The Useless UN

The UN "Human Rights Council" (mockery) has now made useful changes to its human rights violators' list, like removing Cuba and placing Israel there - permanently. Nice.

John Bolton on North Korea, Iran, Chavez and Pelosi

*Exclusive* John Bolton audio at Miami University

John Bolton came to Miami University yesterday and spoke on a variety of foreign policy issues. His speech was excellent, and although he didn't comment much on the state of the United Nations, he did comment extensively on what he considers the largest threats to international peace and security - North Korea and Iran.

North Korea: The ambassador commented extensively on the futility of negotiating with the North Korean regime. Referring to the country as a "17 million person prison camp" it's important to remember that the only goals the regime has is to maintain its own power. North Korea will, as it has over and over again, stall and make deals that it immediately breaks in order to continue its nuclear weapons program. Every deal that is made provides the regime more time and money in order to maintain power. In order to solve the international crisis brewing Bolton urges us to use China's influence over North Korea and ultimately work towards regime change and reunification of the Korean peninsula. Listen to Bolton on North Korea here.

Iran: Bolton went on to discuss the second major threat to world peace as Iran. He reminded us that every pointless deal made with North Korea reminds the Mullahs in Tehran that the west can be bargained into inaction. He reminded us that there is no other way to interpret the nuclear program of the Iranians other than a program designed to create a nuclear weapon. This information is not only based on U.S. intelligence data, but public information available from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Further, Iran has been projecting power throughout the region and supporting international terrorism such as Hezbollah, and Hamas. Also, with the shenanigans involved with the kidnapping of the 15 British sailors Iran has tested the resolve of the west, the U.N., and the E.U. and found no real contest. Bolton urges the Iranians to follow the example of Muammar Qadhafi and Lybia who peacefully ended their nuclear program and in exchange dramatically increased the quality of life of the Lybian people. Lessening our dependence on oil and no longer allowing Iran to circumvent international law will be the first steps in reigning in this rogue nation. Listen to Bolton on Iran here.

The ambassador then opened the floor up for questions, and a few focused on Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and Democrat Speaker of the House Pelosi. Bolton referred to Chavez as a "fruit loop" and "Castro without brains." He explained Chavez's attempt to buy a spot on the U.N. security council and buy his way into popularity in South America. Many nations beyond the U.S. see what an imminent threat Chavez's dictatorship is, and the ambassador reminded us that Chavez is unpredictable and a threat to the western hemisphere. Listen to Bolton on Chavez here.

Next, a question came up about Speaker Pelosi, and her recent trip to Syria. Bolton made no qualms about Pelosi's trip by saying "at best it's counterproductive" and reminding us that Pelosi was indeed trying to illegally establish alternative channels of foreign policy. Based on wide universal criticism of her actions, Bolton stated "I'll be surprised if she does much more of that." Listen to Bolton on Pelosi here.

John Bolton was articulate, knowledgeable, and direct when speaking about these international threats to world security. I can see clearly from this one experience that he was an asset to the U.S. and our mission within the U.N. It's therefore still unclear why and also unfortunate that the Democrats would rather play politics and refuse to ratify him within the post in which he was so exceedingly successful. The U.N is surely worse off without him.

Because it's in the future...

I shamelessly stole this joke from this guy:

A new Iranian ambassador to the U.N. had just arrived in Now York. President Bush was also at the U.N. giving a speech. They met at a reception afterwards and, trying to be diplomatic, the ambassador introduced himself and began to talk about his impressions of America. "I really love your show Star Trek," he said. "It has a white man, an asian, and a black woman all working together to explore the universe. It's wonderful. But tell me Mr. President, why are there no Iranians on Star Trek?"

Mr. Bush looked the ambassador in the eye and said, "because it's in the future."

Obama's True Colors

Barak Obama has a few problems. First, he has no governance experience whatsoever, which makes him the most unqualified presidential candidate in history. Second, he is a typical leftist.

Obama has swooned America by, uh, his personality I suppose... However, the more I read and hear about him the more I realize that his personality is irrelevant where his politics are concerned.

