139 - 1

And 24 abstentions. On which more later.

So, the UN voted to

begin work on drawing up an international arms trade treaty. The UN secretary general has one year to produce a report on how to introduce common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.

Major weapons manufacturers such as Britain, France and Germany voted to begin work on the treaty, as did major emerging arms exporters Bulgaria and Ukraine.

Russia and China, also major arms manufacturers, were among the countries to abstain.

And the USA was the only country vote against it.

Dan Damon interviewed an American diplomat from the US embassy in London, David Johnson. His responses can be easily summed up.

(1) The USA has the most stringent policy in the world, with every defense contract scrutinized on a case-by-base basis.
(2) Putting a weak treaty in place would be pandering to the lowest common denominator and that "we want a higher playing field, something that will be truly effective."
(3) A weak treaty will give people a false sense of security.

Dan Damon said that it will be hard to ignore the diplomatic impression. Johnson ignored that, repeating his line about the US's standards.

Damon's right - you hear "The UN voted 139-1 to work on an arms trading treaty; the USA is the only country to vote against it" and what do you think?

Which is why the abstentions don't register. The abstentions aren't a "No". 139-0 with 25 abstentions isn't nearly as powerful to hear, as shocking, as 139-1, with 24 abstentions.

And Johnson's wrong - the US wasn't taking a principled stand against a treaty, weakened by hypocritical pandering to Russia and China, cynically manipulated to make poor people around the world think they'll be safe while arms dealers laugh all the way to the bank.

The US voted against starting to develop a treaty.

Note that: voted against.

Again, if we'd abstained, saying we doubted it would do any good, that would still not have been a good move, but it wouldn't have been remarkable. This was an actual vote to kill even trying to develop a treaty. After all, the motion wasn't "The UN will begin work on a crappy treaty that won't actually do anything."

This was pure disdain for the UN. Bolton must have loved casting the vote.

I reapeat, it would be one thing if we had rolled up our sleeves and gone to work, insisting every step of the way on stringent, tough standards that would make everyone join us on that "higher playing field", and then, when we had failed to make something tough and practical, we were voting against a gutted treaty. That would be principled.

This is just more of our administration's absolute disdain for the international community, and its pathological hatred of treaties.