Posted on 06/09/2006 12:21:46 AM PDT by familyop
Deputy secretary-general Mark
Malloch Brown said the US needs
to tell its people why the UN matters
Picture: AFP/Getty
THE United Nations' British second-in-command was at the centre of a furious diplomatic row with the United States yesterday.
The UN deputy secretary-general, Mark Malloch Brown, antagonised Washington after suggesting that the US administration was happy to use the UN as a diplomatic tool while failing to defend it from critics at home.
Mr Malloch Brown told a conference in New York that "the prevailing [US] 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."
Washington, he said, was too happy to tolerate "too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping".
His comments provoked a furious response from John Bolten, the pugnacious American ambassador to the UN. "I spoke to the secretary-general this morning, I said 'I've known you since 1989 and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior UN official that I have seen in that entire time," said Mr Bolten.
Mr Malloch Brown told reporters after his speech. "You [the US] have to engage to help make this institution a better institution. And you need to engage, if I dare say so, with your own public opinion to explain better why the UN matters to American interests."
He argued that good news about the UN rarely reached the US. "Much of the public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News."
"The UN's role is in effect a secret in middle America even as it is highlighted in the Middle East and other parts of the world," he said.
A recent Gallup poll reported that 64 per cent of Americans had a poor opinion of the United Nations and the organisation is frequently and routinely portrayed as an anti-American body that coddles and makes excuses for dictatorial regimes around the world while proving itself unable to live up to the lofty goals it sets itself. Sex scandals involving UN peacekeepers, the corrupt administration of the UN's oil-for-food programme in Iraq and the organisation's reluctance to support the US-British invasion of Iraq have all fed American dissatisfaction with the UN.
"Americans complain about the UN's bureaucracy, weak decision-making, the lack of accountable modern management structures and the political divisions of the general assembly here in New York," acknowledged Mr Malloch Brown. "And my response is, 'guilty on all counts'."
However, he said he UN could only change and reform its practices if the US were committed to the organisation. "In the eyes of the rest of the world, US commitment tends to ebb much more than it flows. And in recent years, the enormously divisive issue of Iraq and the big stick of financial withholding have come to define an unhappy marriage."
Tensions between Washington and the UN will come to a head later this month when its budget runs out. Washington, by far the biggest financial contributor to the UN, has insisted that it implement reforms before the US will agree to fund a new budget.
Mr Malloch Brown's "condescending, patronising tone about the American people" was the worst part about the speech said Mr Bolton.
"Fundamentally and very sadly, this was a criticism of the American people, not the American government, by an international civil servant," Mr Bolton said. "It's just illegitimate.
"When a member of the [UN] secretariat criticises ... the intelligence of the people of a member government, that's a very questionable activity. Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations."
He called on Mr Annan to "personally and publicly" repudiate his deputy's speech. But Mr Annan's spokesman said the secretary-general stood by Mr Malloch Brown's comments.
Mr Malloch Brown's speech was delivered at a conference sponsored by two think tanks, the Center for American Progress and the Century Foundation.
I haven't started "sniping" at the UN.
"Persistent press leaks confirm that Hillary Clinton, and not Podesta, is ultimately in charge of CAP. 'It's the official Hillary Clinton think tank,' an inside source confided to Christian Bourge of United Press International. Robert Dreyfuss notes in The Nation, 'In looking at Podesta's center, there's no escaping the imprint of the Clintons. It's not completely wrong to see it as a shadow government, a kind of Clinton White-House-in-exile -- or a White House staff in readiness for President Hillary Clinton.' "
"Dreyfuss notes the abundance of Clintonites on the Center's staff, among them Clinton's national security speechwriter Robert Boorstin; Democratic Leadership Council staffer and former head of Clinton's National Economic Council Gene Sperling; former senior advisor to Clinton's Office of Management and Budget Matt Miller; and others."
Theft, is what the UN is about, plain and simple.
"Sniping at", my @__!
Fire for effect!!!
Bravo! Hear! Hear!
Right on, Ivan!
What really enrages me is the American idiots who equate all our British friends with your soccer hooligans. (When, in reality, I expect that you dislike them far more than we ever could...)
Thank you, FRiend, for being here -- and for speaking up!!
I agree.
Kofi Annan and company believe in a one world government and I sincerely hope Americans and Great Briton never agree to it.
This British diplomat thinks middle Americans are not intelligent enough to comprehend the UNs plans.
Here is what passes for intelligence at the UN
"The Earth Charter Initiative was launched in 1994 by Maurice Strong, his newly formed Earth Council and Mikhail Gorbachev, acting in his capacity as president of Green Cross International. In 1997, the Earth Council and Green Cross International formed an Earth Charter Commission to give oversight to the process."
The UN and the cult of Gaia (in which I would include Al Gore) are all more intelligent and of course not as mean spirited as us everyday Joes./s
I would like to see Ambassador Bolton take them to the curb.
Such as and by way of example . . . ?
"MOMMY MOMMY PLEASE MAKE THEM STOP!!!"
You know, the good news that the UN sent forces into Sudan to stop the genocide by the Muslims. Dam the UN has it all together.
He's right. Time for an artillery barrage.
Ah, if only....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.