U.N.-friendly acts--The world body needs to explain why it's been cozy with despots

With Libyans dying by the hundreds in their uprising to evict Moammar Gadhafi, the United Nations is speedily backing away from the same Libyan regime it so recently embraced as one of its most favored darlings. Since lifting sanctions on Libya in 2003, the U.N. has honored Gadhafi’s envoys with seats on the Security Council and Human Rights Council, plus the 2009-10 presidency of the entire U.N. General Assembly. Now the U.N. is professing itself shocked — shocked! — that Gadhafi is displaying brutality consistent with his previous four decades of terror, repression and slaughter. The U.N. Security Council just...