All bark, no bite Baird

"With our action today we're seeking to try and reform the group so that it can be more successful in following its main mandate," Baird said. "What I know won't work, what I know won't be good for this conference, is if countries like Canada re-main quiet and go along to get along."

Uh-huh.  Yeah.  With no other country in agreement with banning nasties from such conferences, the UN is going to tremble and change its mandate for Canada.  Not the old Canada that carried some weight, but the new harper Canada with its pretense at principled stances when its doing nothing more than engaging in domestic politics while on the international stage.

I suppose harper would have banned Russia from the cold war resolution talks.

You have to engage the nasties in talks, or international meetings banning them simply become exercises in planning the next war against them.  It implies that words are useless, reason and diplomacy go nowhere, and only relentless bombing and killing will get the nasties to be nice.

And will the nasties just sit in a corner wearing a dunce hat?  Not likely.

Other concerns among diplomats focus on the potential "precedent" the Canadian boycott sets. While the West considers North Korea to be run by a rogue regime, countries like Cuba and Venezuela - as constant critics of the United States and Western capitalism - may in turn start to boycott U.S. or other Western chairmanships, some at the UN suggest.

harper's  divisive politics:  now international.