Two cheers for John Bolton

Stabroek News ^ | 26 OCTOBER 2005

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Two cheers for John Bolton

Wednesday, October 26th 2005

The UN Security Council (SC) at one of its meetings just over two weeks ago had on its agenda the latest briefing on the deteriorating situation in Darfur. But the SC did not get the briefing because John Bolton, the US Permanent Representative (Ambassa-dor) to the UN objected to it. Bolton said that he objected because the council had to act against atrocities and not just talk about them. He considered that council should be talking more about the steps it can take to do something about the deteriorating security situation in Darfur (SN October 11). Of all the neo-conservatives (neo-cons) who dominate the Bush administration, Bolton perhaps attracts the most hostility and distrust. Even the US Senate despite its Republican majority was uneasy about approving his appointment as US Ambassador to the UN, so much so that President Bush had to invoke a special constitutional provision which enabled him to make certain appointments (for a limited period) while the Congress is in recess. But in acting to stop the SC hearing and focus attention instead on the need for action, Bolton was surely acting on the side of the angels; international opinion on the whole will strongly support the call for action. Not only has the SC heard numerous first hand reports on the atrocities in Darfur, including one from the Secretary General Kofi Annan himself, it had indeed had a briefing a few days before, from Hedi Annabi the UN Assistant Secretary General for peace keeping operations. More to the point, the UN Summit which met in September had as one of its major achievements asserted the clear and unambiguous acceptance by all governments of the collective international responsibility to protect peoples from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The summit had declared the willingness of the international community to take decisive collective action for this purpose, through the Security Council, when peaceful means prove inadequate and the State authorities are failing to do so either through incapacity or unwillingness. More than any other situation in the world today Darfur cries out to attract the action referred to above. To remind of the background to Darfur. Sudan is Africa's largest country and among the poorest. The population of 35 million is sixty to seventy per cent "African" but the government, at present a military regime, has always been held by an Arabic - speaking, educated and Muslim minority. Independent since the British left nearly fifty years ago, Sudan has been embroiled in a civil war for at least 35 years. Since the discovery of oil reserves in the South, the government has waged war against the Southern "African" pastoralists to get them and their cattle off the land which is known to contain sub-surface oil. In the ensuing civil war, the south has been led by the late John Garang's Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement. The settlement of this civil war which was negotiated by a troika (USA, the UK and Norway) has held despite the recent death of Garang in a helicopter crash. Although there is no oil in the Western Darfur region that too is at war over resources in which Africans are being driven from their lands by the Sudan government's recruited and armed militias known as the Janjawead who have looted, raped, massacred and burnt entire villages. More than two hundred thousand persons have been killed and one and a half million driven from their homes and now living in refugee camps. The facts are not in dispute. All this has been happening 11 years after the Rwandan genocide. Although the international community pledged that there would not be another Rwanda, the response to the Darfur situation has to date been wholly inadequate. The situation clearly requires a massive military presence on the ground. Only the African Union has been willing to undertake this but its small force, less than 3000 in a vast region, inadequately equipped and trained and without logistical support is unequal to the task. And it is not clear that the logistical support promised by NATO has been forthcoming. In addition to several individual fact finding missions, there have been several resolutions, at least three for this year. Also, 4-l/2 billion dollars has been pledged for peace keeping and reconstruction. A UN Commission of Inquiry established last year found that serious violations of international law had been committed not only by the Janjawead but also by Sudanese government personnel. It was this commission which recommended that the matter should be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) which it described as "the single last mechanism to ensure justice, for the crimes in Darfur." Somewhat surprisingly, in view of its well known non-recognition of and hostility to the ICC, the US did not exercise its veto but allowed the SC to so decide with the US only insisting on a clause in the SC decision granting immunity to nationals of non-party states. But Sudan is not a signatory to the court and has already stated that it will not cooperate. In the circumstances, it is not clear how effective the court could be in bringing the criminal elements to justice. The experience of the tribunal investigating Yugoslavian atrocities has shown the limits of judicial inquiry and action. The two most wanted Yugoslav suspects, Karadzic and Mladic, are still at large. The ICC will require SC support in applying pressure including sanctions and in giving peace keepers and the AU troops powers of arrest. It is doubtful whether such SC support would be forthcoming as there are vital interests involved among key SC members who may therefore not wish to take ultimate action against Sudan. Sudan has been a major purchaser of Russian arms and military hardware including a large number of helicopters. Russia is unlikely to support any action which will endanger this important market. China's National Petroleum Company (CNPC) is by far the largest entity exploiting Sudan's oil reserves. It is reported that the CNPC has brought into Sudan ten thousand Chinese labourers to build the infrastructure. To complete the oil picture the Western companies which had begun exploration in Sudan namely the US owned Chevron and the Canadian Talisman have long since withdrawn as a result of pressure from human rights groups. Their places have been taken over by Indian and Malaysian companies. Indeed the developing world is sharply divided on the Darfur situation with the African Union intervening on behalf of the majority African population of the Sudan, while the powerful Arab league, supports the Sudanese government. Russia, China and Algeria, a member of the Arab League, had supported Bolton's action but their motivations may be quite different. With such vital interests likely to determine SC actions is it possible for the SC to act effectively? There is now as already mentioned the decision of the UN Summit on Responsibility to Act ready to be explored and tested in action. Much will depend on US pressure and in particular Bolton's diplomacy. Among the major powers the US has almost alone consistently condemned the Darfur situation as genocide. The US position has responded to a powerful fundamentalist Christian lobby in the US which strongly supports the Bush administration and which has steadily denounced the religious persecution of Christians in Southern Sudan. President Bush on taking office therefore acted promptly by appointing a former Senator and Clergyman, the Rev John Danforth, as special envoy to Sudan. Danforth was later appointed as Permanent Representative to the UN, a position from which he subsequently resigned leaving the post vacant until Bolton's recent appointment. At a time when President Bush's popularity is falling at the polls and Republican party support apparently crumbling at the edges, Bolton as the ultimate neo-con might perceive high domestic political mileage taking a strong initiative on Darfur. Who could have foreseen that a time would come when one must call for at least two cheers for John Bolton.

