posted
Saw that this morning, made me just as happy as Old Rummy resigning.
Ditto to appointing somebody who, at worst, has not openly stated his/her disdain for the UN, and, at best, actually has some diplomatic skills. <Napoleon Dynamite> GOSH! </Napoleon Dynamite>
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Thank God for this. (I was just reading in the New Yorker Bush's various plans for keeping him in power without congressional aproval.)
Mr. Bolton was one of Mr. Bush's bigger mistakes, all the bigger becouse of how many people told him not to do it.
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posted
Smart of Bolton to step down. He wasn't going to be confirmed.
It's just a sign of the changing times. Bush should get used to it, it's going to be what the next two years are like until Hillary or McCain take office.
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Hey, you'll totally like this new guy. He used to work for some eq.. quinstrian .. thing. And fema. Yeah yeah, I know what you're going to say -- "Overqualified." So what?
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You know who we need to send over to Iraq to run things. Wait for it....completely unqualified people who are politically reliable. Because, honestly, we could give a crap if the mission is actually successful.
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4) Jack Abramhoff. What, doesn't political immunity work that way?
3) President Bush--well, he'll be needing a new job in a couple of years anyway. Why not puff up the resume' now.
2) Rush Limbaugh. I mean, everyone agrees that would be hillarious. People would just disagree why.
1) Various detainees from Git-Mo. After all, what could be worse torture than having to sit through UN meetings all day long?
(PS Actually Mr. Squicky, I am hoping that President Bush has learned a valuable lesson. While faithfullness in henchmen is an honorable trait, it does not lead to competence. However competence in those you hire does lead to faithfullness.)
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posted
For those of you happy (apparently everyone so far) what did John Bolton do that angered/disappointed you? (Please don't be vague)
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quote:“There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interests, and when we can get others to go along. I think it would be a real mistake to count on the U.N. as if it’s some disembodied entity out there that can function.”
quote:“It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so - because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States. We ought to be concerned about this so-called right of humanitarian intervention.”
quote:“Let me just give some advice to the Secretariat to remind them how this process works in New York: the member governments give direction to the Secretariat, not the other way round.” – Bolton, when Annan asked that he put aside his public spat with Deputy Secretary Malloch Brown and focus on reform
That's Bolton. Collect 'em all.
Others on Bolton:
“He is incapable of listening to people and taking into account their views. He would be an abysmal ambassador.” -- Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff, describing Bolton
“I left that meeting with the perception that I had been asked for the first time to fire an intelligence analyst for what he had said.” – Carl Ford, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, on Bolton’s request that an intelligence analyst be removed when his views clashed with Bolton’s own
“Hell.” – Melody Townsel, USAID Employee/Subcontractor, describing her life after Bolton began “hounding” her in retaliation for a complaint she made about the company employing him
“Truth flew out the window.” -- Melody Townsel, on Bolton’s campaign to intimidate her into rescinding her complaint about his company’s service
Generally, when one is put in a diplomatic position, one is expected to show some ability to use the tools of tact, courtesy, and compromise. Bolton does not have these tools. Bolton does not even have the Bob the Builder plastic playset versions of these tools. He's approximately as appropriate to the United Nations as hydrochloric acid is appropriate to a amaretto sour, on top of which, he had shown a long-standing contempt for the very institution with which he was appointed to work.
posted
Nice summary, Sterling. Much more detailed than I was going to get in my response (which, thanks to you, is unnecessary).
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posted
I opened this thread in hopes of finding out what reason people had for disliking Bolton's appointment. I got what I wanted.
My God. The UN is headed by the man who ordered UN peacekeepers to let the Rwanda genocide happen, rather than compromise the UN's neutrality! He ordered them to withdraw from buildings that contained Rwanda civilians fleeing the genocidaires, and ordered them to leave the civilians behind when the killers were outside waiting.
Since that time the UN has been caught running child prostitution rings in the Congo.
The UN's human rights council currently includes Cuba and Zimbabwe -- the place where President Mugabe is using rape and starvation to punish villages suspected of not supporting him. Not long ago, at least, it also had Sudan, which has gone from murdering blacks in its southern region to those in its western region.
And these are the people we should worry Bolton will upset? When asking people to stop enabling genocide and raping children, how respectful do you need to be? (And what does it say about someone's character, if that someone respects this sort of thing?)
