A basic assumption of American liberalism is that the United Nations occupies a higher moral plane than the United States. Thus, actions taken under the U.N.’s auspices are automatically vested with more moral authority than those taken unilaterally by the U.S. And liberals take seriously hectoring of the U.S. by lightweights like Kofi Annan.
Like so much of the liberal catechism, this belief rests on no evident empirical foundation. As we were reminded again by Tim Blair, who noted this Reuters story:
UN peacekeepers have been banned from all sex with the local population in Congo because of widespread, continuing abuse of women and girls.
In the past year the UN investigated 150 allegations against 50 soldiers of sexual exploitation of women and girls.
Children as young as 12 or 13 were bribed with eggs, milk or a few dollars in exchange for sex, UN reports said.
UN regulations for soldiers usually forbid sex with anyone under 18 and forced prostitution. But often officials found there was a fine line between forced and willing sex.
In most parts of the world, people do consider that line a fine one. What I don’t understand is why we should be taking moral instruction from them.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has much, much more.
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