This partial transcript from Hannity & Colmes, May 9, 2001 was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House. Click here to order last night's entire transcript.
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HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I'm Sean Hannity.
Our top newsmaker on this Wednesday: The U.S. was kicked off two important panels at the United Nations last week, the Human Rights Commission and the International Narcotics Control Board. The move left many lawmakers in Washington angry and others wondering if we've lost some power on the world stage. And what do people have against the United States?
Joining us now is Jeane Kirkpatrick. She is the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Ms. Kirkpatrick, welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. There is around the world a lot of hostility, anger, animosity, antipathy towards the United States of America, and I think we saw -- got a glimpse of it this -- with these two instances I described. Why do so many countries hate this country?
JEANE KIRKPATRICK, FORMER U.N. AMBASSADOR: Oh, I don't think so many countries hate this country. I...
HANNITY: Well...
KIRKPATRICK: I think there's a lot of envy mixed in these negative feelings, I might say.
HANNITY: Yeah.
KIRKPATRICK: But I also think that -- you know, that a lot of countries would just like to take the biggest, richest, most powerful country in the world down a peg or two or three. And I think that's what
was happening in the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
HANNITY: Well, is it -- is it because of our stand against China and their atrocious human rights record? Is it that we stand by our close friend and ally, Israel, against...
KIRKPATRICK: Yes.
HANNITY: ... terrorism?
KIRKPATRICK: Yes. The fact that we regularly support Israel against really, truly unfair and unreasonable charges is very important. There were three resolutions passed against Israel in this past Human Rights Commission meeting, and the United States voted against each of the three. You know what? The United States and Israel were the only countries that voted against them.
HANNITY: And it's -- and it's often the same alliance. Now...
KIRKPATRICK: And our European allies, you know, were -- were neutral, and the rest of the world -- that vote was 28-22-2.
HANNITY: Right.
KIRKPATRICK: We were in the 2.
HANNITY: Right. Well -- before I get -- I want to ask you this question because we pay a bulk of the money to finance the United Nations. And Congress had agreed to pay some of these back dues that we had owed them, and now that money is being -- some congressmen are threatening to hold back on that. Should the American taxpayers pay that money? Should they look at this as a slap in the face? Regularly -- you know better than anybody, Ms. Kirkpatrick, that -- that people take to the floor of the United Nations and they bash the United States. Should we be paying the bulk of that money?
KIRKPATRICK: Look, I mean, I don't think that we should pay the bulk of money in any arena where we are treated ourselves unfairly and in a hostile fashion. But I don't think that quite sums it up for the U.N. Human Rights Commission. I believe that what we should do is be clear about who's doing it to us.
HANNITY: Right.
KIRKPATRICK: And it's not the U.N., it's the countries...
HANNITY: Right.
KIRKPATRICK: ... that are voting against us.
HANNITY: Here's -- here's...
KIRKPATRICK: And if we're going to -- if we're going to, you know...
HANNITY: Right.
KIRKPATRICK: ... impose any kind of punishment, we ought to impose it against the countries.
HANNITY: I agree. Now, some would argue that -- that Secretary of State Colin Powell was caught a little flat-footed here. He had anticipated -- he had promises, he says, of 14 counties, apparently
abandoned the promise that they had. That's one issue. And another issue is a lot of people in the United States -- there's strong sentiment that the U.S. should get out of the U.N. What are your thoughts on it?
KIRKPATRICK: There's probably no one who's suffered more temptations about just withdrawing...
HANNITY: Than you?
KIRKPATRICK: ... from the U.N. than me, I must say...
(CROSSTALK)
KIRKPATRICK: I believe, however, that it's not -- you know, not really what we ought to do, and probably not even what most Americans want to do. I think that we don't want to abandon the field to the bad guys, as it were, to -- you know, the -- in the U.N. Human Rights Commission today, there's a bloc of really bad guys in the sense that they've continually regularly violate the human rights and due process, you know, and survival capacities even of their own citizens.
COLMES: Ms. Kirkpatrick, it's Alan Colmes. Welcome back to the show. Let me ask you -- you know, some people are blaming George W. Bush and saying that he didn't nominate yet before Congress...
KIRKPATRICK: Right.
COLMES: ... Negroponte, who he has...
KIRKPATRICK: Right.
COLMES: ... is suggesting will be -- should be the U.N. ambassador.
KIRKPATRICK: Right.
COLMES: And that is part of what happened here, that we dropped...
KIRKPATRICK: Right.
COLMES: ... the ball on this. Do you concur?
KIRKPATRICK: I think it would have been useful to have had Negroponte on the job in advance of this whole development. That's the -- I don't think that means dropping the ball. It's a -- you know, getting a nominee through the process is a complicated business, and I wouldn't say that the -- George W. Bush or Colin Powell, Secretary of State Colin Powell-
COLMES: Right.
KIRKPATRICK: ... are responsible for this. I would say that it was a
factor in our problem.
COLMES: Right. Now, you know, David Malone, former deputy Canadian ambassador, now head of the International Peace Academy, he blames this on our retreat from Kyoto, a veto on March 28th on the Security Council to defeat a draft resolution on the Palestinian territories...
HANNITY: Right. Right.
COLMES: ... and growing rifts between us and the European Union.
KIRKPATRICK: Right.
COLMES: Do you concur that those are all factors...
KIRKPATRICK: I think those were factors, too. I think each one of those was a factor, actually. I've already mentioned the fact that...
COLMES: Right.
KIRKPATRICK: ... we regularly supported Israel.
COLMES: Right. But that was one of the things I just mentioned. Also, we failed to ratify the 1989 international convention on the right of the child. Bush wants to scrap...
KIRKPATRICK: (INAUDIBLE) land mines convention...
COLMES: Right.
KIRKPATRICK: ... or the international criminal court. Fact is, we have some very high standards, and we have interests of our own and we have the right to project them. And we certainly shouldn't be the -- you know, involved in an organization which seeks to deprive us of the right to
govern ourselves or protect our own basic national interest.
COLMES: Right. But also, all these, you think, figured into it. A lot of conservatives in Congress are very upset about the amount of money we owe. I think we pay now, as of the recent agreement, 22 percent...
KIRKPATRICK: Right.
COLMES: ... of the United Nations. And that is the bulk that Sean was referring to.
KIRKPATRICK: That's down from 25 percent.
COLMES: Down from 25 percent.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right.
COLMES: And we owe them $582 million right now that we agreed to pay in December.
KIRKPATRICK: Right.
COLMES: But there's a contingent saying we shouldn't pay that. Shouldn't we keep our commitment to pay that amount of money?
KIRKPATRICK: Look, I don't think that it's useful to withhold our dues or the amount of money that we've agreed to pay, you know, every time we have a disagreement with some of members of the U.N. I don't think -- you know, this was not a disagreement with the United Nations.
COLMES: Right.
KIRKPATRICK: The United Nations didn't do this to us. Some of the member states in the Human Rights Commission did it to us. And our disagreement is with them. They have been gaining control of the Human Rights Commission, and that's one of the big problems, actually, is that
the bad guys have formed a bloc in the Human Rights Commission.
HANNITY: Ambassador, always good to see you. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.
And coming up next: Can therapy help somebody who is a homosexual become a heterosexual? We'll ask the Reverend Jerry Falwell.
And later on, we'll talk -- Marcia Clark thinks that O.J. Simpson killed once. Does she think he'd kill again? She'll answer that controversial question straight ahead.
Click here to order last night's entire transcript.
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