The Bolton factor-UN.

[Ocean Breeze]

Didn't take him long to stir things up into infighting and another potential crisis

Bolton’s Push Has the UN Fighting Itself
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 23 November 2005 — At a time when international diplomacy is greatly needed from the New York-based United Nations, the organization has become mired down in a complex power struggle.

All this is very bad timing. Earlier this week, the Iranian Parliament approved an outline of a bill that states it would bar United Nations inspectors from entering its nuclear sites if the UN’s Security Council considers punitive measures when it meets this Thursday in New York.

“This is a time for diplomacy, and we don’t have the diplomatic capacity to do it,” William Luers, current president of the United Nations Association of the US, told reporters.

Instead of dealing a potential international nuclear crisis with Iran, the UN is struggling to redefine its own tenants of power.

“This is a basic clash over who’s in charge: is it the General Assembly or is it the Secretary General?” Edward Luck, a professor of international affairs at Columbia University and former president of the UN Association of the US told reporters.

The fight is over the management of reform proposals which some say would broaden the power of the Secretary General’s office. The diplomat pushing this showdown is John Bolton, the US ambassador at the UN. Bolton, with his well-known history of contempt for the international organization, is warning that the US may look elsewhere to settle international problems if the it doesn’t shape up.

The US is also causing a ruckus at the UN regarding elections for the next UN Secretary General, a year away. According to an unwritten agreement, the UN’s top job is rotated to a different region after the end of the current Secretary General’s term. Three Asian candidates are already vying for the upcoming position.

The Bush Administrations has made known it no longer intends to follow that tradition. Bolton dismissed Asia’s exclusive right to the job last week, saying Washington would continue to look for experienced, qualified candidates regardless of their nationality.

“We’ve never accepted the idea that there is geographical rotations,” Bolton told Washington Times last week. “Eastern and Central Europe have never had a secretary-general, so that’s worth looking at.” He then said it was Kofi Annan, not the US, who broke that tradition, as Annan followed Egyptian Boutros Boutros Ghali.

Bolton declined to say who the Bush Administration is backing. US officials have long acknowledged that their endorsement can bring the “kiss of death” to a candidate.

 

[Colpy]

Rwanda, Darfur, Srebrenica, oil-for-food, monsters running the Human Rights Commission, UNESCO promoting worldwide news censorship, "peacekeepers" raping refugees, who gives a damn about what the UN does?

Boulton is right. The organization is useless except as a debating society.

 

[Reverend Blair]

Hmmm...seems to me that US policy played a huge part in the things you mentioned, Colpy.

 

[Jay]

"The organization is useless except as a debating society"

And we could use a good debating society. The rest of it though....

 

[#juan]

The U.S. has been trying to wreck the UN

for years. The U.S. doesn't want any organization that inconveniences their multinational corporations. The fact remains that the UN is the only place where even the smallest country can be heard. The U.S. have abused their veto powerto the extreme to keep the Israeli foot on the Palestinian necks. The Americans enjoy saying the UN doesn't work while they are the ones who keep it from working.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

The U.S. has been trying to wreck the UN

for years. The U.S. doesn't want any organization that inconveniences their multinational corporations. The fact remains that the UN is the only place where even the smallest country can be heard. The U.S. have abused their veto powerto the extreme to keep the Israeli foot on the Palestinian necks. The Americans enjoy saying the UN doesn't work while they are the ones who keep it from working.

EXACTLY. The US undermines just about anything the UN does or says. It thwarts and constructive action etec. There is a reason that the bully bolton was assigned there . He will continue to do just that.........and then bitch about how ineffective the UN is. Sadly it seems that the US has become a pathological malignancy and everywhere they have a representative .......the tumors spread.....

One is yet to see something truly constructive, humanitarian, compassionate and cooperative from the US.

Bolton is an SOB and the choice of America ......at the UN. Don't expect the UN to be able to do much as this chap will continue to undermine things . No wonder there is infighting.. .....it is the response to the snake in their midst now. ........a snake who is the biggest shit disturber in a long while. The US does NOT WANT the UN to do well. It might disgrace the US.......(like the US isn't disgracing itself just about every day).

If this sounds a tad harsh/explicit........so be it. Bolton's appointment to the UN was highly questionable from the onset.....

 

[Colpy]

Re: RE: The Bolton factor-UN.

Hmmm...seems to me that US policy played a huge part in the things you mentioned, Colpy.

Yes, the US was a significant factor in what went on in Rwanda. Clinton refused to act, after being burned in Somalia.

But as for the rest......US played little or no part.

By the way, the UN's primary function is to defend nations againt aggression. The ONLY two times it has done this it was acting as an extension of US foreign policy (Korea, 1950, and Kuwait 1990)

 

[Reverend Blair]

The Americans enjoy saying the UN doesn't work while they are the ones who keep it from working.

You hit the nail on the head there, Juan. They were the ones who kept the UN from sending more troops to Rwanda, they had full oversight over Oil For Food and the UN even pointed out corruption within the program to them, which they chose to ignore until Kofi sid that invasion of Iraq was illegal. Just two examples. There are many, many more.

The reform thing is a clown act though. Annan has been working for reform since before he became SG. He came up with a comprehensive plan that could have been instituted as a package if the US would have gotten behind the whole thing.

Instead, the US decided to pick and choose and change certain points while tossing others all together. The reform process is falling apart because the US wanted it to. They knew that other countries weren't going to accept them using the UN as a tool of US hegemony, but if the Bush regime cannot us it as such a tool, they do not want the UN to exist at all.

 

[Colpy]

The U.S. has been trying to wreck the UN

for years. The U.S. doesn't want any organization that inconveniences their multinational corporations. The fact remains that the UN is the only place where even the smallest country can be heard. The U.S. have abused their veto powerto the extreme to keep the Israeli foot on the Palestinian necks. The Americans enjoy saying the UN doesn't work while they are the ones who keep it from working.

I agree the UN should be kept as a debating society, so small nations can be heard.

As for the Israeli foot on the Palestinian neck, it is to laugh. Arab nations refuse Palestinian refugees citizenship, disavow any responsibility for the territory taken by Israel in defensive war, and have cynically used the "Palestinian problem" they helped create as a stick with which to beat Israel.

The only real friend the PLO had back in the day was Jordan, and they abused the King's tolerance to the point of open rebellion. He booted them out to Lebanon, where they made a fine mess of things.

The boot on the neck of the Palestinians is ARAB.

 

[Reverend Blair]

How many US vetoes and threatened vetoes were there over things that Israel did, Colpy?