First Rummy, now UN ambassador John Bolton. I see the gloating from UN officials has already begun…
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First Rummy, now UN ambassador John Bolton. I see the gloating from UN officials has already begun…
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21 Comments
This is a disturbing development. The UN is a failure on so many levels (i.e. - Iraq’s Oil-for Food program, genocide in the Sudan, nuclear proliferation, failure to probe the assassinations in Syria, etc.).
John Bolton was a straight talker not dazzled by the bright lights of international politics. He had the courage to say things that needed to be said in the midst of systemic corruption.
Republican or Democrat, the failure to secure him as UN Ambassador is a loss for all Americans.
Wouldn’t it be cool if they just shuffled positions like in Korea?
Rummy could go to the UN, John Bolton could become Secretary of State, Condi could become Director of the CIA, and so on and so forth….
We have something quite similar, when you consider the fact that both Rummy and Condaweezie were recycled from other positions, even other administrations.
And a win for the rest of the world. If you think, like alot of republican neo-cons that the UN is useless because it doesn’t always act in the interests of the US then you’ll regret his departure. Bolton was openly contemptuous of anything passed by the UN which did not serve Uncle Sam to the fullest.
Good riddance. The guy was an elephant in a porcelin shop and had absolutely no diplomatic skills whatsoever. He was abrasive, self-centred, and didn’t give a shit about anyone who wasn’t a yank. I remember seeing him on TV after the NK nuke and the anouncement of sanctions - he said, with a smirk, something about North Koreans being a little “hungry” right now, and that they’d be getting even hungrier in the forseeable future. A sad indictment that he can’t even see the difference between the NK regime and the people starving underneath them - and that he’d gloat over them starving. Lovely man, such a tragedy he’s gone.
BTW Are you really surprised that there is not “gloating” at the UN over his demise, marmot? He once famously said that there was “no such thing” as the UN, and that if the Un building lost 10 stories it wouldn’t matter. Should the UN be saddened by the demise of this moustached baffoon?
The sinecured masses with free parking can now breathe a sigh of relief. Of course they’re happy to see him go: corruption as usual can continue. The Blue Helmets can continue to run child prostitution rings. Speaking of “good riddance”: Time to boot the UN to another country.
This Canadian, at least, despises the UN and supported Bolton’s very important work. I’m sorry to see him go.
hoju_saram, is it possible that Bolton was “openly contemptuous of anything passed by the UN which did not serve Uncle Sam” because he was being paid by said Uncle Sam to represent its interests at the UN? In other words, that he was doing his job?
Exactly. You don’t hear the citizens of China protest when their UN ambassador votes against raising China’s portion of the UN budget now do you.
fred and darin, there’s a big difference between disagreeing with the UN or particular resolutions and being openly contemptuous of the whole institution to which you are assigned as envoy.
Bolton treated the UN like his personal plaything: he complained that it was weak and at the same time actively weakened it by refusing to bide by its rules.
And there’s also a deeper moral context to the point you make.
OK, Bolton was paid by americans to serve american interests at the UN, but is it ok to go there and immediately red flag issues of US national interest and at the same time ignore very important global issues such as the millenium development goals, which were aimed at cutting extreme poverty in half and ensuring universal primary education by 2015? Because thats exactly what he did. I suspect many republicans out there might find that hard to fault, considering “poverty” and “international” don’t really hold much weight in far-right circles. Luckily there are many people who deem both those words important and gave him the boot. Like I said, good riddance.
That’s a well-written screed hoju. May I ask, what is your own citizenship? Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to “tell me off” for my question; perhaps you prefer to be considered only a “citizen of the world”.
I enjoyed your clear implication that anything that the US sees as in its interest is automatically antithetical to the interests of “the rest of the world”. Maybe we should just turn the direction of our foreign policy over to whatever the current majority vote is on any issue up for consideration by the collection of autocracies known as the General Assembly.
Anyone who thinks the UN is concerned about poverty and universal education while it was enabling Hussein to enrich himself at the expense of his people and while it was overseeing the deterioration of human rights by ensuring that the worst violators man the committees, is an idiot. Heaven forbid that someone come in and demand that things need to change for the institution to have any potency whatsoever. The only thing Bolton tried to do was prevent the UN from being a joke any longer, and that is exactly what it will remain without people like him with the balls enough, and discipline enough, to reform the depraved body that it has become. Bolton had an awful lot more optimism for that useless husk of humanity than I do.
Here’s an expressionof regret over his departure from that collection of republican neocons known as the Chicago Triburne editorital board.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....pinion-hed
Bolton is a true shithead, in the best shithead tradition of the Bush White House.
Hallelujah.
You need to get your flags straightned out, Koehler. I’m in the Republic of Korea.
Re: Comment 13
Glad to read your continuing upbeat comments regarding your fellow Americans.
Re: Comment 14
Good … stay in Korea … your country needs you to stay there.
yank abroad is a dip shit who used to have his own leftist blog
yeah it crapped out…no one read it
Re: Comment 15. A lot of people didn’t have a problem with continuing upbeat comments regarding fellow Americans when the fellow American in question was Cindy Sheehan. Not to say that yankabroad fits the description, but I’d rather see wackier leftist characters living in relative obscurity back in the States than them hanging out with the usual gang of crazies and haters outside the US Embassy in Seoul or the base in Pyeongtaek.
Re: John Bolton. America is a great country, but John Bolton achieved little other than contribute to the worsening of the country’s international image. Sure, the UN needs reform, but I’m not convinced that alienating the rest of the world - allies included - is the right way to do it, especially considering the interesting times we’re living in.
I think the pissing away of a great degree of good will and sympathy that was shown for America after September 11 is nothing short of a tragedy in itself. Bolton played his part.
Bolton may have had laudable goals regarding reforming the UN, but the bottom line is that he was a singularly poor choice to accomplish them, which is in large part while he failed in this task.
He came to the job with too much baggage - and not merely some soundbites about lopping off 10 floors of the UN. He’s got a pattern of obstinate, vindictively self-righteous behavior, among other things, that alienated even Republicans like Lincoln Chafee.
The US needs, indeed the UN needs, a straight-talking US ambassador to the UN who isn’t afraid to shake things up. But there are others more capable of doing the job more successfully than Bolton.
From the get go, his appointment, much like his personality itself, reaked of belligerance.
A bit like appointing Mel Gibson as ambassador to Israel, because, well, I’m the president, I can, and fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.
If this is the cost of doing what’s necessary to protect your country from outside threats, or trying to reform a bloated, ineffective and corrupt world body, then it’s a cost worth bearing.
One example of the UN’s hypocrisy:
I was just reading in the AWSJ today that our buds at the UN are now saying that only older, less-effective types of genetically modified crops get the UN seal of approval (some collection of windbags called “Codex” came up with this crap), but that new types that actually might make a dent in world hunger or otherwise lift the world’s poor farmers out of the doldrums are not kosher.
I guess the only UN-approved way to “end world poverty” is by taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries.
Protecting one’s country, fighting corruption, and reforming imperfect institutions - international or domestic - are perfectly good objectives. However, can anybody tell me how these objectives were being accomplished, or would have continued being accomplished, by John Bolton’s remarkable talent for consistently alienating friends and foes alike?
I’m not thrilled with UN world poverty initiatives either and they obviously aren’t working too well in a lot of Africa, but did John Bolton really demonstrate the diplomatic/personality skills to constructively address those kinds of problems? Is America safer as a result of Bolton contributing to the erosion of America’s reputation internationally? I think not.