UN Aims "Knockout Blow" at the U.S. Embargo of Cuba. (Insider Report).

On November 27th, the UN General Assembly, for the 10th year in a row, voted overwhelmingly in condemnation of the United States' trade embargo on Cuba. In a vote characterized by jubilant Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque as a "knockout blow," the world body sided with longtime Communist dictator Fidel Castro by a margin of 167 to 3. While only Israel and the Marshall Islands sided with the United States in the vote, a stream of delegates arose to criticize the United States. Such paragons of political virtue as Libya, China, Myanmar, Syria, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, and South Africa denounced the United States for infringement of Cuban sovereignty and violation of the United Nations Charter.

Left unmentioned -- except by the Iraqi delegate -- was the UN-sponsored trade embargo of Iraq, which continues to exact a horrific toll in lives and living standards among Iraqi citizens. But in the emerging new world order, policies deemed unacceptable or inhumane when practiced unilaterally by a sovereign state are routinely practiced under UN authority. The UN opposes the American embargo on Cuba not because it wishes to eliminate the practice, but because it intends to monopolize it.