This week he has made a number of foolish statements. When he was at Iowa State this week he claimed that soldiers who have died in Iraq "wasted" their lives. He also derided America's ally in the War on Terror Australia by claiming that it is "George W. Bush's" ally and then claimed that if Australia was so serious about the War on Terror they should send 20,000 troops to Iraq and not just 1,400. To be clear, Obama is calling the Prime Minister of Australia, our ally, a chickenhawk. Next, Obama's wife played the race card and claimed that her husband is different than the average American in that "as a black man, Barack can get shot going to the gas station."

Barak Obama needs to realize that America is listening, especially since anything he says is our only window into the inexperienced candidate's position on issues. From what I have heard so far I believe that Obama should be concerned, and we as Americans need not take him seriously.

Update: Out comes the non-apology:

“What I would say — and meant to say — is that their service hasn’t been honored,” Mr. Obama told reporters in Nashua, N.H., “because our civilian strategy has not honored their courage and bravery, and we have put them in a situation in which it is hard for them to succeed.”

The irony in all of these phony apologies is that by deriding the troops by claiming their lives have been wasted is precisely the lack of honoring their courage and bravery that politicians like Obama claim to hate. Why is it that he has to claim our troops are wasting their lives in order to bring criticism towards the war?

Because he truly does beleive that our soldiers are wasting their lives. And, like John Kerry, believes that there is no lower course of action in life than joining the U.S. military. He's apologizing for showing his true colors and getting caught.

UN = Corrupt Failure

It has been revealed today that the UN Development Program, the UN's $4 billion development agency, has funneled at least $28 million unchecked into the government of North Korea. The money was supposed to go to humanitarian and environmental programs, but the UNDP representatives were chosen by the North Koreans, they required the money come in cash (which is against UN policy) and they didn't allow the UNDP into the sites that were supposedly being improved by the UN funds.

The UN auditors found out about this in 1999, but successfully covered it up until now.

At the same time UN officials were chastising American diplomats for asking for more UN transparency, those same diplomats were allowing Iraq to buy them off, getting rich of Oil for Food money, and giving North Korea a blank check of mostly US contributed money.

The UN has to go - or at least America needs to stop funding it. What other rogue nations are getting our cash?

Paltry U.N. Salary Keeps Annan from Paying Full Rent in New York

Yet another reason why the United Nations is meaningless became apparent today: long-time Secretary General Kofi Annan and now his brother have occupied rent-subsidized housing in New York City for the last 30 years.

Yes, the man who routinely complains that the United States does not fulfill its obligations to the poor has stolen aid allotted to the needy.

The highest leader of what democrats portray as a legitimate super-Congress does not pay taxes in the United States. Still, he feels comfortable to have directly received hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent discounts paid by working families.

A man who urges others to adopt more open-government policies again refuses to disclose his own affairs dealing with abuse of power and public resources.

More of the same.

The story broke in the New York Sun today, and more details are bound to come out, but so far it appears that Mr. Annan moved into the ninth-floor apartment on Roosevelt Island in 1978. At today’s prices, the apartment, with a view of Manhattan and minutes from Midtown, would bring $4500 each month, while tenants pay about $2000. The rest of the rent is paid by New York taxpayers (which doesn’t include ambassadors such as Mr. Annan or his brother). When Mr. Annan became Secretary General in 1997, he moved into the official residence of the Secretary General and transferred the apartment to his brother, another ambassador with means far beyond the typical New York family. If we assume that for 30 years the market value to rent proportion has stayed the same, $300,000 would be a conservative inflation-adjusted estimate for the benefits these hypocrites received.

A post on the American Thinker proposed a great explanation on why liberals would tend to think this a minor deal. The fundamental agenda of leftists is to allocate resources based on political connections versus private means (related articles here).

I’d like to make broad parallels between this case and the United Nations, but I’ll first let more facts come in on the case…which brings us to perhaps the most interesting part of the story:

By all accounts this should be news. If Mark Foley’s sexually explicit emails to a Congressional page were fit to be aired for a month, no decent news source would keep this reporting off the front page. The story broke in the New York Sun today. Will other national publications carry it tomorrow? The NY Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, etc., have yet to publish any information online. Please comment below: if major newspapers don’t give prominent coverage to this scandal, how can it not be construed as media bias in favor of the U.N.?

