UNCLE SUCKER NO MORE?
The message came directly from this country’s ambassador to the (dis)United Nations, and it was unmistakable: We the People of the United States have had it with being kicked around at the United Nations and aren’t having any more of it. Certain countries certainly want our money and our troops when trouble strikes, but then refuse to recognize our right to decide where and when we will choose to locate an embassy abroad.
In this case, in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. This land of the free and home of the brave hasn’t been used to taking orders from tyrants, at least since George III was giving them, and Americans aren’t going to start bowing the knee to foreign dictators at this late day.
Not since Daniel Patrick Moynihan stood before the UN’s mock parliament, the General Assembly, and denounced a resolution that would have made the United States an accomplice to the world’s anti-semitism has this country had so impassioned a defender of its rights. Her name is Nikki Haley, her title American ambassador to the United Nations, and this is what she said: “The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out in this assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation. We will remember it when, once again, we are called upon to make the world’s largest contribution to the UN, and we will remember it when many countries come calling on us to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”
The foreign minister of Turkey, Mevlut Cavusoglu, took the the floor to express medium dudgeon when his country was called to account by Ambassador Haley. It’s unethical, he complained. “The votes and dignity of member states are not for sale,” he said. “We will not be intimidated! You can be strong but this doesn’t make you right!”
The day on which this nation has to take lessons in democracy from Turkey — Turkey! — has not yet arrived and will never arrive, God willing and inshallah.
There is a select group of countries at the United Nations that compose an honor roll. And they will not be forgotten when they need America’s friendship and financial support. Joining the United States and embattled Israel to oppose this UN resolution were Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Togo and Palau. Not a great power among them. No, their greatness lies in their loyal friendship to an old ally like the United States.
Let the record show that other countries abstained from this vote rather than condemn the United States, like Canada, Hungary and the Czech Republic — even when our old “friends” in Europe were willing to stab us in the back when it came to this contentious issue. Canada explained that it was objecting to the resolution’s one-sided language. And there’s no doubt its language was as prejudiced as the diplomatic mob that rushed to pass it.
As the new year approaches, let us remember old friends and auld lang syne. There are intangible bounds of history, memory, and language that hold nations as well as people together. So let us hold fast to all those special relationships we Americans are privileged to share with others. And never, ever forget them.