Posted on 08/07/2005 9:51:31 PM PDT by ex-Texan
President Bush's recess appointment of John Bolton as United States Ambassador to the United Nations is the first step in the president's plan to move toward truly reforming this broken world organization.
Partisans such as Senator Chris Dodd have labeled Bolton "damaged goods" for his blunt style and pointed criticism of the U.N. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid labeled the President's recess appointment of Bolton as "an abuse of power," but even Dodd and Reid have admitted that the U.N. is in need of some reform.
The United Nations' slow slide towards ineffectiveness began 1991 right after our coalition victory in Desert Storm: U.N. peace keeping efforts in the African Nation of Somalia. The collapse of Somalia's central government saw the country enter a period of feudalism were only the strong survived, and militant warlords used food aid as a weapon to subjugate the people.
In early 1993, the United States led a U.N. mandated mission into Somalia with the express purpose of protecting aid workers and their shipments from militants, reopening the port city Mogadishu and providing medical assistants to Somalis. The United Nations in 1994 changed its mandate from assistance to nation building in Somalia, but quickly ordered a disgraceful withdrawal after militant Muslims warlords and foreign fighters were able to inflict significant casualties among coalition members.
The U.N. failed to act in April of 1994, when militant Hutus in Rwanda began a campaign of genocide. The genocide was sparked by the death of the Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, whose plane was shot down over the city of Kigali. One hundred days of unchecked genocide followed, which left nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. The United Nations reputation was left in tatters for failing to act in the worst case of ethnic genocide since World War II.
In 1995, the United Nations mandate in the emerging Balkan Nation of Bosnia also proved ineffective as Bosnian Serbian Paramilitaries pushed aside Dutch U.N. Peacekeepers and forced their way into the U.N. safe haven of Srebrenica, and then, massacred 8,000 civilian Muslim men and boys. The U.S. and Western European nations were horrified over this act of barbarism and the utter lack of response from the UN. The NATO Alliance chose to use their combine military force to reign in unchecked aggression throughout Bosnia.
NATO was forced to act once again, when genocide and conflict embroiled the Serbian province of Kosovo. Following the end of hostilities, NATO placed Kosovo under a U.N. mandate in 1998 and seven years later Kosovo's final status remains in limbo as the province has become a haven for crime and radical Islam in Eastern Europe.
The greatest failure of the U.N. has to be in the nation of Afghanistan. In 1996 the Taliban completed their militant take over of 90% of the country and set up a brutal and repressive regime. Kofi Annan's response to the Taliban was to simply ignore the problem. Afghanistan under the Taliban became a haven and training ground for international terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden.
The U.N.'s 10 year weapons inspection mission in Iraq proved to be a boondoggle for "oil-for-food" profiteering, while weapons inspectors were often bullied on camera by Iraqi officials. U.N. inspectors were finally removed at the direction of Annan in 1998. When weapons inspectors returned in 2003, under the direction of the then U.N. Chief Weapon's Inspector Hans Blix, Iraqi Officials once again began their game of cat and mouse. Iraq never was caught red handed with WMD's, but several prohibited Iraqi SCUD Missiles were discovered by US Intelligence operatives in a hanger Saddam Hussein International Airport (a hanger that Blix labeled as clear of weapons one week earlier). President Bush, armed with this evidence and other evidence of suspected WMDs, was able to make a case for military action.
The U.N.'s Food for Oil Program, that was suppose to have provided aid and medicine to the Iraqi people, was found to have been a $ 21 billion windfall for Saddam Hussein. He had used the money to buy influence among the most reluctant members of the Security Council. Saddam engaged in backdoor deals that extend all the way to Annan and his family. The U.N. again proved itself to be impotent and ineffective this year when Annon refused to give authorization to African Union Troops prevent genocide in Darfur Sudan. It was only thru the efforts of the African Union, working in conjunction with the US, that finally brought a tentative peace to Darfur.
Bolton's appointment brings to an end "the come along to get along mindset" that dominated under the tenures of U.S. Ambassadors Madeleine Albright, Bill Richardson and Richard Holbrooke.
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Kevin L. Martin is an Advisor and Member of Project 21. He has served as the former Government and Political Affairs Director to the African American Republicans Leadership Council. He has appeared as a political commentator on FOX News.
There is a new sheriff in town and he means business. Three cheers for John Bolton!
bump for morning reading.
Muy kudos on the article!
I'm very glad to see Bolton doing the heavy lifting.
It is much needed.
Thanks for posting Kevin's wonderful article!
I do love Project 21.
Keep up the good work!
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