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| quote: | Remember the tsunami? Big story, 300,000 dead; America and other rich countries too "stingy" in their response; government ministers from every capital on earth announcing on CNN every 10 minutes more and more millions and gazillions. It was in all the papers for a week or two, but not a lot of water under the bridge since then, and as a result this interesting statistic may not have caught your eye:
Five hundred containers, representing one-quarter of all aid sent to Sri Lanka since the tsunami hit on Dec. 26, are still sitting on the dock in Colombo, unclaimed or unprocessed.
At the Indonesian port of Medan, 1,500 containers of aid are still sitting on the dock.
Four months ago, did you chip in to the tsunami relief effort? Did your company? A Scottish subsidiary of the Body Shop donated a 40-foot container of "Lemon Squidgit" and other premium soap, which arrived at Medan in January and has languished there ever since because of "incomplete paperwork,'' according to Indonesian customs officials.
Well, those soapy Scots were winging it -- like so many of us, eager to help but too naive to understand that, no matter the scale of devastation visited upon a hapless developing nation, its obstructionist bureaucracy will emerge from the rubble unscathed. Yet, among the exhaustive examples of wasted Western generosity unearthed by the Financial Times, what struck me was not the free-lancers but the permanent floating crap game of international high-rollers who couldn't penetrate the labyrinth of Indonesian paperwork.
Diageo sent eight 20-foot containers of drinking water via the Red Cross. "We sent it directly to the Red Cross in order to get around the red tape," explained its Sydney office. It arrived in Medan in January and it's still there. The Indonesian Red Cross lost the paperwork.
UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, sent 14 ambulances to Indonesia, and they took two months to clear customs. Terrible as it was in its awesome fury, the tsunami was in the end transnational business as usual. |
Terribly sad, but a pretty weak correlation to John Bolton’s case, which I’ll get into below.
| quote: | | Which brings me to the John Bolton nomination process, which is taking so long you'd think the U.S. Senate was run by Indonesian customs inspectors. Writing of near-Ambassador Bolton's difficulty getting his paperwork stamped by the Foreign Relations Committee, National Review's Cliff May observed that "the real debate is between those who think the U.N. needs reform -- and those who think the U.S. needs reform.'' |
Leave it to those cute little NRO writers to obfuscate the actual argument(s) against the Bolton nomination. In short, nearly everyone, including those on the Left, do not deny the U.N. needs reform. This, however, is completely beside the point about why Dems. And even some fair-minded Republicans believe Bolton is an absolutely horrible nominee for this Ambassador position, a position that requires above all things – knowing and comprehending the definition of “diplomacy”.
This is the last thing Bolton knows and comprehends.
Straw man.
| quote: | | Sen. George Voinovich, one of those "maverick Republicans" the press goes goo-goo over, seems to believe, as Cliff May puts it, "that the problem is more American 'unilateralism' than U.N. corruption, immorality, anti-Americanism and ineptitude." |
What else did Voinovich say?:
| quote: | | "In these dangerous times, we cannot afford to put at risk our nation's ability to successfully wage and win the war on terror with a controversial and ineffective Ambassador to the United Nations. I worry that Mr. Bolton could make it more difficult for us to achieve the important U.N. reforms needed to restore the strength of the institution. I strongly believe that we need to reform the U.N., make it a viable institution for world security, and remove its anti-Israel bias. However, I question John Bolton’s ability to get this job done. " |
What else?
| quote: | Is John Bolton the best possible person to serve as the lead diplomat at the United Nations? Will he be able to pursue the needed reforms at the U.N., despite his damaged credibility? Will he share information with the right individuals and will he solicit information from the right individuals, including his subordinates, so that he can make the most informed decisions? Is he capable of advancing the President and Secretary of State’s efforts to advance our public diplomacy? Does he have the character, leadership, interpersonal skills, self discipline, common decency, and understanding of the chain of command to lead his team to victory? Will he recognize and seize opportunities to repair and strengthen relationships, promote peace, and uphold democracy -- as a team with our fellow nations?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/p...html?oref=login |
Seems Voinovich is more rightly concerned with a great many other issues of Bolton, a bit more than the straw man argument of who needs reforming more – the U.S. or the UN.
| quote: | | On the face of it, this shouldn't be a difficult choice, even for as uncurious a squish as Voinovich. Whatever one feels about it, the United States manages to function. |
Managing to function in the absolute wrong direction, i.e. pissing off nearly everyone else in the world (no longer just those darn Arabs), is not any “better” than hardly functioning at all, IMO.
| quote: | | The U.N. apparatus doesn't. Indeed, the United States does the U.N.'s job better than the U.N. does. |
Yes, and in some cases, they also take part in their corruption – i.e. Oil for Food.
| quote: | | The part of the tsunami aid operation that worked was the first few days, when America, Australia and a handful of other nations improvised instant and effective emergency relief operations that did things like, you know, save lives, rescue people, restore water supply, etc. Then the poseurs of the transnational bureaucracy took over, held press conferences demanding that stingy Westerners needed to give more and more and more, and the usual incompetence and corruption followed. |
He has a point. However I would also counter with our horribly incompetent response to the disaster occurring in Darfur, as well as our ridiculously incompetent response to the over 3 million people murdered in the Congo.
