I don't quite know where to file this one. My "Idiotic Things Done by the UN" file is stuffed - couldn't fit anything more in there. Also, my "Reasons the UN Should Never, Ever, Be Taken Seriously" file is similarly bulging.
Maybe I should start a new file: "US out of the UN:"
Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."
Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation," meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states - including the United States.
The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.
Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar - but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.
Not a peep from Obama's UN contingent. "Silence means assent" is good enough for me. What women think of this is probably another story.
Jen Rubin:
The U.S. couldn't muster a word of opposition - not even call for a vote. That would be because . . . why? Because our policy is not to confront and challenge the brutal regime for which rape and discrimination are institutionalized policies. No, rather, we are in the business of trying to ingratiate ourselves, and making the U.S. as inoffensive as possible to the world's thugocracies. We'd no sooner object to Iran on the UN Commission on the Status of Women than we would leave the UN Council on Human Rights. It is what this administration does and how they envision raising our status in the world. The status of women? Hmm. I suppose with Iran on the commission, we'll neither be investigating nor documenting the handiwork of Neda Agha-Soltan's murderers.
I watched a recording of the Ovation channel's broadcast of the BBC-made documentary on The Satanic Verses Affair where author Salmon Rushdie was forced into hiding for a decade to escape the wrath of these benighted savages who burn books, casually wish death on those they disagree with, and stone women who commit adultery.
I am at a loss to figure out why the civilized world has anything to do with this band of 14th century brigands and cutthroats. But then, I'm not a UN bureaucrat or a member of the Obama administration who is still trying to make nice with a regime that will probably, one day, be responsible for setting off World War III.
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