French Socialists are isolationist fools, far more interested in their anti-American credentials. Here they are again talking about Vietnam:

But the Socialists warned France risked becoming mired in a “new Vietnam”.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, the opposition’s leader in the National Assembly, suggested Mr Sarkozy’s “Atlantic obsession” of closer ties with the US was behind the plan.

Thankfully, Sarkozy has put one socialist in his cabinet who “gets it”:

“There have been specific requests, notably from the Netherlands and Canada. It is impossible to shy away from our responsibilities. This commitment honours France,” Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told the National Assembly in Paris.

Kouchner’s comments come in the wake of media leaks indicating President Nicolas Sarkozy comes to Bucharest poised to announce the deployment of some 1,000 French soldiers to eastern Afghanistan, rather than the south, where Canada’s needs are all too clear.

I recently had a piece published on the UN’s Human Rights Council, who are up to the old tricks of the organization they were meant to replace, which ended with:

The current concern about the Human Rights Council is just another symptom of this flaw in the UN. Until effective reform at the UN is introduced, including discriminatory views on the human rights standards of its constituent nations, the UN will continue to disappoint those who wish to see the spread of universal human rights.

Norman Geras today makes the point that criticism of the UN is often seen as being critical of the concept of the UN:

There are some - of a waggish disposition - who allege that if you criticize the UN (or any other body with an honoured place in the Book of Good Institutions) this must mean that you’re against it. The thing to do with allegations of this kind is to laugh at them. As it has been said before, that Human Rights Council is in need of reform.

The most recent failure of the UN to live up to its own noble founding concepts is this:

For the past eleven years the organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing the 57 Islamic States, has been tightening its grip on the throat of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yesterday, 28 March 2008, they finally killed it.

With the support of their allies including China, Russia and Cuba (none well-known for their defence of human rights) the Islamic States succeeded in forcing through an amendment to a resolution on Freedom of Expression that has turned the entire concept on its head. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression will now be required to report on the “abuse” of this most cherished freedom by anyone who, for example, dares speak out against Sharia laws that require women to be stoned to death for adultery or young men to be hanged for being gay, or against the marriage of girls as young as nine, as in Iran.

Many of those who criticize the UN are not criticizing what the UN set out to be, but what it has become. It is a failure on its own terms in many, but not all, areas. It should be viewed for what it is, a venue for countries to press their varied interests, be they despots and tyrants or be they Sweden. As such it is fatally flawed when addressing issues of universal rights. Its high minded ideals are lost in clash of interests.

The UN should promote human rights for the benefit of humanity, not restrict them or stand by and see people destroyed. Those fetishists who view it as the supreme standard setter for what is right and wrong ain’t polishing their shoes with Shinola.

You’ll find it here:

“There’s no doubt that China is pursuing its own interests in Africa. But make no mistake: so are those who lambast China. They are jealously guarding their own colonialist influence over the African masses rather than striking a blow for African independence.”

When you read the rest of this and realise that amongst those seeking to preserve their ‘colonialist influence over the African masses’ are those rapacious capitalists at Human Rights Watch, you’ll understand why this article doesn’t really merit being dignified with a rational response.

I note it only to make an observation about what happens to some alleged Marxists once they lose the faith: they surrender any concern with the oppressed of the world but keep a vulgar economic determinism. With this, they naturally turn their attention to China and because they still imagine righteousness is a function of being on the right side of what they misconceive to be History, they prostrate themselves before the rising Dragon and proceed to make contorted excuses for this pitiful state on Comment is Superfluous. This is what is wrong, for example, with Martin Jacques and what is self-evidently wrong with the piss-poor and frankly grotesque excuse for a contrarian that is Brendan O’Neill.