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ABOUT TIME ...Republican Congress to U.N.: drop dead

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:00

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01/25/2011 08:58 pm

Jim Kelly

PATRIOT FREEDOM

www.patriotfreedom.org

REPUBLICAN CONGRESS TO U.N: DROP DEAD

The new Republican-controlled House leadership sent a clear message that it intends to place the United Nations at the center of its foreign policy mission, stepping up scrutiny of U.N. spending, setting conditions for continued U.S. financial support, and casting a spotlight on the shortcomings of the U.N.’s human rights council.

The new chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-FL), arranged for the hearing to begin with a group of prominent critics describing the U.N.’s failings.

Lethinen, who had traveled to Florida to tend to her ill mother, did not attend the long-anticipated session. But in a prepared statement read by Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), who chaired today’s session in her place, Lehtinen vowed to reintroduce legislation that “conditions [U.S. financial] contributions — our strongest leverage — on real, sweeping reform, including moving the U.N. regular budget to a voluntary funding basis. That way, U.S. taxpayers can pay for the U.N. programs and activities that advance our interests and values, and if other countries want different things to be funded, they can pay for it themselves.”

Lehtinen also pledged to conduct new investigations into allegations of corruption and mismanagement at the U.N. and to insure its interest align with American foreign policy goals. “U.S. policy on the United Nations should be based on three fundamental questions: Are we advancing American interests? Are we upholding American values? Are we being responsible stewards of American taxpayer dollars?,” according to her opening statement. “Unfortunately, right now, the answer to all three questions is ‘No.’”

Ros-Lehtinen’s funding proposal echoed a similar plan put forward by John R. Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Bush Administration, to make funding to the U.N. multibillion administrative and peacekeeping budgets entirely voluntary. The U.S. is currently responsible for paying about 22 percent of the U.N. administrative budget, and about 27 percent of the U.N.’s peacekeeping costs. The initiative is not supported by the Obama administration, which suspects it would garner little support in the 192-member organization and isolate Washington at a time when it is seeking to mend its diplomatic relations with foreign governments.

Today’s hearing included testimony from four U.N. critics, including Brett Schaefer, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Robert M. Appleton, a former U.N. anti-corruption investigator, and two supporters of the United Nations, Peter Yeo, a former Democratic staffer on the House foreign affairs committee who works for the U.N. Foundation, and Mark Quarterman, a former U.N. lawyer who served as chief of staff into last year’s U.N. probe into the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

It touched on many of familiar political hot button issues — including STORY CONTINUES HERE

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