Here is the web page for the housing complex on the address listed in the article.

Out with the good, in with the...?

While getting kicked out of his very successful position as ambassador to the UN by a bunch of whiny, mustache-frightened Democrats, John Bolton has a parting shot of his own. He wants Iranian homicidal holocaust-denying loony-bin Mahmoud Ahmadinejad charged by the U.N. International Court of Criminal Justice with inciting genocide.

You know, all that talk about the holocaust not really happening and that he wants to "wipe Israel off the map"?

On a related note, the incoming UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appears that he is much more well suited to the job than his idiotic corrupt failure of a predecessor. He has the guts to actually make a public statement that Iran and its loony front-man should be held accountable for their insane public statements.

Although the best thing to happen to the UN is heading out the door, Ban Ki-moon might hold some promise...

Resident Failure Leaves Worthless Organization

The most corrupt and useless Secretary General of the UN is saying his goodbyes, and all the while getting some gratuitous hits in on the Bush administration.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his farewell address, criticized the Bush administration, warning that America must not sacrifice its Democratic ideals while waging war against terrorism.

In remarks prepared for delivery Monday at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library, Annan also said the Security Council should be expanded.

"Human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity," Annan's text said. When the U.S. "appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused," he said.

Abandon its own ideals. You know, like the US citizen's right to life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Oh, and Democracy - we've given that up to wage war on murderous terrorists... I think only France is ever confused about the benefits of fighting wars for one's own survival...

Annan summed up five principles that he considers essential: collective responsibility, global solidarity, rule of law, mutual accountability and multilateralism.

Collective Responsibility: The US is responsible for aiding the victims of worldwide natural disasters, and not insane murderous dictators.

Global Solidarity: If the world doesn't want the US to do something it shouldn't - even if dictatorial terrorists despots are the ones objecting.

Rule of Law: Too easy to mock coming from a man who allowed the UN to be bought off.

Multilateralism: Only operate when the UN says it is ok to. Except the UN never says it's ok: see : "Darfur."

"As President Truman said, 'The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world,'" Annan said.

"He believed strongly that henceforth security must be collective and indivisible. That was why, for instance, that he insisted when faced with aggression by North Korea against the South in 1950, on bringing the issue to the United Nations," Annan said.

"Serve" the "peoples of the world." You mean like, keeping tyrannical dictators from murdering them? Oh, and when Truman brought the Korean conflict to the UN, the Security Council wasn't being paid off to not vote in support of war by the North Koreans - a bit of a difference there...

After a private dinner Tuesday night at the White House for Annan, Bolton joked that "nobody sang 'Kumbaya.'"

Told at the time of Bolton's comment, Annan laughed and asked: "But does he know how to sing it?"

What? I don't even know what this means! Maybe he meant to say, "Hell, yes!"

Kofi Annan: good riddance. No one will miss you - except the tyrannical dictators of the world.

Irony, Worthlessness, and the Corruption of the UN

Don't be surprised, but it seems that the United Nations is corrupt!

Fox News has done a bit of an investigation into the UN's Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), a part of the UN ironically devoted to transparency in government.

DPADM has been employing Catherine Gazzoli as a web designer and consultant for years. However, it seems that the director of DPADM avoided protocol by hiring Gazzoli for a project and by certifying her salary (which at times was greater that $118,000.) Further, many payments made to Gazzoli over the past 5 years have been sums of $29,999, obviously just under the limit of $30,000 that requires independent certification.

This may be nothing, but it is at least a symptom of the disease that has crippled the UN over the past number of years. Insolvency, lack of transparency, lack of responsibility, and overall corruption have turned the UN into an international joke to be used by international terrorists and dictators to block the legitimate necessary actions of countries like the US.

Once again, I think it's time to halt our financial contributions.

The First Casualty of the Democratic Congress

And it won't be the last:

John Bolton resigns when his recess appointment is up.