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Will B, Bolton was appointed by Bush so he is therefore Evil and Mean. Bringing up the UNs terrible crimes is pointless because the focus of this thread is showing that Bolton, and Bush, are Evil and Mean.
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posted
Bringing up the UN's terrible crimes is pointless because it has no bearing on Bolton's qualifications for the job.
If you rob a bank, you still go to jail, even if someone on the jury is a serial killer.
There have been plenty of people that President Bush has appointed that have been approved of by everyone. When we find one that is not, apparently that just proves we are Bush Hating fanatics.
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quote: The UN's terrible crimes aren't relevant to how harshly one should speak to it? Really?
How harshly one should speak to it? Of course.
How one goes to work with it? Definately!
The attitude demonstrates an agenda that says, "The UN is worthless and deserves to be destroyed at best, ignored if we must." That is not an agenda that will incourage anyone in the UN to change for the better.
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"If you rob a bank, you still go to jail, even if someone on the jury is a serial killer." What if six of them were found to be serial killers? No grounds for a retrial?
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"That is not an agenda that will incourage anyone in the UN to change for the better." Why would anyone in the UN ever change if the people we send are trying to make sure we get along with them, or appease them? When the head of the UN sends millions of dollars to his son through the Oil for Food program and nothing happens to him, who would you send? Someone who thinks this is OK, or at least something that should be overlooked so we can work out a common ground?
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posted
My attitude is that "The UN is in the habit of committing grievous crimes against humanity, and this must be stopped." This is an attitude that will encourage the UN to change for the better. It is the only attitude that will encourage the UN to change for the better.
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: "If you rob a bank, you still go to jail, even if someone on the jury is a serial killer." What if six of them were found to be serial killers? No grounds for a retrial?
Yes which is why we didn't just take UN ambassador's words at face value. We have, to follow your metaphor, a statement from Boulton, "If I ever have a gun put in my hands somebody is going to die!"
Not enough to convict, but weighed with everything else it seriously paints a dismal picture of him.
There are FAR more gifted and intelligent men and women we could appoint to do this role. Right now we NEED better relations with our allies and possible future allies, Boulton is not the man to encourage those relationships.
I mean Brownie as head of FEMA was just unqualified, Boulton as UN rep is the opposite of qualified.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: "That is not an agenda that will incourage anyone in the UN to change for the better." Why would anyone in the UN ever change if the people we send are trying to make sure we get along with them, or appease them? When the head of the UN sends millions of dollars to his son through the Oil for Food program and nothing happens to him, who would you send? Someone who thinks this is OK, or at least something that should be overlooked so we can work out a common ground?
Sorry for double posting, DK Annan was exonerated of any wrong doing. He had nothing to do with this.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
He ordered UN peacekeepers to withdraw from buildings, exposing civilians to the killers outside. He ordered UN peacekeepers not to interfere by seizing weapons (machete) caches from the genocidaires. His position at the time was UN High Comissioner on Peacekeeping.
quote:We have, to follow your metaphor, a statement from Boulton, "If I ever have a gun put in my hands somebody is going to die!"
The metaphor was "serial killer" for "genocidaire and child rapist." Has Bolton threatened to commit genocide or rape children? No -- of course not.
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quote: A U.N.-appointed panel investigating abuse in the Iraq oil-for-food program said there is no evidence that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan used his influence to steer a multimillion-dollar contract to a Swiss company that employed his son.
So the UN investigates the leader of the UN and finds nothing wrong? Let's look at little more at the same article.
quote: But the panel's report faulted Annan for inadequately scrutinizing the deal to determine whether his son's involvement posed a conflict of interest, and accused Annan's senior advisers of misusing Iraqi funds and shredding relevant documents as the investigation began. It also indicated that Annan may have initially misled investigators about contacts he had with senior executives at his son's company before they won a U.N. contract.
quote: The U.N.-appointed Independent Inquiry Committee, headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, presented a sharply critical account of efforts by Annan's son, Kojo Annan, to deceive investigators and his father about his financial relationship with his former employer, Geneva-based Cotecna Inspection Services SA. The report says that Kojo Annan, who stopped cooperating with Volcker's panel after an initial meeting, may have earned as much as $485,000 in consulting fees from Cotecna while it conducted millions of dollars in business in Iraq for the United Nations.
quote: The report also discloses that Iqbal Riza of Pakistan, Annan's former chief of staff, had approved destruction of his backup computer files covering the first three years of the oil-for-food program.
