Joel Brinkley: Anti-U.S. venom from the U.N.

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/27/8 | Joel Brinkley

[SmithL]

Sometime in the next few weeks, the U.N. General Assembly will elect a pugnacious, anti-American politician from Nicaragua as its 63rd president.

Not since the final years of the Cold War 20 years ago has a vocal opponent of Washington held this leadership position. But after Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader, stole the election in Managua last year, Nicaragua turned on a dime from an alliance with Washington to a close friendship with Fidel and Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The selection is set, and U.N. bylaws require the vote to be taken no later than June 16. Starting in September, the politician in question, Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, will have one of the world's most prominent podiums from which he can inveigh against Washington.

D'Escoto was the Sandinista foreign minister during the 1980s, when Nicaragua was at war with the Reagan administration. Back then, he once described America's view of his country this way: "They're saying: 'You drop dead, or I will kill you."' Every one of the world's 192 nations sends a representative to the General Assembly.

Its president directs and coordinates the assembly's activities, initiatives and ceremonies. The United Nations stands long on ceremony, giving d'Escoto frequent access to the dais.

D'Escoto will be president for one year, beginning September 16, the start of the United Nations' 63rd session. He will hold office through the new American president's first eight months in office, when Washington will be trying to repair its relations with the United Nations.

Esteemed, senior politicians from around the world are generally chosen to fill the assembly presidency. D'Escoto is to replace Srgjan Hasan Kerim, the former foreign minister of Macedonia.

...And then there's d'Escoto, Daniel Ortega's foreign policy adviser.

[SmithL]

Joel Brinkley is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The New York Times and now a professor of journalism at Stanford University.

[HoosierHawk]

You mean no more hugs and kisses from the UN???

[Unam Sanctam]

Was D’Escoto the former cleric whom Pope John Paul II told to get out of politics?

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Actually, I would be in favor of the next General Secretary of the UN being either Hugo Chavez or the propaganda minister of Kim Jong Il, or even a leader of Hizbollah.

Why? For obvious reasons.

To tell the US in a loud, clear, voice that they want us to be destroyed, our people enslaved or murdered, for nuclear weapons to be given to every kook on the planet, and that they fully support the Democrat party in accomplishing these goals.

[printhead]

I’m curious. Was this election certified by Jimmy Carter?

[NaughtiusMaximus]

U.N.; short for Useless Nations.

Another Freeper’s tagline but I like it.

[weegee]

In other UN news:

Charity: Aid workers raping, abusing children (CNN - May 27, 2008 By Stephanie Busari)

Humanitarian aid workers and United Nation peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children in several war-ravaged and food-poor countries, a leading European charity has said.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"He will hold office through the new American president's first eight months in office, when Washington will be trying to repair its relations with the United Nations..."

What's to repair, and why? A large portion of our problems has come from kowtowing to the UN. Bush I's biggest mistake in office was to go to the UN hat-in-hand for "permission" to make good on our treaty obligations and defend our ally Kuwait. That set a very regrettable precedent, ceding sovereignty to the posturing pooh-bahs and strutting tin-horns of the UN. Later, over-respect for the UN, in large part, led Bush I to leave Saddam in office. (A notion of counter-balancing an ambitious Iran was another reason, of course.) Bush II's biggest mistake was in telegraphing our intentions for months during his courtship of the UN. This allowed Saddam to spirit his WMDs to Syria and his Ba'athist friends to set up a post-Saddam insurgency.

The UN is the problem, not the solution. The best possible news would be that our relationship with the UN is irreparable and hopeless, not the opposite.