US to cut funding to UN "Human Rights" Council

Washington Times:

Congress is poised to eliminate the 25 percent U.S. funding for the U.N. Human Rights Council, saying that the forum is dominated by human rights abusers and has become a forum to bash Israel.

The move against the council is part of a number of proposed cuts in U.S. funding for the world body now working their way through Capitol Hill.

Moreover, the latest effort appears to be bipartisan, unlike past budget battles that were driven largely by conservative Republicans.

"Absent additional reform efforts by the U.N., this issue is not going to go away," said one congressional aide. "It's going to bubble and surface and percolate for years."

The Senate on Friday agreed to cut $3 million from its payment to the U.N. regular budget, the share that would normally be earmarked for the Geneva-based Human Rights Council. The House passed a similar measure this spring.

Leading Democratic Sens. John Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin were among several longtime U.N. supporters to vote for the funding cut.

Because money is easily transferred between U.N. agencies, the cut is unlikely to have much effect on the Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration has twice declined to join.

Lawmakers this year have already sought to cut $20 million from the U.N. Development Program. That effort is led by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican, and Sen. Norm Coleman, Minnesota Republican, both of whom are upset at U.N. persecution of an employee who exposed the agency's payments of hard currency to North Korea.

...

It is easy to understand why there should be uniform condemnation of these misnamed UN organizations. We should be encouraging other democracies to oppose the funding of these organizations that are led by genocidal maniacs from rogue states. It has become a propaganda tool for Islamist condemning Israel while ignoring genocide in Sudan and Zimbabwe. If these people are not able to condemn Robert Mugabe and the thugs in charge of Sudan, they are too ignorant to be drawing a paycheck from the UN.