President Bush recently addressed the United Nations General Assembly, lamenting that "the American people are disappointed by the failures of the Human Rights Council. This body has been silent on repression by regimes from Havana to Caracas to Pyongyang and Tehran - while focusing its criticism excessively on Israel." Last week, Mitt Romney referred to the UN as "an extraordinary failure," and went so far as to proclaim: "We should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council." Romney would support entirely replacing the UN with a new "coalition of the free nations of the world."

Why such harsh words for an institution devoted to Human Rights? The answer is as painful as it is tragic.

First, it would seem appropriate to consider how the UN Human Rights Council spends its time. (Note: The Human Rights Council is actually a new organization. It was previously named the Human Rights Commission, but that institution was so horribly corrupt and ineffective that the UN thought that no amount of internal reform could possibly correct its failures. So, the Commission was replaced by a new body, the Council. Let's see how it's doing....)

Not too long ago, the Council published its 2006 Human Rights Action list - an index of the body's initiatives against human rights abusers. Here are the highlights:

The #1 human rights abuser (by twice as many sanction as the #2 contender): Israel! If you aren't aware that the UN foams at the mouth with frantic hatred of the Jews, you haven't been keeping your eye on the ball.

The #2 abuser (that is, twice as good as nasty Israel): Sudan (perpetrator of genocide, institutional slavery, etc., etc.).

#4 on the list - that is, the fourth worst country in the world, a country worse than the #5 country, Cote d'Ivoire (whom we had to avert from genocide that year) and #6 "Myanmar" (a bloody, military dictatorship that the U.S. won't even recognize, recently in the news for the massacre of hundreds of innocent monks and citizens). Who is this scourge of humanity and blight of civilization? Why, none other than our very own... United States of America!

If the U.S. is the fourth worst place on Earth for human rights, I think we can pretty much accept that we've won as a species and the world is an utterly safe and comfy place. Or, at least, that we need to stop sending money to apparently safe countries (i.e., China and Columbia, tied at #9) and spend those resources where they are truly needed: Utah.

Just a note of interest: #23 on the list, that virtual Paradise of human dignity and freedom, with 1/4 of the sanctions piled up against America, my personal favorite: Cuba. A country where the "peligrosidad predelictiva" law makes criminal "a person's special proclivity to commit offenses as demonstrated by conduct that is manifestly contrary to the norms of socialist morality." Cuba: Where it's a crime to seem like you might someday do something Castro doesn't like. 19 spots above us on the list.

So if you're thinking of a vacation, for Heaven's sake, don't go somewhere dangerous - like Florida - but rather, choose a safe location, like Iraq (#10) or Afghanistan (#11), where the UN can assure you that you'll have comparatively no chance at all of suffering a human rights violation.