What's unfortunate is that John Bolton has done at the UN what all fail to do - something. John is resigning because the Democrats don't like him. Why, because he fights anti-semitism? He sticks up for the people of the US? He has a big mustache?

When the Republicans pulled the "Gang of 14" stunt in order to play nice with the Democrats they should have known they would never see the same courtesy from a Democratic congress. The Democrats are not interested in national security or playing nice - they are interested in power, and in being Democrats. John Bolton is the first casualty, as is our ability to stand up to the international toothless-watchdog bully that is the current UN.

UPDATE: CNN claims Bolton is "controversial." The only thing that should be controversial is the Senate's unwillingness to vote on Bolton. From the President:

[I am] deeply disappointed that a handful of United States senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate."

"They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time," Bush said. "This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country, and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation."

Indeed. [Idioit] Biden responds:

The incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, said he saw "no point in considering Mr. Bolton's nomination again."

This would be true, if Bolton had ever been considered to begin with. They must really be terrified of that mustache...

Resident Useless Leader of a Useless Organization Makes Foolish Rant

Kofi Annan, a man with the blood of at least two separate genocides on his hands, embroiled in controversy, and the recipient of the only "no-confidence" vote in UN history, made a ridiculously idiotic comment today claiming that the current state of Iraq is "worse" than a civil war. Worse? How can anything be "worse" than a civil war?

I suppose if there were genocidal gangs of government killers backed up by raping and murdering UN troops, that would be worse.

I suppose if there were a genocidal terrorist government murdering his own people on the European continent without the intervention of the UN that would be worse.

I suppose if it were found that a rouge nation developing weapons of mass destruction for decades while murdering its own people had indeed bribed key officials within the United Nations in order to protect themselves from military or foreign intervention, that would be worse.

However, it seems that our friend Kofi is more interested in whining about the non-civil war in Iraq. Oh, and Paris is still burning...

Why Bolton should stay

The UN passed a resolution the other day condemning Israel for the deaths of 19 Palestinian human shields last week. This was our ambassador's response:

"Many of the sponsors of that resolution are notorious abusers of human rights themselves, and were seeking to deflect criticism of their own policies," he said.

"This type of resolution serves only to exacerbate tensions by serving the interests of elements hostile to Israel's inalienable and recognized right to exist."

"This deepens suspicions about the United Nations that will lead many to conclude that the organization is incapable of playing a helpful role in the region," Bolton continued.

"In a larger sense, the United Nations must confront a more significant question, that of its relevance and utility in confronting the challenges of the 21st century. We believe that the United Nations is ill served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is a little more than a self-serving and a polemical attack against Israel or the United States," he said.

"The Human Rights Council has quickly fallen into the same trap and de-legitimized itself by focusing attention exclusively on Israel. Meanwhile, it has failed to address real human rights abuses in Burma, Darfur, the DPRK, and other countries," Bolton charged.

"The problem of anti-Israel bias is not unique to the Human Rights Council. It is endemic to the culture of the United Nations. It is a decades-old, systematic problem that transcends the whole panoply of the UN organizations and agencies," he continued.

Ka-bam!

Why am I not surprised?

Hugo Chavez is speaking at the UN today.

I'm watching it live, and the Venezuelan dictatorial holocaust-denying Iranian-terror-buddy lunatic began by holding up a book by Noam Chomsky, and encouraging everyone to read the book as a way to understand the danger of the "sword" of the "American Empire."

He then called George W. Bush "the devil" and crossed himself to the raucous laughter of the UN General Assembly. He also claimed that the UN Assembly hall still "smelled of sulfur" and that a psychologist should be brought in to analyze the President.

It's disgusting, what this work body has descended to. It's time to pull our support from the UN.

Update: Support John Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the UN. His response to Hugo's nutso rant? It's interesting that Chavez can say anything he wants, but the people of Venezuela have no such freedom of speech. Even the CNN anchors couldn't argue with that.

Jimmah!