Did the UN fair a whole lot better than us in these recent events? No, but we certainly haven’t been much of a leader by taking the reins on these issues either, have we?
| quote: | | But none of that matters. As the grotesque charade Voinovich and his Democrat chums have inflicted on us demonstrates, all that the so-called "multilateralists" require is that we be polite and deferential to the transnational establishment regardless of how useless it is. What matters in global diplomacy is that you pledge support rather than give any. Thus, Bolton would have no problem getting nominated as U.N. ambassador if he were more like Paul Martin. |
Rubbish, and another straw man coming on yet another irrelevant example. I’ll get into Bolton’s record later.
| quote: | Who? Well, he's prime minister of Canada. And in January, after the tsunami hit, he flew into Sri Lanka to pledge millions and millions and millions in aid. Not like that heartless George W. Bush back at the ranch in Texas. Why, Prime Minister Martin walked along the ravaged coast of Kalumnai and was, reported Canada's CTV network, "visibly shaken." President Bush might well have been shaken, but he wasn't visible, and in the international compassion league, that's what counts. So Martin boldly committed Canada to giving $425 million to tsunami relief. "Mr. Paul Martin Has Set A Great Example For The Rest Of The World Leaders!" raved the LankaWeb news service.
You know how much of that $425 million has been spent so far? Fifty thousand dollars -- Canadian. That's about 40 grand in U.S. dollars. The rest isn't tied up in Indonesian bureaucracy, it's back in Ottawa. But, unlike horrible "unilateralist" America, Canada enjoys a reputation as the perfect global citizen, renowned for its commitment to the U.N. and multilateralism. And on the beaches of Sri Lanka, that and a buck'll get you a strawberry daiquiri. Canada's contribution to tsunami relief is objectively useless and rhetorically fraudulent.
This is the way the transnational jet-set works when the entire world is in complete agreement and acting in perfect harmony. Unlike more "controversial" issues like the mass slaughter in Sudan, no Security Council member is pro-tsunami. And yet even when the entire planet is on the same side, the 24/7 lavishly funded U.N. humanitarian infrastructure can't get its act together. |
I don’t know the details on Canada’s charity giving, so I cannot comment on that. For now I’ll take the author’s word and will agree that if this is true, this is quite pitiful of Canada.
But I keep coming back to the point here – what the fuck does the tsunami disaster have to do with Bolton’s nomination and his complete lack of credibility?
| quote: | | When rent-a-quote senators claim to be pro-U.N. or multilateralist, the tsunami operation is what they have in mind -- that when something bad happens the United States should commit to working through the approved transnational bureaucracies and throw even more "resources" at them, even though nothing will happen (Sri Lanka), millions will be stolen (Oil for Food), children will get raped (U.N. peacekeeping operations) and hundreds of thousands will die (Sudan). |
And what exactly has the U.S. done in Sudan? Anyone?
As for the Oil for Food scandal, our hands are not exactly clean either:
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...financial+times
Especially some U.S. companies who were seemingly involved:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistor...politan/3183233
Or perhaps even a former Halliburton CEO who just so happens to be our VP:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold.php?articleid=3767
I love talking about the Oil for Food scandal to Conservatives. Seems they love nothing but to point all fingers to others while attempting to keep all their skeletons in the closet.
| quote: | | John Bolton's sin is to have spoken the truth about the international system rather than the myths to which photo-oppers like the Canadian prime minister defer. As a consequence, he's being treated like a container of Western aid being processed by Indonesian customs. Customs Inspector Joe Biden and Junior Clerk Voinovich spent two months trying to come up with reasons why Bolton's paperwork is inadequate and demanding to know why he hasn't filled out his RU1-2. An RU1-2 is the official international bureaucrat's form reassuring the global community that he'll continue to peddle all the polite fictions, no matter how self-evidently risible they are. John Bolton isn't one, too. That's why we need him. |
Umm no , this is not John Bolton’s sin. So why don’t we actually take a stroll down memory lane which, though a bit difficult to revisionist history Conservatives, will reveal exactly why Voinovich and many others oppose this douchebag:
1. Attempted to “reassign” intelligence analysts who disagreed with his conclusions.
-John thought Cuba was building biological weapons, whereas the intelligence community rightly believed he was full of shit. As a consequence, he tried to remove two intelligence analysts from their posts:
| quote: | Bolton has acknowledged calling for Westermann's reassignment, saying the analyst worked behind his back to undermine him, but has also noted that no one was dismissed at his behest.
