Kick Burma Out of the U.N.

Kick Burma out, yup,,
I agree.
Maybe while we are at it, kick out a few others.
Better yet, maybe we, the U.S.A., and other countries of any civility should just walk out.

Kick Burma Out of the U.N.
May 10, 2008; Page A10

The United Nations this week said the refusal of Burma's government to allow workers into the country's devastated agricultural region was unprecedented in the history of humanitarian relief. The human catastrophe produced by Burma's refusal to permit aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis has stunned the senses of a world that has watched this spectacle for a week.

There are uncounted numbers of persons dead, homeless and orphaned. Bodies still float in water. The World Health Organization has warned there could be outbreaks of cholera and especially malaria. U.N. member-state India warned the junta the deadly cyclone was headed toward Burma on May 1, two days before it hit. Yesterday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said food relief hasn't yet reached the region because "regrettably" the junta won't talk to him.
It's time to kick Burma out of the United Nations. If the U.N. does not put in motion a process to suspend Burma from its U.N. membership, then, clearly, nothing is forbidden.

Chapter II of the U.N. charter provides for the suspension or expulsion of member states by the Security Council, which can also restore membership. We leave it to the lawyers to find words suitable for such a motion. Maybe there's something somewhere in the U.N.'s Declaration of Human Rights, which celebrates its 60th tattered anniversary this year.

Some will say that China, the junta's friend, almost surely would veto any such motion. Then let it do so, on the eve of its torch-besieged Summer Olympics.

Some will say if Burma, then why not Sudan?

Good question.

The person to press this point is John McCain, who has suggested creating a league of genuine democratic states willing to act when the U.N.'s "universal" membership fails.

Booting Burma out of the U.N. would be symbolic. But a whole world watching Burma's generals let their people die of hunger and disease is symbolic of something worse.

If the U.N. can do nothing about Burma, it should at least do something about its own self-respect.

http://http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121037607010681985.html