Some friendly foreign policy advice from President Jimmy Carter via the Washington Post. While the Post claims he is the founder of the "Carter Center," I think Jimmah is most known for his stellar foreign policy performance during the 444-day Iranian hostage crisis. Jimmy believes that the key to peace in the middle east is unilateral Israeli withdrawals and surrenders (closely resembling Hezbollah's and Hamas' demands), throws in a bit of half-truths and lies, and finishes up with a jab at the Bush administration. Nice, huh?

Militant Palestinians and Lebanese know that a captured Israeli soldier or civilian is either a cause of conflict or a valuable bargaining chip for prisoner exchange.

The only thing that Jimmy says that's worth anything. It's marginally true that Israel's past dealings with terrorist prisoner exchanges have set up the terrorists' beliefs that such exchanges can happen again. However, since the terrorists want to destroy Israel and murder all the Jews, these prisoner exchanges have minimal impact on current terrorist dealings.

The resulting destruction [Israel's attack] brought reconciliation between warring Palestinian factions and support for them throughout the Arab world.

Why is it the Palestinians are always warring with someone? If it's not Israel then they're attacking themselves. Does Jimmy mean here that it's better for the Palestinians to be fighting each other than Israel? Isn't the obvious question "why are they always fighting?"

Hezbollah militants then killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others, and insisted on Israel's withdrawal from disputed territory and an exchange for some of the several thousand incarcerated Lebanese.

Simply bizarre. The Israelis occupy no Lebanese territory, and haven't since 2000. Let's be clear about this - Hezbollah has asked for nothing in exchange for the Israeli prisoners. Iran wanted a distraction from their nuclear program, so Hezbollah went to war.

It is inarguable that Israel has a right to defend itself against attacks on its citizens, but it is inhumane and counterproductive to punish civilian populations in the illogical hope that somehow they will blame Hamas and Hezbollah for provoking the devastating response.

Completely insane. Does Jimmy think that Israel is intentionally targeting Lebanese civilians in the hopes that they will blame terrorists for their misfortune? This is typical far-left propaganda speak. Reading this nonchalant phrase makes people think that this really is Israel's plan. Let's be clear again - Israel is trying to destroy terrorists - it is Hezbollah that is attacking civilians in the hopes that the world will act against Israel.

The result instead has been that broad Arab and worldwide support has been rallied for these groups, while condemnation of both Israel and the United States has intensified.

How can condemnation of Israel intensify? Arab countries want Israel obliterated and its people annihilated! Iran's insane dictator is on the news every week begging Arab nations and Muslims to wage war and destroy Israel - how can the world's most hated country receive intensified condemnation?

Israel belatedly announced, but did not carry out, a two-day cessation in bombing Lebanon, responding to the global condemnation of an air attack on the Lebanese village of Qana, where 57 civilians were killed this past weekend and where 106 died from the same cause 10 years ago.

Jimmy throws in the "10 year" reference for no reason. Maybe we should count how many Israelis Hezbollah terrorists have killed in the past 10 years? Oh, and by the way, it turns out that the Red Cross is reporting only 28 deaths associated with the building collapse (which occured 8 hours after the air strike).

Tragically, the current conflict is part of the inevitably repetitive cycle of violence that results from the absence of a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, exacerbated by the almost unprecedented six-year absence of any real effort to achieve such a goal.

Six year absence of effort? This number, of course, ascribes to President Bush's tenure in the White House. However, I would say Israel pulling completely out of Lebanon in 2000 is an "effort" to achieve peace. However, it's hard to achieve peace with someone that wants to kill you - no matter the cost.

Leaders on both sides ignore strong majorities that crave peace, allowing extremist-led violence to preempt all opportunities for building a political consensus.

Moral equivalence at its best. Hezbollah's leadership = Israel's leadership - they are both "extremists."

...Palestinians see their remnant territories reduced to little more than human dumping grounds surrounded by a provocative "security barrier" that embarrasses Israel's friends and that fails to bring safety or stability.

What two regions of the world are the only two with complete "security barriers" between them? Egypt and Gaza. Not too many people are embarrassed by Egypt's wall to keep out Palestinians...