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I saw this editorial in a Guyanese newspaper of all places.

I suppose the MSM will be too busy with Scooter & Miers stories to report what is happening in Sudan.

[ALWAYSWELDING]

Comon Johnny boy.

I'd say don't back down, but we all know John Bolton. He won't.

Our prayers are with you. We've got brothers in Christ over there getting their wives taken and raped. Somethings got to be done.

[processing please hold]

Thanks for posting the article. They are so far and few between.

[luvbach1]

Please excuse my naivete, but just what is a neocon? Literally a new conservative, I know, but does that mean he/she was something else before, like an, ugh, liberal? It can't apply to me because I voted for Goldwater. By the way, my question was serious.

[MJY1288]

It's short for Joo's in the Republican Party, just ask Pat buchanan

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but just what is a neocon?

Beats me. A lable of some sort. I'm not sure of the origin or the meaning.

[ThreePuttinDude]

I've always thought that it was the Libs way of comparing
Neo-Nazis to Conservatives...ie Neo-Cons

Its something I've been obsessed with for quite a while.

[dufekin]

I'm going to guess that "neoconservative" means "new conservative." And what has made new conservatives of liberals? They're people who believe lies about foreign policy and refuse to subscribe to the Truth, who misunderstand the good intentions of communist terrorist totalitarian dictator Kim Jong-il and find him repugnant for serving his people by starving them and sentencing them to an eternity in a national gulag.

They're the idiots who irrationally despise Ba'athism and condemn perfectly noble political expression like the destruction of the World Trace Center in New York City as Islamofascist terrorism rather than exalting it as a rational response to the unjust regime of the United States. We neoconservatives believe in the Lies that Saddam Hussein was a terrorist totalitarian dictator and the embodiment of evil when we see the bodies of the Traitor children extracted from mass graves in the once-great Republic of Iraq rather than subscribing to the Truth that Saddam Hussein is somehow innocent of those deaths, or that those pictured bodies simply don't exist.

Understand? Neoconservatives are pathological Liars who irrationally despise communistic governance that has excised the world of the curse of only a few hundred million non-person humans in the past century. Neoconservatives turn away from the Truth that Israel causes all the problems of the Islamic world and inspires so-called Islamo-fascism and that never have Arab Muslims committed any act of terror disproportionate to their numbers.

[hotshu]

Great find and thanks for posting it.

I'd like to add a third cheer for Bolton. This article should have been published in America since it clearly defines what dangers lie in wait for our country if we are successful in repelling the more immediate threats from exterior and interior enemies.

Russia supplies arms to the Sudan, China exploits the Sudan's oil reserves, capitalist companies withdraw resources due to pressures from "human rights groups". Can you say oil for food? I thought you could.

