UN...
the republicans are probably dancing with joy at how inept and useless the UN has become.. truly sad.
maybe time to start a new organization with past mistakes and flaws in mind from the get go?

I also wish someone would do something about the WTO to make it treat all member nations with the same expectation of labor rights...
another global organization that has screwed us over..

[ConcernedCanuk]

18. Maybe they get points for not invading anyone lately

.
.
.

and slaughtering innocents calling it "collateral damage".

Gitmo and "extraordinary renditions" might be in people's minds as well,

ya think?

CC

[JI7]

23. do we laugh or cry ?

[JackRiddler]

24. Too bad the U.S. ceded all moral authority to complain.

Cuba, first of all, the target of a U.S. invasion and long-running blockade, absolutely merits a seat on that council, if any state does. Compare its history to those countries in the region that were unable to resist U.S. imperialism, like El Salvador or Guatemala, where U.S.-backed death squads killed hundreds of thousands. Also, probably the only torture chambers in Cuba are found in the U.S. military base at Guantanamo.

Imagine if Vietnam had not been invaded in the greatest international crime after 1945. Imagine two million people in Indochina had not died because of the U.S. invasion and war of aggression there. Perhaps conditions in Vietnam would be better today? Perhaps the U.S. would have any kind of moral standing to complain about conditions in Vietnam?

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's most horrible regimes, no doubt. And it exists thanks to UK and U.S. imperialism. It is the most important U.S. ally in the key Middle East region alongside Israel.

Russia is in a special class since it is the only nation that can be said to be quite in the same league as the United States - the only other one that has launched wars of aggression in recent years, and thus committed the highest of all international crimes, according to Nuremberg principlies.

[EX500rider]

38. "Imagine if Vietnam had not been invaded in the greatest international crime after 1945"

I know, it was terrible, North Vietnam kept invading the South!

[Ash_F]

48. This comment is so out of whack with reality it boggles the mind

I'll just leave a quote from Eisenhower's book

“I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly eighty percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bao Dai was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for.

http://www.viet-myths.net/Turner.htm

[EX500rider]

60. Are you saying the North didn't invade and conquer the South? n/t

[Ash_F]

62. Your rhetoric falls flat in the face of the facts. /nt

[EX500rider]

63. Pretty sure the North DID in fact repeatedly invade..

...and eventually conquer South Vietnam. How is that "rhetoric" lol

[JackRiddler]

58. The U.S. invasion of Indochina

North and South Vietnam were new and temporary constructs created by the ceasefire line between the Viet Minh and the French in 1954. Under the Geneva Treaty there was to be a vote of all of the people, after which the two temporary territories would be unified as one state. Ho Chi Minh was going to win this vote fairly in both north and south, as the U.S. was well aware. The Eisenhower administration therefore sabotaged the process, prevented the elections, set up a dictatorship in the south under a group of Catholics from the north (there's your invasion from the north!) and led a counterinsurgency campaign against the southern majority who supported the National Liberation Front. When this initial illegitimate and imperialist intervention failed, in part thanks to the entirely legitimate help to the southern resistance forces from the north, the U.S. escalated and invaded with 500,000 of its own troops and bombed with more bombs than were dropped in all of WWII and occupied and rounded up populations into concentration camps and established "free fire zones" and poisoned the land with Agent Orange and finally committed the equivalent of any genocide -- millions were murdered. Two other nations were invaded, bombed and destroyed in the process. The best thing that can be said of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam was that by 1969-71 the majority of the drafted soldiers were engaged in a passive mutiny, refusing to engage the enemy because they had understood by then that the whole thing was bullshit. It's taken 30+ years of "rambo" propaganda to cover up the reality.

http://www.sirnosir.com/

[Ash_F]

44. Those of us fighting for human rights must reach across borders

The US government has also blocked UN investigators from checking on alleged abuses.

DUers need to remember that none of those countries are politically monolithic, just like the US is not monolithic. All of these countries have people fighting for human rights, though they are woefully dis-empowered in each and every one. The US is no exception.

Though in countries like Saudi Arabia they are much more dis-empowered than the US, they are still there. If we are to improve human rights internationally, we must unify.

Don't get caught up in nationalistic hate. Save you ire for the right wing in these nations.

[go west young man]

52. Great post.

There is so much work to do and it seems like many DU'ers just accept the way things are. The fight has just begun and we've a long way to go when it comes to human rights. I hope the status quo DU'ers can wake up to that fact. The world has to change and we at DU need to be at the tip of that spear for change. It seems like the complacent centrists have taken over around here lately. I personally would like to see DU'ers more fired up and driven to bring about this change. Peace.