From the Wall Street Journal.

• Consider: While Freedom House counts 192 [free] nations, the U.N. counts 191. The pariah is a nation rated free, indeed a nation of 23 million souls and the world's 17th largest economy. Namely, of course, Taiwan, which has been blocked from U.N. membership every year for 10 years now. China, rated not free, has managed to impose its view; its foreign minister proclaimed "all acts aimed at the independence of Taiwan are doomed to fail."



• Consider: The United States has just been readmitted to the U.N.'s 53-member Commission on Human Rights. It was voted off last year by opposition from the tyrannies and perfidy by the Europeans. Other commission members include such paragons of human rights as Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. The agenda concerns much mischief over Israel, as well as efforts to revoke consultative status of Freedom House.

• Consider: In President Bush's U.N. speech in September, he said the U.S. is willing to return to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It withdrew from UNESCO in 1985 after Congress sent its General Accounting Office to confirm that director Amadou Mahtar M'Bow had created a fiefdom without a trace of accountability, financial or otherwise.

• Consider: Secretary-General Kofi Anann thought it was a great victory when Saddam Hussein offered to talk about letting U.N. inspectors back into Iraq on the same terms that didn't work the last time. The important thing is not whether or not the inspections succeed in curbing weapons of mass destruction, that is, but whether they come under U.N. auspices.