Destruction of evidence, lying, misleading....I can just hear the cries of people wanting to post that Bush did it too. Somehow I don't see this as Annan being cleared of anything, just simply brush the whole thing under the carpet and let's move on and get back to work. The UN commits atrocity after atrocity and yet the world focuses on US. We are made out to be the bad guys in the world.
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Will: I was working within the metaphor, Boulton has clearly stated that he has nothing but contempt for the UN and has no intention of working within its framework.
DK: so Annan is criticized for "Inadequately scrutinizing the deal." AND Kojo is criticized for "deceiving investigators and his father." So Kojo deceived his father, but his father was aware everything? All your attacks are preceded with, "may have" and "accused."
There is nothing concrete in there. Remember innocent until proven guilty not the other way around.
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posted
Do we have any evidence that Bolton was not willing to work with the UN on reform efforts?
Do we have any evidence that Bolton wants to disband the UN and ignore any effort to replace it?
If these claims were true, why did Bolton spend his time pushing reforms and getting resolutions passed against abuses? Why didn't he spend that time instead trying to disband the UN and prevent it from being replaced?
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Did you not read any of his own words prior in this thread?
quote: f these claims were true, why did Bolton spend his time pushing reforms and getting resolutions passed against abuses?
Do you have any evidence of this? If he had actively tried to disband the UN he would have been immediately dismissed as that was not what he was called to do.
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quote:Why would anyone in the UN ever change if the people we send are trying to make sure we get along with them, or appease them?
This is what I dislike about the present administration and thier strongest and most vocal supporters. Why does it have to be either/or. Either you want to destroy the UN or your a pathetic appeasing pansy? There is a middle ground you know.
Diplomacy is the art of finding that third way, of walking the line between fawning and antagonizing.
Ambassadors, by the nature of their jobs, need to be Diplomatic. The US Ambassador to the federation of Ambassador's that the UN is needs to be our best Diplomat, especially if we need to curb the problems that are so rampant at the UN.
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Will B, Bolton was appointed by Bush so he is therefore Evil and Mean. Bringing up the UNs terrible crimes is pointless because the focus of this thread is showing that Bolton, and Bush, are Evil and Mean.
Lovely straw man you have there. "If I denigrate those I disagree with enough, I don't have to answer anything they actually said."
Bringing up the U.N.'s crimes is perfectly fine, IF you offer sources, IF you are specific as to whom the crimes should be attributed to, and IF you don't scattershot claims that should be attributed to individuals to the whole body.
However, unless and until you show a shred of evidence that Bolton was doing anything other than insulting the international community and claiming that the U.N. should be nothing more than one more arm to execute the American agenda, you're doing little more than shouting for the sake of shouting about how terribly unfair everyone is.
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posted
The problem is not that Mr. Bolton is rude, but that he is so rude that he is totaly counterproductive.
Mr. Bolton was our public face and made us look bad. Of course, the President is also our public face and makes us look bad, but he isn't going to resign. Good thing too, becouse Mr. Cheney would be worse. I would take Dr. Rice if I had to choose a high-level administration member, but I would rather not.
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posted
He was, in fact, *so* counterproductive that on his watch we got an SC resolution for 22K peacekeepers for Darfur (Sudan has not allowed them in, btw); the first-ever inquiry into Myanmar human-rights abuses; a unanimous SC resolution demanding an end to Hezbollah's attacks on Israel last summer; and a nomination of Bolton for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Admittedly this last was for work done earlier, IIRC -- exposing a secret network for assisting Iran's nuclear ambitions.)
That should answer one of your questions, BlackBlade. (And Sterling's request for evidence that Bolton was doing something other that useless stuff.)
The other one -- did I read the earlier posts? -- yes, I did. Which of those posts quoted Bolton saying he did not want to reform the UN, or that he wanted it disbanded and not re-created?
If your answer is "none," then how are the earlier posts relevant to the question of whether he doesn't want the UN reformed and instead wants it disbanded and not re-created?
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:The "qualification" we were discussing was Bolton's alleged harshness
I really don't care how our ambassadors make people feel, I only care if they advance America's interests in the world.
quote:Bringing up the UN's terrible crimes is pointless because it has no bearing on Bolton's qualifications for the job.
