Nearly 170 heads of state came to New York last week for the United
Nations' 60th anniversary. So organizers planned a gala birthday
celebration fitting for the occasion. But soon after the World Summit
started on Wednesday, it became obvious the party was destined to go
bust.
First, a little background.
Originally, the focus of the Summit was going to be the Millennium
Development Goals - MDGs - an ambitious blueprint for the eradication of
world poverty by the year 2015. But then secretary-general Kofi Annan
began to hype the event as a "once in a generation opportunity for the
world to come together and take action on grave global threats that
require bold global solutions."
Before long everyone was thinking how they could leverage the conference
to further their particular agendas. Case in point: the rad-fems don't
like the MDGs because they don't affirm the right to kill one's unborn
young.
So using bully tactics that would put any big-city politician to shame,
the feministas began to strong-arm delegates at the preparatory
conferences to insert statements about the importance of "reproductive
rights" -- UN-speak for abortion-on-demand -- into the final reports.
They doggedly pursued
this strategy at the secretary-general's Advisory
Body in January, with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in March,
the Commission on Population and Development in April, at a closed-door
meeting on HIV/AIDS in May, and at a month-long ECOSOC meeting in July.
Sometimes their methods became downright Machiavellian.
For example, in June the UN General Assembly held meetings with hundreds
of non-governmental organizations. But all the pro-family and pro-life
groups that applied to attend
were turned
away. Ominously, Louise
Frechette, who serves as Kofi Annan's right-hand woman, hailed these
closed-door meetings as "a significant new step in the way the United
Nations relates to civil society."
By late July the feminists had laid their trap. UN commissions,
non-governmental organizations, and Mr. Annan himself were all on record
demanding that the MDGs support abortion rights. They only had to wait
for the steel jaws to snap tight on the delegates who attended the UN
Summit in September.
But then the Bolton bombshell hit. Within days of his appointment by
President Bush, Ambassador John Bolton called for hundreds of changes to
the Summit's draft agreement, demanding that it focus on reforming the
inept UN bureaucracy and countering international terrorism.
That came as bad news to the hairy-leg ladies who care only about
abortion services for 12-year-old girls.
So as the September 14 opening for the Summit neared, the negotiations
became bogged down with scores of disagreements on 27 key issues raised
by Ambassador Bolton and others.
Once it got underway, the World Summit featured a mind-numbing 25 hours
of speeches by 151 presidents, prime ministers, and kings. As the
meeting headed towards its Friday wrap-up, it became painfully evident
that the event was destined to be little more than a social gathering of
aging apologists for the New World Order. Finally Canadian prime
minister Paul Martin blasted the delegates whose speeches were filled
with "too-often empty rhetoric."
At the end the delegates wearily approved a
40-page resolution that is
long on heart-warming platitudes but woefully short on specifics.
Apart from the decision to establish a new Human Rights Council, the
delegates failed to agree on details for countering terrorism, stopping
the spread of AIDS, or reforming the UN Security Council. Even Mr. Annan
himself ended
up agreeing the final document was "watered down" and
"disappointing."
And no one had the courage to stand up to the Women of Woe, who
succeeded in pushing through language about "achieving universal access
to reproductive health by 2015" and promoting gender mainstreaming "in
all political, economic, and social spheres." Gender mainstreaming, if
you hadn't heard, is UN-speak for imposing the radical feminist agenda
on the rest of us.
Lamentably, the final declaration is silent about the importance of
families in promoting social development. And to no one's great
surprise, it makes no mention of the needs of men, including shorter
lifespans, a three-fold higher suicide rate, and laws in many countries
that discriminate against fathers.
So after many months of preparation and countless hours of late-night
negotiations, the high-powered UN World Summit was unable to produce a
detailed plan for making the world a safer, healthier, or fairer place
to live. Although no one in the mainstream media dared to say it
publicly, it's hard to conclude the much-ballyhooed event was anything
other than a colossal failure.
And we're entrusting these people with the job of eradicating poverty
and bringing about world peace?