The general parameters of a long-term, two-state agreement are well known. There will be no substantive and permanent peace for any peoples in this troubled region as long as Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions, official American policy and the international "road map" for peace by occupying Arab lands and oppressing the Palestinians. Except for mutually agreeable negotiated modifications, Israel's official pre-1967 borders must be honored. As were all previous administrations since the founding of Israel, U.S. government leaders must be in the forefront of achieving this long-delayed goal.

More complete Jimmah insanity. Was this man really President? Israel is only violating UN resolutions because more resolutions have been passed condemning Israel than all the other UN resolutions combined. How about Hezbollah and that little UN resolution they're ignoring - that one that says they have to disarm? Jimmah also wants Israel to withdrawal to pre-1967 borders (so does Hamas; oh, and Hamas wants all the Jews to die, too) but Jimmah just said at the beginning of the article that unilateral Israeli withdrawal from disputed territories doesn't work! Which is it, Jimmah?!

A major impediment to progress is Washington's strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and will be withheld from those who reject U.S. assertions. Direct engagement with the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Palestinian Authority and the government in Damascus will be necessary if secure negotiated settlements are to be achieved.

What about Hezbollah? Should we include terrorist organizations in a dialog? Aren't their demands that Israel be destroyed "subservient" demands on Israel's behavior?

Failure to address the issues and leaders involved risks the creation of an arc of even greater instability running from Jerusalem through Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran.

Why does the arc stretch from Jerusalem to Beirut, Damascus, and Tehran? I would rather say the arc of terror stretches from Tehran and Damascus to Beirut and Jerusalem. But that's just me.

Don't drink the Jimmah juice. Maybe he has some lasting problems being rational due to that rabbit attack...

The Useful UN

The UN's number two man, Mark Malloch Brown, said yesterday in an interview that it's not helpful to label Hezbollah as a "terrorist" group. After all, they... uh... I guess he never really backed up his statement.

Remember that this is the same Mark Brown, number two man at the UN, who insulted the people of the United States, claiming that media outlets had distorted the image of the UN to the US "heartland."

It seems a regular occurrence for the UN to show its uselessness: day after day we hear of the UN Committee on Human Rights having member nations like Cuba and China, and in turn condemning the US; the UN ignoring and unsuccessfully stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons by rogue states; and the UN criticizing the US and Israel for any number of foolish reasons.

The UN has completely failed in its mandate to secure world peace, and be a bastion of justice among the nations. Where is the UN's statement when Iranian Resident Psycho Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the solution to the middle aest crisis is to destroy Israel - a member state of the UN?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the UN is fast becoming comparable to the League of Nations in its ability to secure world peace.

Whose side are they on?

...and the strange double standard.

Kofi Annan wasted no time earlier this week in condemning the Israeli Defense Forces for their accidental strike on a UN base in Lebanon. Annan was "shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN Observer post in southern Lebanon."

Yet, in the past four days Hezbollah has intentionally attacked UN bases in Lebanon twice, and yet Kofi has made no disparaging remarks about them. In fact, in one of the attacks an IDF soldier removed a UN soldier and brought him to an Israeli hospital for treatment - and Kofi remained silent. He also remains silent about Hezbollah using UN bases in Lebanon as human shields - just like Lebanese civilians.

Why does Kofi Annan only accuse Israel of wrongdoing? Why does the Secretary General not condemn Hezbollah for it intentional strikes against the UN, instead of Israel's "apparently deliberate" mistake?

Straight Shooter

I thought Time Magazine told me the era of "Cowboy Diplomacy" was over? If that's true, why is Bush swearing at Syria and making fun of Kofi Annan?

This is exactly the reason why people like me like George W. Bush so much. In an era of political correctness and reserved speeches, we have a commander in chief who speaks his mind - even if he didn't expect anyone to hear him...

Bush: You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.

...

Bush: I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Bashad [Bashir Assad] and make something happen

Blair: Yeah

A President properly pointing the finger at a terrorist-sponsoring state? A President making the ridicilously valid point that the Secretary General of the UN should do something about the Middle East conflict? Unheard of - unless someone forgets to turn their microphone off.

