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josh4
Supreme tranceaddict
Registered: Dec 2003
Location: New York City
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Okay so he's not going to return, but what of the job he's done while he was there?
| quote: | At U.N., Mixed Views of Bolton’s Tenure
By WARREN HOGE
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 4 — The announcement today of John R. Bolton’s imminent departure was greeted by United Nations officials with relief and by diplomats with mixed assessments of his effectiveness during his 17 months as the United States ambassador.
“No comment, he said with a smile,” Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy secretary general, said over his shoulder to reporters who pursued him as he hustled through the corridors of U.N. headquarters on his way to a meeting.
Mr. Malloch Brown angered Mr. Bolton this summer by accusing the United States of “stealth diplomacy” — turning to the United Nations when Washington needed it, while continuing to publicly disdain the institution’s value and to encourage its harshest detractors.
At the time, Mr. Bolton demanded a personal apology from Secretary General Kofi Annan, but did not get it.
Mr. Bolton’s relationship with Mr. Annan was also marked by testiness. He repeatedly ducked opportunities offered by reporters to praise or commend Mr. Annan, usually by changing the subject or by saying, as he did on one such occasion last month, “I’ll pass.”
A year ago, Mr. Annan startled Security Council ambassadors at one of their monthly luncheons by chastising Mr. Bolton for trying to “intimidate” him.
Mr. Annan told reporters today: “It is difficult to blame one individual ambassador for difficulties on some of these issues, whether it is reform or some other issues. But I think what I have always maintained is that it is important that the ambassadors work together, that the ambassadors understand that to get concessions, they have to make concessions, and they need to work with each other for the organization to move ahead.”
Security Council ambassadors said they respected Mr. Bolton personally and that they thought he represented the United States well, but they said his manner — often described as abrupt and confrontational — alienated traditional American allies and undercut American influence.
They said that in areas where he was clearly taking his instructions from Washington, he performed well. But when it came to the objective that he described as the United States’s priority and on which he planted his personal stamp — overhauling the management of the U.N. — he was unsuccessful.
Of course, even Mr. Bolton’s success in championing the Bush administration represented a problem for him at the world organization, where that policy is perceived as disdainful of diplomacy itself, heedless in its effects on others and single-minded in its assertion of American interests.
“I think he was serious about the American objective here of reforming the United Nations, and he pushed hard,” said Wang Guangya, the Chinese ambassador. “But of course, sometimes in order to achieve the objective, you have to work together with others.”
Adamantios Vassilakis, the Greek ambassador, said: “I had a good personal relationship with him. Sometimes it was not easy, but we managed to find a solution whenever I dealt with him.”
A third ambassador from a Security Council member state, asking to speak anonymously when commenting on a fellow envoy, said, “People here are not against the United States, but I think the United States lost a lot of things because of Bolton’s tactics.”
In Moscow, the Novosti news agency quoted a Russian foreign ministry spokesman saying that Mr. Bolton had been “a very strong professional, although on a series of issues, including problems of U.N. reform, he supported extremely severe views.”
The spokesman added that he hoped President Bush would nominate a successor without “excessive severity in his approach.”
Mr. Vassilakis said he thought Mr. Bolton had been particularly effective in obtaining Security Council backing for resolutions condemning North Korea’s nuclear program, but less so in gaining support for joint action against Iran’s nuclear program. “But then, Iran is more complicated,” he said.
On Mr. Bolton’s campaign to bring about change in United Nations practices, he said, “I might say I would personally push for the same thing with different tactics, but that’s a different story.”
Asked about achievements of Mr. Bolton, both Mr. Wang and Mr. Vassilakis noted approvingly a simple but dramatic step Mr. Bolton took a year ago, when the United States held the rotating presidency of the Security Council. Mr. Bolton insisted that Council meetings begin on time, and to illustrate the point, he gaveled the first meeting of his tenure to order at the appointed hour even though he was the only ambassador in the chamber at the time.
“I think, generally speaking, he wanted the council to work more effectively and he wanted to change the working habits here so we started punctually,” he said.
Mr. Vassilakis said, “Starting on time is an important thing, because the interpreters are paid, and if we say we are going to start at 10 and we start at 10:30, they cash their salary early.”
