A Golden Age for Intervention? (Samantha Power is Anti-U.N.)

New York Times ^ | June 8, 2013 | NEIL MacFARQUHAR

[nickcarraway]

SAMANTHA POWER, President Obama’s nominee to replace Susan E. Rice as the American ambassador to the United Nations, has a history of disparaging both the institution and its leader.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was “extremely disappointing” on the Darfur crisis, she told “Frontline” in 2007, “more of a secretary than a general.”

The Security Council? It is “anachronistic, undemocratic, and consists of countries that lack the standing to be considered good-faith arbiters of how to balance stability against democracy, peace against justice, and security against human rights,” she wrote in 2003.

[Gene Eric]

>> has a history of disparaging both the institution and its leader.

To the NYT, that means she didn’t flush after using a UN toilet.

[jeffc]

The Security Council? It is “anachronistic, undemocratic, and consists of countries that lack the standing to be considered good-faith arbiters of how to balance stability....

Uh-huh. Reads to me like just the person Zero wants in the UN to start eliminating any rules, etc. that stand in his way to become UN Sec Gen, a step towards world leader.

[9YearLurker]

Yep, her only complaint is that the UN isn’t UN-y enough.

[Little Pig]

All of those could be considered slights against the Secretary-General, I guess. She could be making the case that Ki-Moon ought to be replaced with someone else (and she’d have just the person in mind). What’s interesting, or ironic, is that if she’s doing this (blaming all the UN’s problems on the leader), she’s doing so coming from an administration that does everything it can to point the blame at anyone *except* the leader. Further, given Zer0’s record in office, there’s very little to indicate that he’d be anything other than even more anachronistic, undemocratic, and supportive of bad-faith countries in the UN.

[octex]

If our gov’t. refuses to leave the UN, then the next best thing is to have US Ambassodors to the UN to be ANTI-UN!

[raybbr]

If our gov’t. refuses to leave the UN, then the next best thing is to have US Ambassodors to the UN to be ANTI-UN!

Read her criticisms. It's not what you and I would criticize about the UN. She thinks the UN should use its power to bring about MORE social justice, change, etc.

[Ben Ficklin]

Power, and Rice, are liberal interventionists and consequently are multi-lateralists. They were both very instrumental in developing the multi-lateral agreement within the UN, NATO, and the Arab League to intervene in Libya.

OTOH, the NeoCons are unilateralists and world hegonomists, opposed to multilateral agreements. So, whereas the NeoCons wanted to intervene in Libya, they wanted to do so unilaterally.

And because Obama went into Libya multilaterally, the NeoCons accused him of "leading from behind".

We have the exact same situation now with Syria. The NeoCons want to unilaterally intervene in Syria and the liberal interventionists are insisting it be done multilaterally