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Bolton lashes out again -- this time, at a pro-American Briton!
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| HardTranceProd |
From today's Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...6061100765.html
This mentally unstable character, who has referred to the US as "the sun around which other nations (mere asteroids) rotate," and who has deliberately misled the British (I thought the British were our friends??), has now lashed out at a particular pro-American British official, who dared speak the truth about America's involvement in the UN.
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Last month President Bush issued a rare apology. "Saying 'Bring it on,' kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal," he confessed. "I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted."
Well done, Mr. President, you've understood that bluster can backfire. Now how about sharing this insight with your ambassador to the United Nations?
John R. Bolton, the ambassador in question, has a rich history of losing friends and failing to influence people. He was notorious, even before arriving at the United Nations last year, for having said that 10 stories of the U.N. headquarters could be demolished without much loss; he had described the United States as the sun around which lesser nations rotate -- mere "asteroids," he'd branded them. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Senate refused to confirm Bolton as U.N. ambassador. "Arrogant," "bullying," and "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be," Sen. George Voinovich called him.
Bush sent Bolton anyway, bypassing the Senate by appointing him during a congressional recess. It soon turned out that dismissing foreign ambassadors as asteroid dwellers was merely a warm-up. As soon as Bolton got to New York, he blew up the preparatory negotiations for a gathering of heads of state, insisting that the other 190 members of the world body immediately agree to hundreds of changes in the summit document.
If Bolton had picked a fight on a worthwhile issue, this might have been justified. But one of the chief aims of his edits was to eliminate all mention of the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals, even though these targets for reducing child mortality and so on are inoffensive. After a week of Bolton-induced bureaucratic battles, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice weighed in, explaining that the administration actually had nothing against the development goals. When the summit convened, Bush himself had to declare during his speech that he supported the targets that his ambassador had repudiated.
Bolton's next triumph was to demand U.N. reform, or rather to pretend to do so. An effort to create a credible human rights council was underway, but Bolton skipped nearly all of the 30 or so negotiating sessions. Then, when the negotiators produced a blueprint for the new council, Bolton declared it unacceptable, leaving furious American allies to wonder why he hadn't weighed in earlier to secure a better outcome. "The job now is to get clarity on what the U.S. wants," the British ambassador said icily. But what Bolton really wanted was quite clear: to allow the negotiations to falter and then to condemn whatever they produced, throwing red meat to his U.N.-hating allies on the right of the Republican Party.
Next, Bolton blundered into U.N. management reform, an issue that may soon precipitate a crisis. The top U.N. officials, led by Secretary General Kofi Annan, had laid out a menu of radical changes, designed to eliminate useless conferences and reports and to move staff to departments that most needed them. Bolton added his own brand of bluster to this plan: If poor countries carried on resisting management reforms, rich countries would stop paying for the organization. The deadline for agreeing on reform is the end of this month, but no breakthrough is in sight. Officials are wondering what to do if U.N. checks start bouncing.
Not many reformers at the United Nations believe that the budget threat achieved anything. To the contrary, Bolton has so poisoned the atmosphere that the cause of management renewal is viewed by many developing countries as an American plot. And if Bolton carries through on his threat to cut off money for the United Nations, the United States will be more isolated than ever. Refusing to fund U.N. officials who are planning for a peacekeeping mission in Darfur is not a winning strategy.
Last week the U.N. deputy secretary general, a pro-American Briton named Mark Malloch Brown, went public with his Bolton frustrations. He pointed out that the United Nations serves many American objectives, from deploying peacekeepers to helping with Iraq's elections. Given this cooperation, the powers that be in Washington should stick up for the United Nations rather than threatening to blow it up. They should not be passive in the face of "unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping."
This merely stated the obvious. If you doubt that U.N.-bashing and stereotyping goes on, ask yourself what gallery Bolton is playing to -- or check out the latest cover of the National Rifle Association magazine, which features a wolf with U.N. logos in its eyeballs. But Malloch Brown's speech didn't seem obvious to Bolton. "This is the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen," he thundered in response. "Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations."
Which would suit Bolton and his allies perfectly. But it should not suit Bush, at least not now that he's grasped that bluster can backfire. Arriving at the U.N. summit last September, a different Bush greeted the secretary general and gestured at Bolton; "has the place blown up since he's been here?" he demanded, teasingly. Well, it's now time for the new Bush to acknowledge that Bolton's tactics aren't funny. The United States needs an ambassador who can work with the United Nations. Right now, it doesn't have one.
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| Q5echo |
who's afraid of a little lashing out? i know who. besides, that seemed pretty mild for a Bolton lash-out. did you see him in front of Senate Intel Panel last month?
question. how do you reform the UN?
i wouldn't know where start, but i bet you gotta light a few fires under some collective entrenched asses.
| quote: | To save the world, first save the UN
John Bolton, forthright American envoy to the UN, tells Jasper Gerard Britain has to swing behind reform pronto
So in an interview with The Sunday Times, he cheerfully lays into Britain for deferring to the European Union rather than pursuing its own policy and says Tony Blair has no chance of leading the UN because the post is bound to go to a Third World functionary. He warms up by doling out a mighty good kicking to the Brit Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy secretary-general, who last week made an unusually robust attack on America’s policy towards the UN.
Bolton wasted no time firing his bolt: unless Kofi Annan, the secretary-general, disowns the remarks there will be “consequences” that will throw the UN into “turmoil”. If Malloch Brown broke diplomatic convention with his rather sneering suggestion that Bolton uses the UN to play to middle America, Bolton shows he can do contempt pretty well too.
He says of the plummy Malloch Brown, who lives in a swanky pad provided by the financier who broke the Bank of England, George Soros: “Maybe it’s fashionable to look down on middle America and those who have not had the benefit of a continental education. But as a UN official what he said is illegitimate.”
Bolton utters “continental education” as if it were something scraped off his shoe. But you can trace a smile dancing under his walrus moustache: he clearly enjoys the panic he excites in others.
What does he say to Malloch Brown’s contention that America uses UN resolutions to chide enemies then quietly ignores ones it finds inconvenient? “The United States pursues its foreign policy interests through the UN,” he says. “It can be an effective tool of American foreign policy.”
Hah! A critic would say that lets the cat — or tiger — out of the bag: how dare he consider the UN an American “tool”? “I don’t think that distinguishes it from any member government,” he hits back. “To say we use it when it is useful, and we don’t when it is not useful, is accurate — and accurate of the other 190 members. Why are we the only one criticised?”
Perhaps because, as the nearest to a world policeman, America really matters. “Then ask yourself the political question: what benefit is it to the secretary-general to have his number two attack the most important nation in the UN?”
Bolton has called on other countries to follow America’s global leadership. But why should they if he admits American foreign policy is merely the single-minded pursuit of its own interests?
“Well then, fair enough, I don’t have any illusions, but then (other countries) have to ask themselves why we should pay for (the UN) if it is fundamentally opposed to our interests.”
But hang on, your excellency: isn’t the entire point of the UN that it is democratic? “We never saw it that way.”
What? So the biggest guy in the playground wins. Might is right.
“If you go back to Roosevelt, before France became a permanent member (of the security council) he talked about ‘the four horsemen’. It was an organisation coming out of the second world war designed to avoid the failures of the League of Nations. There were 50 members. We then had decolonisation and part of what is playing out is the tension of that.”
How, I wonder, will international disputes be resolved in years ahead? Is America now back in the UN stable or will it continue to gallop with coalitions of the willing? Bolton seems to suggest the UN could be cut adrift into the Atlantic: “I don’t see why ad hoc approaches to international problems are inherently wrong. Lots of problems are regional. More regional organisations sorting out problems would be good. I don’t see why,” he smiles, “a little competition is bad.”
Kofi is not going to like that in his cocoa. So if America is blocked in the security council, as on Iraq, you might go to some other court of international opinion? “I don’t see what’s wrong with being creative. I think we should be receptive rather than react reflexively against it.”
Blimey. And is this approach being actively considered by President Bush? “Well,” he laughs, “you know the old saying: you exhaust intellectual capital in office, you don’t build it up. But some people still think that could be useful.”
The world is schizophrenic about America: it rages when America acts, it rages when America doesn’t. “I don’t think there is any risk there won’t be American engagement in the world,” Bolton promises (or threatens, according to taste). “Talk of isolationism is inaccurate.”
Bolton is a hardliner on Iran, warning this weekend that the regime had only weeks to freeze its uranium enrichment programme or face international sanctions. America expects an answer before the G8 summit next month to its offer of talks. “Whatever you say about Iran,” he says, “and you can say a lot, little of it good, it all gets worse when they get nuclear weapons.”
How much worse are relations with “old Europe” post Iraq? “If you take France, I don’t think they are materially different than in the early Nineties under Bush 41 (Bush Sr. That does not, however,” he says, “mean it is always easy.”
Then he lets slip something intriguing: “One of the frustrations for us is that the EU says, ‘We can’t discuss very much with you until we come to a common EU position’. That may be what the EU is all about, but to us it is very frustrating.”
And does he include Britain in that critique? “My impression is British policy is becoming more European, yes.” When asked what can be done to avoid repetition of the mistakes on Iraq, he blames the security council: “It didn’t play a crucial part in the cold war, and if it can’t deal with WMD and terrorism it could see itself sidelined.” So it is wrangling in the last-chance talking shop? “Well, if it fails, it does risk marginalisation.”
Bolton famously said the top 10 floors of the UN could be shed without discernable loss of function. “The United Nations in New York exists in a time warp; it is like going into the twilight zone.”
The world, he says, has to get real; is the UN there to posture, passing feelgood resolutions, or does it want to rule the world? Which view, I ask, will triumph? “We don’t know yet how that struggle is going to play out. But it is why the stakes are so high.”
Even Malloch Brown backs America’s UN reform agenda, but argues that its table thumping — exhibited by Bolton — alienates allies.
“The process of UN reform has taken longer than expected, but there is no doubting the commitment to reform from a range of important Third World countries. We don’t expect one dollar should equal one vote, but we do expect our voice to be heard more than it is. We are assertive about the American position, but it is important we demonstrate to the American people and Congress we care how their tax dollars are spent. I’m not embarrassed about that.”
Bolton’s reform programme would end the practice of poor, often small, nations effectively holding a veto. He wants the voting system in the general assembly reformed, ending the system whereby a tiny island in the south seas has the same voting power as America. Power, he suggests, should be linked to a country’s financial contribution.
And he certainly offers some amazing statistics to make his point: you could gain a majority in the assembly for a given measure, all from votes of countries whose combined contribution to the UN budget is less than 0.3% of the total. He is looking for emerging giants such as China and India to step up their contribution dramatically.
Also, quite simply, he wants the joint better run, following modern business practices and without corruption. As he says: “It shouldn’t be too much to ask.” He also floats the suggestion — perhaps helpfully for Blair — that if we really want to give the UN clout, we should lift the unspoken bar on nationals of the permanent members of the security council becoming secretary general. He notes that all the chatter at the UN is that the next head should be from Asia.
“I have seen reports about Bill Clinton commenting on Tony Blair for the job and a few years back there was talk of Gorbachev,” he says “but the way things stand you simply aren’t going to get someone of that stature.”
With Bolton turning up the volume, there is little danger the world will not get the message. |
>>TimesonlineUK<< |
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| Fir3start3r |
So, in reality, Bolton responded by lashing out after taking a lashing...
Lots of lashing going on...
Obviously the U.N. has solved all the world's problems and needs to focus more on this... |
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| MisterOpus1 |
I really don't know who's more dysfunctional, Bolton or the U.N. They both have some serious issues that need professional help. Bolton was not the best man by a long stretch to help out in the U.N. or help reform it in any way. Kinda like setting in a schizofrenic with epilepsy in a kaleidoscope room and telling him to stop the little circles from spinning.
Of course it wasn't Bush's, or shall I say Cheney's intention of "reforming" the U.N. by a back-door recess appointment - it was more or less to continue bullying the out of any country that stands in the way or his agenda. If you're a Bush supporter, this of course isn't problematic, regardless of what the rest of the world believes. But it is nevertheless difficult to defend the myriad of problems created by the U.N. It would just be nice to see someone else other than Bolton in there. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
It would just be nice to see someone else other than Bolton in there. |
yeah, i'll be dating Shakira when that happens at the end of this session of Congress too. please. what is you're party prepared to do about his appointment come the end of this session? nothing!
the only opposition left will be from the you, the fringe, and the fever swamp. oh, and Kucinich. |
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| Q5echo |
i don't normally post editorials from the National Review here because, honestly, i don't think a lot of you s are worthy of reading them. but...
| quote: | The Unreality of U.N. Reform
What If “Later” Never Comes?
By Claudia Rosett
Not to be outdone by his own ruckus-raising deputy, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself is now instructing the U.S. on how to treat the corruption-plagued, unreformed and unrepentant U.N.
Writing in the June 12 Financial Times, Annan reminds us that the U.S. has been threatening to block U.N. spending unless the organization shows serious progress toward reform. So, declares Annan, “The U.N. faces a moment of truth.”
Passing the Buck to Us
But don’t get your hopes up. The rest of Annan’s article, like most of his record during his more than nine years as secretary-general, suggests that when it comes to U.N. failings he wouldn’t recognize the truth if it drove up in Kojo’s green Mercedes and offered him a ride. Noting that “A minor storm broke out last week when Mark Malloch Brown, my deputy, made a speech,” Annan goes on to reprise Malloch Brown’s argument that the U.N.’s failure to reform is not really the fault of the General Assembly, nor of the U.N. top management, and certainly it has nothing do with Kofi Annan.
Nope. The culprit according to Kofi and Malloch Brown is — you guessed it — the United States.
And why is that? Annan is of the opinion that in asking for reform as a condition for more cash, the U.S. and its handful of cohorts who bankroll most of the U.N. budget are antagonizing the “developing countries” who fill most of the seats. Annan assures us that these developing countries would actually love to reform the U.N., but they are stoutly resisting that impulse in “reaction” to U.S. efforts to “use the power of the purse.”
Presumably the U.S. could resolve this impasse by closing its purse entirely, and unfettering these sensitive developing nations, together with Annan and Malloch Brown, to reform the U.N. to their heart’s content. But that is not what Annan has in mind. Apparently, America’s power of the purse is quite acceptable if it entails forking out money with no reforms required. If the U.S. will only sign on to that program, says Annan, everyone — presumably including Annan himself — can “turn down their rhetoric” and “engage in serious negotiations” which will be used “as a basis for more fundamental change,” which will happen “later.”
For Kofi Annan, of course, there’s not a lot of “later” left. He is due to retire at the end of this year, and one might have hoped he’d choose to depart on a less oleaginous note. The most stunning legacy of his U.N. leadership to date is in fact the Iraq Oil-for-Food program, which under his administration, and despite $1.4 billion in funding meant to help him monitor its integrity, ballooned into the biggest swindle in the history of humanitarian aid and a major boon to the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. Last year, the general hope, and Annan’s promise, was that the exposure of Oil-for-Food corruption, and a host of other U.N. scandals — procurement graft, peacekeeper rape, auditing inadequacies, high-level conflicts of interest, nepotism, and so forth — would lead to genuine U.N. reform. The scandals are still with us. But there has been no major reform. What we instead have is Annan touting such innovations as a toothless ethics office, and a new U.N. Human Rights Council, which — much like the tyrant-packed old Human Rights Commission — already includes such repressive states as Cuba, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
Look Who’s Talking
Nor does the U.N. look all that much more attractive from the inside. If you want a real moment of truth, tune in Tuesday to the expected release of a report commissioned by the 30,000-member U.N. staff union from a group called the Commission of Experts on Reforming Internal Justice at the United Nations. This commission, chaired by widely respected British barrister Geoffrey Robertson, Q.C., currently a judge for one of the U.N.’s war-crime tribunals, has found that the U.N. in the unjust way it treats its own staff is in breach of its own human-rights standards. For anyone looking to the U.N. as a guardian of global justice, this sets an unfortunate precedent. According to Robertson, interviewed today by phone, “In a surprisingly large number of cases the U.N. ignores the decision of its tribunals if they favor staff or reveal managerial errors.” Robertson urges the U.N., “Physician, heal thyself.”
So far, Annan and his entourage would rather attack others. Malloch Brown, in his by-now famous speech in New York last week blamed the U.S. for the U.N.’s failings and advised his audience to “stand up” against the U.N.’s “domestic critics” or risk losing the U.N. altogether. Malloch Brown went on to deride the preferences of many in Middle America, lamenting that when it comes to U.N. engagement with the U.S., “much of the public discourse that reaches the American heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.” (In the interest of disclosure, I must add that I do some part-time consulting for Fox News and have written articles for foxnews.com).
Malloch Brown later compounded the insult by explaining, “This was not a speech addressed to America at large,” but “a speech addressed to foreign policy makers and political leaders” (in fact, an audience composed largely of Bush-hating Democrats). It was a classic display of U.N. arrogance, coming from a civil servant whose U.N. chauffeur-driven car and subsidies toward his $10,000 monthly rent on the suburban tree-lined estate of billionaire George Soros are paid in significant part by U.S. taxpayers. And, in an apparent violation of the U.N. charter, which forbids meddling in matters under the domestic jurisdiction of member states, Malloch Brown used his speech to pitch a U.N. plank for America’s 2008 presidential election.
Move On?
Ambassador John Bolton, a rare voice of integrity at Turtle Bay, called Malloch Brown’s performance “a very, very grave mistake” and demanded that Annan repudiate the speech. Annan responded last Friday by suggesting everyone “move on.” By Monday, Annan himself had moved on, to the view expressed in his “Moment of Truth” op-ed, that Malloch Brown’s message (which included a description of Kofi Annan as “arguably the U.N.’s best-ever secretary-general”) was “absolutely right.”
The joys of back-scratching notwithstanding, if Annan and Malloch Brown really care about keeping the U.N. in operation, they might do better to stop reviling their critics and abusing the U.S., and instead come up with the kind of concrete reform proposals that even Limbaugh and Fox-crazed denizens of the American heartland might applaud They could start, for instance, by drafting a clear and itemized plan to cut, say, even a modest ten percent of the U.N. system’s labyrinthine $20 billion-or-so annual budget. That alone could salvage almost $2 billion to help fund all those critical missions U.N. top officials keep talking about.
At the very least, such savings could pay for the much-debated renovation of U.N. headquarters –even if the U.N. sticks with its overblown price tag of $1.8 billion or so. Or such found money could more than cover the amount the U.S. is threatening to withhold, which is a mere fraction of the $420 million in U.S. dues assessed by the U.N. this year for the Secretariat’s “core” budget of $1.9 billion (which is only about one-tenth of the overall U.N. system budget, to which the U.S. pays billions more in “voluntary” contributions). Annan might protest that the rest of the U.N. system is to varying degrees outside his direct supervision, and splintered into all sorts of separate budgets. But he does have the direct influence of nominating or appointing most of the senior U.N. officials who run the rest of the show. Under the U.N. charter he is, after all, chief administrative officer. Why not try out a few proposals that instead of expanding the empire simply reduce the waste?
Annan could start, for instance, by asking for cuts at the U.N. Environment Program in Nairobi, where he presumably has a good working relationship with the German he named as UNEP director this spring, Achim Steiner — who when Annan tapped him for the job this spring had just finished serving along with two senior members of Annan’s staff on the jury that awarded Annan a personal cash prize of $500,000, given by the ruler of Dubai. (In the wake of press stories questioning the ethics of a U.N. secretary-general accepting this prize, Annan three months later announced he would turn the money over to U.N. relief in Sudan; he never did get around to conceding, however, that it is a conflict-of-interest for a U.N. secretary-general to accept a large cash prize from a member state).
How About Trying Reform?
As for the argument that the secretary-general needs more authority over staff before he can command true reform, that greatly underestimates the skills Annan has developed after almost 44 years of working inside the U.N. system — holding posts such as controller, head of personnel, and head of peacekeeping. For a sample of what Annan can do when he wants to, marvel if you will at the case of his former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza. When Riza was discovered in late 2004 to have shredded reams of U.N. executive-office documents possibly pertaining to the Oil-for-Food investigation, there was no great fuss. Riza simply retired. And then — presto! — Annan the following year approved a special initiative called the Alliance of Civilizations, which quietly drummed up a couple of million dollars from a handful of member states to pay for this “Alliance” via a U.N. trust fund, and brought back Riza to run it, with the rank of under-secretary-general. This doesn’t exactly qualify as reform, but it does suggest a certain ability to navigate the system.
If Annan wants to argue that the General Assembly voted down his last reform package and simply won’t let him cut costs, there is an antidote to that, too. He could start by releasing to the public not the U.N.’s usual confusing and generically uninformative accounts, but genuine and full information. He could provide transparency on staffing arrangements, expense accounts, procurement contracts (past and current), and financial disclosure forms for top U.N. officials and their sons, cousins, and wives (including his own). He might even rethink the current U.N. information strategy in which the U.N. Secretariat spends $85 million per year on public relations, but less than half that on its understaffed and struggling internal-audit division.
If Annan wants to show serious good faith in pursuit of reform, he could also give up his current practice of telling trusting audiences that U.N. graft under Oil-for-Food came down to one staff member “found to maybe have taken $150,000” (that particular staff member, Benon Sevan, was the man appointed by Annan to run the entire program). Annan could instead admit that Paul Volcker’s U.N.-authorized probe reported signs of rampant corruption among some of the budget-padding U.N. agencies; that one of Annan’s own former special advisers, French diplomat Jean-Bernard Merimee, has admitted to taking money from Saddam’s oil deals while working for Annan; that Volcker found Annan’s performance as a manager substandard and irresponsible; and that Volcker further found that Annan knew about sanctions-busting graft within Oil-for-Food at least three years before the program came to an end, but did not report it, as he should have, to the Security Council. Annan might even bestow upon us the real story of why he appears so very unbothered that his former handpicked director of Oil-for-Food, Benon Sevan, managed during the investigation of the program to slip out of New York and back to his native Cyprus, beyond reach of U.S. extradition, and on full U.N. pension.
All of the above is of course what Malloch Brown in his speech last week referred to as “unchecked U.N.-bashing.” Except he’s wrong in his labeling — it’s not unchecked, but double-checked. As for the “bashing” — which has become U.N. jargon for dismissing all criticisms — that’s misleading too. It would be U.N.-bashing were the U.N.’s critics to write without any basis in fact that Kofi Annan knew about the graft under Oil-for-Food, but said nothing; or that Mark Malloch Brown advised Annan to accept the $500,000 personal prize from the ruler of Dubai, or that Annan has never yet deigned to explain what happened to any U.N. follow-up records of the green Mercedes SUV that his son, Kojo Annan, imported into Africa in 1998 under false use of the U.N. seal and Kofi Annan’s name and diplomatic duty-free status.
But all these things are sourced and documented, in some cases by Annan-appointed investigators. The U.N.’s real problem today is not that it has been hit with unfounded accusations, but that one after another, allegations of U.N. misconduct, mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and corruption have turned out to be true.
What happens next with the U.N. is now up for grabs. There is no law of nature that says corrupt institutions are by definition doomed to quick extinction, or that they will necessarily reform. Some collapse, some make mischief for many lifetimes. The real question, as Annan and Malloch Brown denigrate U.S. demands for reform, while holding their hands out for American tax money, is whether in this age of fascist movements, terror tactics, and weapons of mass murder, we can afford the indulgence of coddling as our leading global institution this sorry excuse for what was meant to be an honest forum for free and peace-loving nations.
— Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
yeah, i'll be dating Shakira when that happens at the end of this session of Congress too. please. what is you're party prepared to do about his appointment come the end of this session? nothing! |
I dunno, hire someone who doesn't go screaming down halls chasing women who disagree with him and yelling through the doors on the other side would be a nice start I guess. IOW, an able-minded individual perhaps?
| quote: | | the only opposition left will be from the you, the fringe, and the fever swamp. oh, and Kucinich. |
Hey dip, buy a clue and call me when you're ready. His appointment was blocked not just by ALL Democratic members of the Committee, but with a Republican if I recall as well, was he not? There's plenty of actual Republicans out there who disagree with the nutbag's policies as well, who put pressure on the committee to block his vote in the first place. Of course Bush couldn't take that and appointed the little turd over the heads of the Committee anyway, didn't he?
Lovely Executive branch, showing once again how little he gives a about the Legislative. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
i don't normally post editorials from the National Review here because, honestly, i don't think a lot of you s are worthy of reading them. but... |
I actually agree with a number of points brought up in this editorial. If you actually get past your wingnut nose just for one ing moment and put aside calling all that disagree with you slightly the "fringe", "feverswamps", or "moonbats", you might actually see that I'm no fan of the U.N. or Annan whatsoever.
I do not believe, however, that Bolton who has quite the record of irrationality is the man who would best represent the U.S. Some examples? Let's start here:
Bolton thinking James ing Dobson would be great for the U.N.?:
Yeah, terrific.
Bolton going out of his way to bad mouth Elbaradei, who turned out to be 100% correct on Iraq's lack of WMD:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...1900697_pf.html
Not to mention Bush wiretapping Elbaradei's phone, which really isn't surprising given what we know about Bush's actions now:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2004Dec11.html
Just three weeks into Bolton's recess appointment, he began undermining the work of U.S. negotiators and was seeking to "“scrap much of a draft plan for comprehensive UN reform just weeks before it is to be adopted at a world summit.”:
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/new...K-UN-REFORM.xml
Bolton firing Jose Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW):
| quote: | A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani “had to go,” particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050604...iring&printer=1 |
Bolton demanded this guy resign, the guy refused so Bolton held a special session of the OPCW conference and demanded the guy get fired. Bolton said he would withhold U.S. dues to OPCW if the guy wasn't booted out, to which he got his way:
| quote: | | Only 113 nations were represented the Americans, with British help, got the required two-thirds vote of those present and voting. But that amounted to only 48 in favor of removing Bustani — and seven opposed and 43 abstaining — in an organization then with 145 member states. |
The U.N. tribunal didn't take too kindly to Bolton's bull:
| quote: | | In a stern rebuke issued in July 2003, the three-member U.N. tribunal said the U.S. allegations were “extremely vague” and the dismissal “unlawful.” It said international civil servants must not be made “vulnerable to pressures and to political change.” |
Keep in mind that in 2003 a U.S./British effort to get Libya to surrender it's nuclear program "succeeded only after British officials 'at the highest level' persuaded the White House to keep Bolton off the negotiating team.":
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7614769/site/newsweek/
In November 2003, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw complained to Colin Powell that Bolton "was making it impossible to reach allied agreement on Iran's nuclear program":
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7614769/site/newsweek/
Which ironically is going oh so swell now, isn't it?
In July 2003 right before the six-nation talks with N. Korea, Bolton had to be pulled out of the talks because, well, he's a ing moron of a speaker and the State Dept. had to pull the dip:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,93633,00.html
Bolton tried to replace two intelligence officials because they wouldn't back his bull claims that Cuba had a threatening bioweapons program, and tried to have them reassigned:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/17/news/bolton.html
Chuck Lugar understood why Bolton was "intimidating, abusive ... [and] tried to get people fired.":
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_050805.pdf
Former State Department intelligence chief Carl Ford calls Bolton a "serial abuser":
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...-home-headlines
For 4 years Bolton asked for and received the identities of 10 U.S. officials who were linked to top secret national security communication intercepts:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wire...d=682366&page=2
Those identities are closely protected by law:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/p...s/14bolton.html
It was never made clear nor did Bolton nor this Administration explain how and why Bolton received such info. from the NSA, and Bolton did not respond to such a request:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2005Apr18.html
Lawrence Wilkerson, the chief of staff for Bolton's previous boss, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, weighed in on Bolton's qualifications: "Do I think John Bolton would make a good ambassador to the United Nations? Absolutely not.… He is incapable of listening to people and taking into account their views. He would be an abysmal ambassador.":
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/p...print&position=
Rice also kept her distance from Bolton, keeping him out of key discussions on Iran since taking over in January (2005):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2005Apr17.html
In February 2003 Bolton also tried to fire a young official named Rexon Ryu after accusing him of concealing information by not passing along a cable he'd written about weapons inspectors in Iraq. Ryu's superiors investigated and found the charges to be baseless. Still, Bolton pushed for his dismissal. Why? Just a few weeks before Bolton made these bogus charges, Ryu had been one of the officials to accompany Powell to the CIA to review the presentation he would give to the U.N. about Iraq's weapons. According to officials, "Ryu had been instrumental in getting the most controversial allegations out of Powell's speech.":
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2005Apr17.html
And Melody Townsel surely loves the man as well:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washin...se-bolton_x.htm
So I maintain my contention that Bolton is definitely not the level-headed individual for the job, even though the U.N. does need some much needed reform and a different leader heading up than Annan.
But back to the editorial, I would like to see exactly what Mark Brown said that supposedly set off Bolton and offended the douchebag so much:
| quote: | [T]he prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable. You will lose the UN one way or another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/w...r=1&oref=slogin |
Jesus, are you gonna sit there and tell me this is untrue about the U.S. and how it treats the U.N.? Granted it has a myriad of problems, but you can't tell me that Bush and Bolton willingly exploits every single problem while practically ignoring any positive aspect the U.N. does accomplish. He continues:
| quote: | [T]he only government not fully supporting the project is the U.S. Too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years—manifest in a fear by politicians to be seen to be supporting better premises for what they unjustly regard as overpaid, corrupt UN bureaucrats—makes even refurbishing a building a political hot potato.
http://www.securitypeace.org/pdf/brown_remarks.pdf
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Again I find this difficult to disagree with. And yet this receives a "very, very grave mistake" by Bolton? THIS? Are you ing kidding me? Can Bolton just once take any ing criticism of any kind? Oh sure, he can bash the out of the U.N. himself:
http://www.democracynow.org/article...5/03/31/1558229
But when they come back and give some criticism in return, Bolton goes crying to the airwaves? This will get nothing accomplished. Again I maintain this dip is not the man for the U.N. position, and he does NOT represent the U.S. well at all. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
Hey dip, buy a clue and call me when you're ready. His appointment was blocked not just by ALL Democratic members of the Committee, but with a Republican if I recall as well, was he not? There's plenty of actual Republicans out there who disagree with the nutbag's policies as well, who put pressure on the committee to block his vote in the first place. Of course Bush couldn't take that and appointed the little turd over the heads of the Committee anyway, didn't he? |
yup, and look how so miserably wrong you dumbasses were. keep hating. your party will pay.
| quote: | | Lovely Executive branch, showing once again how little he gives a about the Legislative. |
oh yes:haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: righteous indignation for a Constituional mandate when it doesn't bode timely enough for their agenda! i love it! |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
yup, and look how so miserably wrong you dumbasses were. keep hating. your party will pay. |
You little twits on the extremist side of the Republican party that absolutely embarrasses the name of true Republicans know all about hate, don't you? Go ask your dear little darling hatemonger, Ann Coulter, won't you? She does a swell job representing your side of every argument, doesn't she?
| quote: | | oh yes:haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: righteous indignation for a Constituional mandate when it doesn't bode timely enough for their agenda! i love it! |
And that presents an argument how? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
yup, and look how so miserably wrong you dumbasses were. keep hating. your party will pay.
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Republicans are like the ice cream man. They seem so friendly and nice, and hand out things like tax breaks and sundaes, but in reality they're all former pedophiles who know Jack Abramoff and would slit your throat at a moment's notice. That's what ice cream men do, right?
Sorry, I've seen one too many slasher movies.
:o |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| By the way, I was in the Senate in Washington at the time of the vote on Bolton, and more than one Republican voted against his confirmation by way of refusing to vote for cloture. And I heard several more Republicans voice more than their share of skepticism about his ability to perform the job adequately. However, most of the latter toed the party line in deference to the President. |
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