Cliff Stearns: “last December we created an independent panel to simply come up with ways to make the United Nations more transparent…”

“last December we created an independent panel to simply come up with ways to make the United Nations more transparent and more effective. Today it is being reported that the panel's work is done, and their 174-page report will soon be made available to all of us. I am very interested to see what this bipartisan panel has to say about changing and reforming the United Nations. I understand from this report that its recommendations perhaps do not go far enough. It does criticize the U.N. for being too bureaucratic, but it hardly lays the blame where I think we all know it belongs, of course, to the Secretary General Kofi Annan. It squarely should be on his shoulders. Here is what has occurred at the U.N. under Mr. Annan's watch: We have had genocide in the Sudan; countries such as Cuba, Libya, and China are on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights; kicking the United States off the U.N.'s Narcotic Trafficking Commission; claims of sexual harassment in the United Nations; an attempt to impose global gun control. The U.N. even thought about sending observers over here to assess and evaluate our election process here in the United States. It is noted also that our Supreme Court Justices are using a U.N. treaty to justify abolishing capital punishment for minors. And, of course, there is the infamous Oil For Food Program. This is a scandal.…”