UN madness

More Turtle Bay humor

This one almost sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch: Syria is set to join the UN Human Rights Council.

That is, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad — which has been waging a genocidal campaign against its own citizens for more than a year, to international indifference — is going to become an arbiter of human rights. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so horrifying.

Syria was set to join the hopelessly misnamed HRC last year, but protests by the US and the European Union led to its replacement at the last minute by Kuwait.

Well, it now turns out that Syria never withdrew its candidacy; it just switched slots with Kuwait. Meaning, according to UN Watch, that Syria will be voted in next year for a three-year term to begin in 2014.

By which time, there may no longer be any Syrians left alive.

This all came to light Wednesday at a hearing in Geneva, when the United States and the European Union proposed a resolution barring Syria from consideration.

It was met with stiff resistance — and not just from the usual suspects, like China, Cuba and Russia, themselves all great paragons of human rights.

Newly “democratic” Egypt refused to consider a resolution aimed at a specific country. India declared it “premature”; Brazil also weighed in against.

It also turned out that last November, Syria — then in the throes of its murderous crackdown on anti-government protestors — was elected to two human-rights committees of UNESCO.

The entire matter is ludicrous on its face, of course. Then again, so is the UN.