Mr. Bolton is leaving his post just weeks before Mr. Annan, who completes his second five-year term in office on Dec. 31, leaves his. “Yes,” Mr. Annan said today, “we are both graduating together.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/w...artner=homepage |
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 Dec-04-2006 21:45 
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MisterOpus1
Grumpy Old Fart
Registered: Dec 2001
Location: Kansas City
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| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
my apologies man. it's just that these Democrats are so wrong and so stupid. |
Would you please spare us your tearful farewell of that irate douchebag who had not just the Democrats in disagreeance with his position but a number of Republicans as well? What fucking vacuum do you live in here? So whenever something goes against the grain of Cheney-like neocon ideological vision, is it always the fault of the Democrats?
And as I outlined here before:
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...ighlight=bolton
That guy was anything but a good fit for a U.S. diplomatic representative to the U.N. The U.N. has a buttload of problems, granted, but you don't send a tweaked-out rhino on acid into a glass house. To wit:
| quote: | *Greece’s U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis: “He is not an easy man to get close to. … Some people have the possibility to build consensus. Others operate in other ways.”
*Algeria’s U.N. Ambassador Abdullah Baali, after a disagreement with Bolton: “The U.S. stand that ‘you take it or you leave it is not helping the Security Council, and is not helping the cause of peace in the Middle East.’”
*Peru’s U.N. Ambassador Oswaldo de Rivero: “He lives in another world, with this belief that he is morally superior and the U.S. is more moral than all the countries around the world. It is a pity.”
Michael Doyle, former special adviser to Kofi Annan: “Sometimes he [states U.S. policy] in a manner that is grating. But it is the policy that is most of the problem, even though the personality doesn’t help.”
*An ambassador with close ties to the Bush administration: “My initial feeling was, let’s see if we can work with him, and I have done some things to push for consensus on issues that were not easy for my country. … But all he gives us in return is, ‘It doesn’t matter, whatever you do is insufficient.’ … He’s lost me as an ally now, and that’s what many other ambassadors who consider themselves friends of the U.S. are saying.”
*A European diplomat: “A lot of us wonder what his real agenda is. First, we think maybe he wants things to fail because then he can say, ‘We cannot reform this place.’ The other question is, does he really reflect the position in Washington? That is always the question: Is it Bolton or is it Washington?” |
and
| quote: | • Bolton isolated the U.S. from its allies on the Human Rights Council. Because Bolton was unable to negotiate favorable terms on the creation of a new Human Rights Council, the U.S. was one of four nations to oppose the creation of the Council, while 170 nations voted for it. Out of 30 or so negotiating sessions over the creation of the Council, Bolton attended just one.
• Bolton blocked the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide from briefing the Security Council on Darfur. “Bolton said he had objected to the briefing to make the point the council should be ‘talking more about the steps it can take to do something about the deteriorating security situation’ in Darfur. [But] he gave no new proposals.”
• Bolton unable to build consensus on U.N. reform. Kofi Annan’s deputy Mark Malloch Brown said that there is global consensus on the need for U.N. reform, but that international perception of U.S. motives are hindering those efforts. “There is currently a perception among many otherwise quite moderate countries that anything the U.S. supports must have a secret agenda aimed at either subordinating multilateral processes to Washington’s ends or weakening the institutions, and therefore, put crudely, should be opposed without any real discussion of whether they make sense or not,” he said. Bolton has not been able to breakthrough the deadlock, but has instead reinforced the perception.
• Bolton blocked and delayed approval of funding for U.N. renovation plan. The United States was the lone holdout on a U.N. committee that tried to approve an estimated $1.6 billion renovation plan for the U.N. The U.N. building violates New York safety and fire codes; it is packed with asbestos, has no sprinkler system, and leaks about a quarter of its heating. Bolton’s position provoked “an America-versus-the-world standoff.” Ultimately, Bolton’s obstruction caused Louis Frederick Reuter, the official in charge of the renovation, to quit his post.
• Bolton sought to undermine the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs aimed to convert rhetoric into hard numbers on such issues as reducing poverty and hunger, enrolling children in primary school, etc. Just days after he arrived in New York after a recess appointment, Bolton released over 700 edits to the draft document for the summit, excising all mentions of the MDGs. Bush and Rice later had to backtrack from Bolton, reassuring the U.N. of its commitment to the agreed upon goals. |
His issues on Sudan were lovely too:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/07/27/bolton-sudan/
Ya know, I guess I can understand why you like him so much - he really does epitomize this Administration's attitude to the world. Kinda that If-you're-not-in-line-with-our-interests-fuck-you-and-die type of personality that's been so warmly greeted by the rest of the world.
People like him are fucking embarrassments to be called Americans.
___________________
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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Dec-05-2006 21:10
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Bolton to resign