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Armstrong was, however, reassigned. Officials told The Times that it took the intervention of John McLaughlin, former deputy director of central intelligence, to save Armstrong's job at the CIA.
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Reich told the newspaper that he had sought Armstrong's removal because he considered him too quick to believe leftist figures like President Fidel Castro of Cuba and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/17/news/bolton.html |
and
| quote: | Stuart Cohen and Carl Ford, their respective supervisors, recall instead that Bolton was furious that low-level analysts would dare challenge an appointee of the President on substantive matters. In fact, Ford, a staunch conservative Republican, testified to the Foreign Relations Committee that Bolton’s anger toward Westerman “sent a chill” through the intelligence community at the State Department; he added: "I’ve never seen anybody quite like Secretary Bolton. I don’t have a second, third or fourth in terms of the way that he abuses his power and authority with little people." Armstrong and Westerman only kept their jobs because CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin and Secretary of State Colin Powell intervened to protect them.
http://www.stopbolton.org/record.html |
As well as harassment:
| quote: | Biden also referred Sunday to a former employee of the Agency for International Development who, as he put it, "said she'd been essentially harassed by John Bolton." Biden apparently was referring to Melody Townsel, who has said that in 1994, while legal counsel to a group working for the agency, she had a prolonged confrontation with Bolton. There had been no independent confirmation of this
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/17/news/bolton.html |
Yeah, this is the one which Bolton chased down this girl in the hallway, calling her every damn name in the book, yelling and kicking at her hotel door when she locked it to keep him away. What a terrific diplomat, huh?
You could read more of his past idiotic maneuvers here:
http://www.stopbolton.org/record.html
They include:
2. Made very questionable requests of transcripts of secret conversations involving high-level U.S. officials
3. Fucking up U.S-U.K relations over Iran. In essence, more than likely bolstering the case for war in Iran on yet again, flimsy evidence
4. Tried to fire official for toning down Iraq WMD language
5. Failed to forward crucial intelligence documents to both Powell and Rice, thus leaving Powell and Rice out of the loop at times.
6. Incited N. Korea right before the 6-way talks, then told not to come as a result by our own people. Fucking moron. And what’s worse, fucking LIED to Congress about the approval of his brash and idiotic speech about N. Korea.
7. Pushed the debunked intelligence about Iraq’s WMD – namely the discredited crap about the uranium in Niger
8. Threatened to fire a woman who wanted to take maternity leave
9. Additionally, Bolton was so busy lobbying for a senior job for Bush’s second term that he didn’t properly prepare for a major nonproliferation conference, effectively fucking up our chances to help curb Iran nuclear proliferation:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7817986/site/newsweek/
10. And finally, Bolton may have willingly and blatantly violated our Haiti arms embargo:
http://www.liberaloasis.com/archives/050805.htm#051105
| quote: | | Bolton may be brash but I'm sure he actually gets results. |
Well I guess if outright lying, willfully holding material, and threatening to fire people who don’t agree with you, despite the fact that their very job is to obtain the best objective intelligence possible out there, gets you the results that you want, than I suppose all ends justify the means, don’t they?
| quote: | We had an IT manager like that at my work once; brash, loud and total disregard for anything resembling a feeling but you know what?
Things got done and done on time.
Results were noticed and that's what he expected. |
There’s a pretty big difference between a harsh manager who pushes to get things done, and one who deliberately lies and obfuscates in order to push his agenda along. The former has integrity and credibility despite his/her harsh managerial methodology, the latter has none.
| quote: | As a Canuck and reading the above about Paul Martin I'm not surprised in the least.
We're now talking about a government that has won it's vote for the budget and now going to totally disregard ANY inquiry into the Food-for-Oil scandal that they were totally knee-deep in to cover up everything and save their friends.
I'm totally infuriated with our government and their dirty tentacles. |
I hope you’re just as infuriated with the U.S. government who willfully participated by looking the other way, as well as the U.S. companies who directly participated in this who fiasco.
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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...
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Bolton's sin is telling truth about system
) I'll say this:
