Posted on 04/03/2005 10:49:46 AM PDT by quidnunc
Some of us can hardly wait for John Bolton to get to the United Nations, where he promises to be the most candid American emissary since the charming Daniel Patrick Moynihan, or maybe the astute Jeane Kirkpatrick. Each towered over (and told off) that distinguished den of thieves, tyrants, haters, apologists for terror, and, most plentiful of all, pompous nullities like its secretarygeneral. It’s about time the U.S. of A. again sent the UN an ambassador with an attitude.
Anybody who has kept up with Ambassador Bolton will understand our affection for this walrus-moustached, undiplomatic diplomat. For those who haven’t, here is his concise reply when someone suggested that the United States, in accordance with the old carrot-and-stick strategy, offer some inducement to rogue states like North Korea to behave themselves:
"I don’t do carrots."
It’s the kind of brief yet comprehensive comment that makes you want to stand up and cheer. And there has seldom been a more accurate appraisal of North Korea’s beloved leader offered by an American diplomat than this one from Ambassador Bolton:
"While he lives like royalty in Pyongyang, he keeps hundreds of thousands of his people locked in prison camps with millions more mired in abject poverty. For many in North Korea, life is a hellish nightmare."
Mr. Bolton was immediately pilloried for his comment — not because it wasn’t true, but because he dared speak the truth.
As his confirmation hearings approach, John Bolton is about to be attacked not just by the usual, totalitarian suspects but by every appeaser in the Western world. Because he tells the truth. With the bark off, as we say in these parts. We can’t have that if pretenses are to be kept up, dictators appeased, and the holy aura of the UN preserved inviolate. Some truths must never be spoken. It would be … undiplomatic.
• In his latest wholly inadequate performance, Kofi Annan claimed he’d been" exonerated" by the latest report on the latest UN scandal, the $64-billion Oil-for-Food swindle.
Back in the real world, which begins as soon as you leave that Tower of Babel on the East River, the report found that His Excellency had failed to investigate conflicts of interest at the UN. And generally managed the whole Oil-for-Food scandal badly.
As this investigation notes, the UN’s secretary-general showed a remarkable incuriosity about where all this money was going. Much of it seems to have wound up in the pockets of go-betweens like his own son Kojo and the UN official whom he picked to run the program — Benon Sevan, whom the investigation found had a "grave conflict of interest."
While claiming exoneration, Mr. Annan also said he would take note of the report’s criticism of his actions, or rather inaction. Sound familiar? This is the same discreet tack he took after his callous attitude toward the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was revealed.
For a sense of the horrors Kofi Annan has presided over, it’s hard to beat the movie, Hotel Rwanda. There should be continuous showings of it on a big screen behind the rostrum whenever he rises to give one of his long, platitudinous speeches about world peace. So no one is misled. His real policy in times of moral crisis? Wash his hands of responsibility.
Kofi Annan’s infamous instruction to the commander of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Rwanda, Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, who actually wanted to do something to prevent the massacres there, remains a classic example of carefully nuanced neutrality between good and evil:
"You should make every effort not to compromise your impartiality or to act beyond your mandate but may exercise your discretion to do so should this be essential for the evacuation of foreign nationals."
As for the natives, who cares?
If a 19th Century imperial power had shown such a fine disregard for the lives, property and welfare of its colonial subjects, it would have earned the obloquy of enlightened opinion. But when the UN and its secretary general do the same, they are defended by all right-thinking members of the left. It’s an ingrained reflex by now.
When his role in Rwanda came to light, Kofi Annan would say only that "I believed at that time that I was doing my best." Even worse, he may have been. Just as he did his best in the Balkans, where he presided over the massacre at Srebrenica with supreme indifference. His best remains bloody awful, as this latest investigation reveals.
Exonerated? To quote Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve who headed the investigation into this monumental scandal:
"We did not exonerate Kofi Annan. We said he was not dishonest but at the same time he mismanaged the inquiry."
To quote Mark Pieth, another member of the independent commission assigned to conduct this investigation," We should not brush this off. A certain mea culpa would have been appropriate. " Instead, Kofi Annan has been brushing off the commission’s criticisms of himself like mad. If this report was an exoneration, you have to wonder what an exposé would be.
• "The greatest evil in the world," C. S. Lewis once said, is not done "in concentration and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."
• Considering the real influence that the United Nations has in the world, which is very little, its secretary-general can’t do too much harm beyond giving aid and comfort to the Saddam Husseins of the world while they commit their crimes.
But think of what the United Nations might have been under better management. The great tragedy of that organization isn’t the evil it condones but the good it fails to do.
Imagine a United Nations that stood up for freedom instead of betraying it at every turn. It would be a world in which all that Oil-for-Food money had actually gone for food — instead of billions being siphoned off by Saddam and his accomplices. Imagine a world in which international help for tsunami-stricken survivors in places like Banda Aceh on Sumatra would be delivered in less than the month it took the UN to act. (The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines were on the case in days, maybe hours.)
But as long as Kofi Annan heads the United Nations, such a world is unimaginable.
John Bolton will have his work cut out for him.
• Felipe Perez Roque, foreign minister of Cuba, aka the oldest continuous Gulag in the Western hemisphere, predicts that the UN’s Human Rights Commission will take no action against the regime he represents. And he may well be right. Just look at the commission’s membership. It includes such stalwart defenders of human rights as Sudan, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Egypt, Swaziland, Bhutan, Communist China, and, yes, Cuba itself.
Frida Ghitis, who keeps up with these international charades, said it: This human-rights commission has all the moral authority of a crime-fighting committee headed by Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson. Yep. Or an international organization dedicated to peace and justice headed by Kofi Annan.
• The irony and pity of it all has become routine by now, like a long neglected item that’s always on the agenda but is never addressed.
It takes a movie like Hotel Rwanda to awaken our conscience, even for a couple of hours. After that, it’s back to the usual platitudes and politics at the UN.
Maybe if someone someday would utter just one real word in those echoing halls, instead of making another excuse or issuing another defensive press release, light might break through at the United Nations, painful as it would be to see what was revealed.
But at this point, reality is the last thing one expects from the UN and its inflated bureaucracy.
To quote John Bolton’s concise judgment on the 38-story UN building:
"If it lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference."
Mr. Bolton can’t get there fast enough for some of us.
God, what a tagline!
Wow. I never knew anything about John Bolton before this. But I think I like the guy.
What a great editorial. Makes me want to move to Arkansas, but I'll resist!
Don Cheedle wuz ROBBED at the Oscars, btw.
Waiting for Bolton?
Lying in ambush is more like it.
We sent John Danforth, a man predisposed to taking part in serious discussion as part of his duties at the UN.
Ambassador Danforth found no one ready to engage in serious negotiations and strategies for carrying out the stated aims of the UN.
Enter John Bolton. If the diplomatic corps, who seems extraordinarily dedicated to the principle of endless discussion and the postponement of action for years or even decades, expresses doubts and fears at his arrival, then Mr. Bolton must be doing something right. Because there is no longer much advantage in procrastination.
The time has come to dismantle the UN, as its functions are no longer being filled by the present regime who sits in charge of its operations.
Will fear of exposure lead the current appointed management to reform their ways? I doubt it, but who knows, the presence of John Bolton may just succeed where "get along, go along" could not.
Excellent post, thank you.
An excellent analysis, Al.....
Holy cow...you posted a full article, not just an excerpt. We should have this thread bronzed and save it for posterity. :-)
have to see this then:
http://www.moveamericaforward.org/images/uploads/Bolton-UN.wmv
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