I absolutely reject the current folly that is the UN, but since we as a country have invested so much in it in the past, it is our duty to either fix it or demolish it.

Stability and "peace" at any cost is a dereliction of duty.
That is what I admired about Ambassador Bolton during his confirmation lynchi- I mean hearings. He exuded the confidence in his convictions that he would not break during negotiations. Some bending is allowed as long as the core point is not sacrificed.

[ASA Vet]

We've got brothers in Christ over there getting their wives taken and raped. Somethings got to be done

If they were of a different supernaturalist group and their wives were taken and raped would you advocate nothing be done?

[luvbach1]

I agree that the Neo was chosen as an allusion to Neo Nazis.

[Louis Foxwell]

"We've got brothers in Christ over there getting their wives taken and raped. Somethings got to be done."

If they were of a different supernaturalist group and their wives were taken and raped would you advocate nothing be done?

Your question is poisoned by hate.

Is it hypocritical to be terrorized by the slaughter of one's children, brothers, and sisters and merely saddened by the murder of strangers?

Christians sacrifice themselves for those who hate them. What would you sacrifice for the safety of those you hold in contempt?

[ASA Vet]

Your question is poisoned by hate.

My question wasn't, but the statement of the poster to whom I responded was.

[KMAJ2]

First, the dictionary definition, a former liberal espousing political conservativism.

If you want to know the full story, no better source than the man considered the 'godfather' of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, expounds on it in this article:

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The Neoconservative Persuasion: What it was, and what it is.

The Weekly Standard, August 25, 2003:
by Irving Kristol

"[President Bush is] an engaging person, but I think for some reason he's been captured by the neoconservatives around him."

--Howard Dean, U.S. News & World Report, August 11, 2003


WHAT EXACTLY IS NEOCONSERVATISM? Journalists, and now even presidential candidates, speak with an enviable confidence on who or what is "neoconservative," and seem to assume the meaning is fully revealed in the name. Those of us who are designated as "neocons" are amused, flattered, or dismissive, depending on the context. It is reasonable to wonder: Is there any "there" there?

Even I, frequently referred to as the "godfather" of all those neocons, have had my moments of wonderment. A few years ago I said (and, alas, wrote) that neoconservatism had had its own distinctive qualities in its early years, but by now had been absorbed into the mainstream of American conservatism. I was wrong, and the reason I was wrong is that, ever since its origin among disillusioned liberal intellectuals in the 1970s, what we call neoconservatism has been one of those intellectual undercurrents that surface only intermittently. It is not a "movement," as the conspiratorial critics would have it. Neoconservatism is what the late historian of Jacksonian America, Marvin Meyers, called a "persuasion," one that manifests itself over time, but erratically, and one whose meaning we clearly glimpse only in retrospect.

Viewed in this way, one can say that the historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy. That this new conservative politics is distinctly American is beyond doubt. There is nothing like neoconservatism in Europe, and most European conservatives are highly skeptical of its legitimacy. The fact that conservatism in the United States is so much healthier than in Europe, so much more politically effective, surely has something to do with the existence of neoconservatism. But Europeans, who think it absurd to look to the United States for lessons in political innovation, resolutely refuse to consider this possibility.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public ... icles/000/000/003/000tzmlw.asp

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Kristol does seem to suffer from some delusions of grandeur, and his original vision of neoconservatism is not todays version.

[Southack]

Amb. Bolton has already done many, many bold, conservative things...such as getting the UN condemnation of Iran this week that led to Iran publicly backing off of its latest threat against Israel.

Bolton's work on the Sudan is also good. Ditto for what he's done regarding Russia/Georgia and Syria/Lebanon...

...successes that the Corrupt News Media would prefer to not attribute to the man whom they so unfairly demonized.

[RoadTest]

THREE cheers for John Bolton!

[ALWAYSWELDING]

If they were of a different supernaturalist group and their wives were taken and raped would you advocate nothing be done?

What kind of crap is that ASA.

I make a comment about what's going on because my CHURCH bring believers in from that region and they tell us what's happening to them and you put that kind of sludge on this thread?

You don't deserve a reply further than this. If you can't figure out my good will then take a hike.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385513194/104-7550744-1692753?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

[MJY1288]

Thanks for the link, that looks like an interesting book

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

It is.

I heard Pedro Sanjuan speak a few months ago, after the screening of a Pierre Rehov documentary.

The man is brilliant, if a bit too discursive for my tastes.

:)