ANALYSIS / OPINION:

In recent days, foreign leaders, rulers and tyrants have flocked to New York for the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, also known as UNGA (pronounced uhng-guh). Did you listen to their speeches? I did not think. So, it occurred to me that I should provide you with the highlights. Only I did not find any. So instead, I’m going to treat you with a few weak spots – lies, escapes, boilerplate, and insults to your intelligence.

Starting with Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, who pledged to “fight COVID-19 in solidarity” and “always put people and their lives first and care about the value of the life and dignity of each individual ”.

Those who nod and / or applaud should know that Xi has blocked serious investigations into the origin and spread of the virus, as such investigations would be based on the abundant evidence that Beijing, through incompetence or worse, has triggered the global pandemic that has killed millions of people. people and devastated economies around the world.

Xi’s propagandists tried to convince the gullible that the altered virus was from somewhere else – like, hey, maybe America! Or Australia! Nonetheless, Xi wants you to know that he “strongly opposes political maneuvering in any form.”

Let’s move on to Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, who sliced ​​the territory of neighboring Georgia and Ukraine while helping Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad slaughter hundreds of thousands of his subjects. He assured us that “threats and challenges can only be tackled effectively by concerted efforts in strict compliance with universally recognized norms of international law, first and foremost the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations”.

It is widely believed that the Kremlin used chemical weapons to suppress criticism. Mr. Lavrov’s solution: “We are awaiting a response to the Russian initiative to draw up a Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Chemical and Biological Terrorism.

He is also appalled that “a number of countries” are trying to “weaken” what he called “the UN-centric world order”. The “precipitous withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan”, he added, must be regarded as “a new demonstration of the rules on which the West will build its world order”.

Picking up on this theme, the new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, whose involvement in the mass executions of dissidents in the 1980s earned him the nickname “Butcher of Tehran,” said with joy that “Today, the United States does not come out of Iraq and Afghanistan but is expelled.

He said his regime had as little respect for President Biden as it did for President Trump: “Today the world doesn’t care about ‘America First’ or ‘America is Back’.

Ambassador Kim Song, spokesman for the dynastic dictatorship in North Korea, took issue with President Biden’s claim to have ended America’s longest war. “The reality,” he said, “is that the Korean War hasn’t ended for over 70 years.

He is right. America has neither won nor ended this conflict. Instead, in 1953 we settled into a dead end. Since then, we have maintained a presence in the south – currently around 28,000 troops – tasked with ensuring that the allied dictatorship in Beijing does not invade the peninsula.

For decades, South Korea has suffered from appalling governance. Over time, however, it has become more and more democratic, free and prosperous. Afghanistan might have followed a similar path – with the Taliban prevented from reclaiming the country – if the American leadership had not decided that maintaining a much smaller military presence there was an unbearable burden.

This brings us to President Biden who, in his address to the UNGA, insisted that the unconditional surrender to the terrorist organization which hosted al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001 and which remains AQ’s strategic partner, ended “a period of relentless war” – despite declarations to the contrary sworn to Congress by its senior military advisers.

He boasted of having ushered in “a new era of relentless diplomacy” – whatever that might mean. He said he had “given priority to rebuilding our alliances”, ignoring the fact that the French government, feeling aggrieved by him, had just days before withdrawn its ambassador to the United States for the first time.

He announced his intention to turn “our attention to the priorities and regions of the world, such as the Indo-Pacific”. When he took office, the United States had an important base in the Indo-Pacific: at Bagram in Afghanistan. He abandoned it.

He congratulated himself on having “re-engaged” with the World Health Organization and the United Nations Human Rights Council. None of these dysfunctional organizations have launched meaningful reforms.

While shouting to “proud Moldovans” and “young people of Zambia,” he said nothing about Hong Kong, where long-standing freedoms have been erased by Beijing in violation of its treaty obligations. He also did not mention Beijing’s growing threats against the Taiwanese.

So, what was achieved during the 76th session of the UNGA? I wouldn’t say anything. To my surprise, two influential political commentators (who work in the moonlight as comedians) seemed to agree. Jimmy Fallon said: “Then the UN is going to say, ‘We believe that further conflict with the Taliban will be avoided with our last pledge on the little finger. “”

And Trevor Noah noted, “BTS gave a speech and filmed a clip from inside the UN headquarters. Completely real. Yes. The old people were probably watching this, like “What’s a BTS?” And the young people were looking at him, like ‘What is the UN?’ “

Full disclosure: I am one of those seniors. But I did my research, so now I know BTS is a K-Pop sensation. If you don’t know what a “K-Pop sensation” is, you must be really old!

• Clifford D. May is the founder and chairman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and columnist for the Washington Times.