Turtle Bay Truth Embargo The U.N. condemns the U.S. while giving Cuba a pass on human rights.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/turtle-bay-truth-embargo-1541202078
The United Nations has again proved its worth as an unfailing barometer of human rights—though not in the way the world body intended.
It came in Thursday’s 189-2 vote against the trade embargo on Cuba, blamed by regime apologists for most of Cuba’s many ills. Israel alone sided with the U.S. The resolution on the embargo pops up every year. And every year since 1992 the U.S. has voted against it—except in 2016 when the U.S. abstained because the Obama Administration was cozying up to Havana.
This year U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley tried something different. Instead of simply voting no, the U.S. tried to inject some balance by proposing several amendments that highlighted the many egregious outrages of the Cuban regime. These range from its denial of fundamental freedoms of assembly and expression to the harassment and intimidation of government opponents to the jailing of citizens who dare complain about human-rights violations. All eight amendments failed by overwhelming margins, with only Israel and Ukraine consistently voting with the U.S.
Ms. Haley noted who bears the real costs of this high-minded preening. “It’s one more time that countries feel they can poke the United States in the eye, but you’re not hurting the United States when you do this,” she said. “You’re literally hurting the Cuban people by telling the regime that their treatment of their people is acceptable.”
People can come down on different sides about the merits of an economic embargo. But when the U.N. condemns the U.S. while giving Cuba a pass, Turtle Bay reveals its own moral bankruptcy.
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