Web Letters: America's UN Boycott Backfires

I fully support the Obama administration boycotting the so-called anti-racism conference. The conference focuses on Israel, denies the Holocaust and, like Durban I, there are no condemnations of what is going on in Darfur; nothing is said about the law in Afghanistan forcing 8-year-old girls to marry; nothing is said about women in Saudi Arabia being beaten and jailed by their own government if they are raped; and nothing is said about the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt or the denial of freedoms in Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Russia, Libya, and Iran and on and on.

The United Nations is a joke. When Serbia was slaughtering Muslims in Kosovo, the Clinton administration went to the UN to try to stop the genocide but the UN did nothing. It was NATO, with the US airforce (along with the French and British), that stopped Serbia, not the UN. When one million people were slaughtered in Rwanda, the UN again did absolutely nothing.

People may criticize Bush (and there are tons of things to criticize him for), but where was the UN when Saddam Hussein gassed 10,000 Kurds? When Saddam Hussein was murdering, torturing and raping thousands, the world was eager to sell goods to Iraq, because they wanted Iraqi oil money.

Where, pray tell, was the UN during Saddam's reign of terror?

A conference to explore ideas to end racism on all parts of our earth is vitally necessary, but only if it is done with honesty and integrity. There is one thing worse than bigotry, and that is hypocrisy.

Mark Jeffery Koch

Cherry Hill, NJ

I have to disagree with Barbara Crossette about the UN boycott. Would you attend an event where those dearest to you would be subjected to constant diatribes? It should be obvious its sponsors had an ax to grind. The charge of racism has become so commonplace that it's starting to sound like the boy who cried "Wolf!"

The industralized nations of the world should have a UN counter-conference about wealth, prosperity and quality of life. Such factors as democracy, property rights, due process, tax collection efficiency, capitalism and ease of permit securement to establish businesses could be discussed. Do you honestly think the likes of Ahmenidajad, Hugo Chávez or Robert Mugabe would be interesting in learning anything?

If we are a nation of cowards about race, it's because anyone who publicly utters any iconoclastic racial views is tarred and feathered as a racist.

Steven Kalka

East Rockaway, NY