The Worthless United Nations

United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown has taken a new step towards adding a desired amount of legitimacy to the UN. Instead of working to correct illegalities, corruption, and to repair the UN's failing credibility, he chose to attack the US for its supposed place in not supporting the UN.

He begins with a very strange comparison of the UN with the failings of the League of Nations. I'm not sure if anyone but me has ever made the comparison that the UN is just as worthless, and I find it very intriguing that this comparison is made (because it is becoming more and more obvious that they have startling similarities, a thought not missed by the Deputy Secretary-General).

He then goes on to simply mock the US.

... the world’s one super-Power -- arguably more super in 1946 than 2006...

...

But that is not well known or understood, in part because 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. That is what I mean by “stealth” diplomacy: 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.

The US is weaker now than in 1946; FoxNews has polluted the American psyche; middle America is a bunch of stupid simpletons. I get the idea, Mr. #2 at the UN.

Laughably, he goes on to comment on his boss:

Today, we are coming to the end of the 10-year term of arguably the UN’s best-ever Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.

Holy crap, I hope not. The man who received a "no confidence" vote from the general assembly? Who allowed members of the security council to be bought off by Iraq in order to save itself from international action? The man who let his own son circumvent the will of the world to make money off of Iraq's sanctions? If this man is the best we can do then I say lets pull out of the UN - today.

My favorite Ambassador, John Bolton, had a few things to say - if you can believe it:

Well, on that speech, this is a very, very grave mistake by the Deputy Secretary General. We are in the process of an enormous effort to achieve substantial reform at the United Nations. And it's a difficult effort, but it's an effort that we feel very strongly about. And to have the Deputy Secretary General criticize the United States in such a manner, can only do grave harm to the United Nations. Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations. And even worse was the condescending and patronizing tone about the American people. That fundamentally and very sadly, this was a criticism of the American people, not the American government, by an international civil servant, it's just illegitimate.

...

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. That's why the only hope I think is that the Secretary General comes to the rescue of the organization and repudiates the speech.

I agree. But Bolton wasn't done. In London now he went on to say:

"Mark Malloch Brown has a sentence in his speech where he says the role of the UN is a mystery in Middle America,” he said. “Maybe it is fashionable in some circles to look down on Middle America, to say they don’t get the complexities of the world and they don’t have the benefit of continental education and they are deficient in so many ways,” Mr Bolton added. “It is illegitimate for an international civil servant to criticise what he thinks are the inadequacies of citizens of a member government.”

“Congress has the power of the purse and they feel quite strongly on a bipartisan basis that America has a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent, even people from Middle America,” he said, with a note of sarcasm. “I don’t think we have seen the end of it.”

I like the sound of that. I think it is nearing time to realize a bad investment, and cut our losses.

Israel, why won't you just shut up and die?

In an amazing piece of journalism by Reuters the absurdity of the UN, the weakness of the security council, and the importance of a guy named John Bolton are all evident:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday blocked a U.N. Security Council statement drafted by Arab nations and aimed at putting pressure on Israel to stop military strikes on Palestinian targets.
-
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the draft, even after three days of intense negotiations, "was disproportionately critical of Israel, and unfairly so, and needlessly so."

...

Asked by reporters to confirm that Washington alone had opposed issuing the statement, Bolton responded, "If I were the only holdout, I'd be proud of that fact."

Palestinians fire rockets into Israel and kill civilians, and Israel retaliates by blowing up a car full of terrorists. The UN responds by trying to rebuke Israel for self-defense, and Bolton is the only one who cares to stop it. I wish that the Arab league and the UN would just say what they mean...

Yes, they want to make a bomb

The homicidal tyrannical dictator of Iran should leave no doubt that he wants to make a nuclear bomb, and that the UN is powerless to stop it.

Speaking after talks with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani brushed off the UN Security Council's demand for a halt in uranium enrichment by the end of the month as "not very important".

Yes, that's right. Thanks for stopping by, but no...

And some on the left think this - it's crazy!