The state of the UN has everything to do with who we send there. If it is a clubhouse for thugs, perhaps we should send someone who realizes it, and realizes that pretty talk we get only that in return.
regarding:
quote: Others on Bolton:
These references are at this point irrelevant, since we can look at his actions since being there. In my job review, they will not be discussing my resume, but what I've done since being hired. (That's an analogy; I'm not Mr. Bolton.) (That's a joke. I assume y'all would know that.)
posted
If Bolton were unsuitable because his moustache was ugly -- or because of his Nobel Peace Prize nomination, which puts him in the ranks with Yasser Arafat -- that would be fine. But the specific reason that people say he was unsuitable is that he doesn't show enough respect to an institution that recently abetted the murder of 800K people. Such institutions don't deserve our respect.
He speaks too harshly of men responsible for mass murder and rape. Such men should be spoken of harshly.
When I first heard that people were "worried" that Bolton was "too harsh" on the UN, I was amazed they'd admit in public that they wanted soft words for an institution so riddled with crimes against humanity. If enabling the murder of 800K people -- then appointing the enabler-in-chief to head the organization! -- isn't enough to make us use condemning words, then what will it take before we actually do something? What will make us stop defending evil, and promoting those who do it? This is a serious question.
The new Congress will be hoping, apparently, to confirm an ambassador who will speak softly to the monsters who create the next atrocity. So we'll get another atrocity, and another, and we can tut-tut while making sure that the US makes no real effort to stop them.
Why is this a good thing? Why is it that the ones who express a serious interest in reforming the UN is the one who must leave, rather than the ones with the blood on their hands? Could it be more obvious that heaving out honest men and keeping criminals in power ensures that the crimes will continue?
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posted
I can't tell for sure, but, based on my inspection of the quotes here that are used to demonstrate Bolton's unfitness for the office he held, only one postdates his appointment. (Again, if someone provides dates/links I'll be happy to be corrected on that.)
If that's so, I'd like to see some analysis of how he actually did on the job. He was there long enough that his actual performance should outweigh his prior actions.
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quote:“If Bolton left tomorrow, progress would be possible on almost every front where it is now stalled,” one senior Western diplomat fumed. “He has succeeded in putting almost everyone's backs up, even among some of America's closest allies. His main achievement has been to break the unified coalition of the North and unify the previously fragmented South.”
posted
Thank you Will and Sterling. Though my feelings on Boulton have changed mildly, I still feel that America needs somebody who is talented at rallying our allies rather then pursuing a big agenda.
It reminds me of FOB missionaries who start their first day saying things like, "We are going to convert millions if we just want it enough!" and promptly start giving out pamphlets and books to anybody who will allow it to be forced into their hands. They have TONS of "how to redefine missionary work" reforms. Unfortunately they have to be crushed by real life and hopefully they won't swing to the opposite end of the spectrum and will find themselves somewhere in the middle. The world is immensely frustrated with the US, and though I think some of their reasons are bogus, there is alot we can do to gain their trust again. Trust is necessary if we are to work with others, and work with others we must.
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quote: My God. The UN is headed by the man who ordered UN peacekeepers to let the Rwanda genocide happen, rather than compromise the UN's neutrality! He ordered them to withdraw from buildings that contained Rwanda civilians fleeing the genocidaires, and ordered them to leave the civilians behind when the killers were outside waiting.
I would agree with you in that the UN has largely shown itself ineffective when it comes to peacekeeping missions and such. Those are not, however, the sole things the UN does. Do you feel that UN's failures in these areas also negate the achievements done by organizations operating under the UN such as UNICEF or WHO? Because I would still say that whilst being far from perfect the UN is still more of a force of good than a force of evil in the world.
quote: Since that time the UN has been caught running child prostitution rings in the Congo.
I have actually heard/read nothing of this. Was it an isolated incident or was it more of a systematical thing approved by people high up within the UN?
quote: The UN's human rights council currently includes Cuba and Zimbabwe -- the place where President Mugabe is using rape and starvation to punish villages suspected of not supporting him. Not long ago, at least, it also had Sudan, which has gone from murdering blacks in its southern region to those in its western region.
I agree that this is a problem. But by what criteria would the countries in the council be chosen? What would the requirements be? Sure it is easy to point at certain countries and say they are evil, but there are also plenty of other countries that are equally evil but still treated with silk gloves by the western nations because of political reasons. But I agree, this is one of the faults in the UN.
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You have a point.
