Getting tough with the wrong guy
By Jonathan Tobin
"Senators should focus on the crimes of Kofi Annan and the United Nations, not John Bolton..."John Bolton equals Iran/Contra.
..."Annan still gets the celebrity Nobel Peace Prize-winner treatment virtually everywhere he goes."
Celebrity? Nobel people win Nobel Peace Prizes and the list is very long and honorable.
"...at the United Nations. Anti-Semitism thrives..."
Arabs are Semites too.
"...John Bolton has been getting Bork-ed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."
In the Reagan Era, liberals saw the Court as a last bastion for the defense of hard-won civil rights and social justice. For this reason they went to extraordinary lengths to defeat Bork.
Bolton Bork want(ed) a dead constitution carved in stone. Liberals want to preserve it's intent to be a living document that could add, by amendment, civil liberties like women's right to vote and civil rights.
"...Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control..."
Secret arms control...and secret illegal deals (of course along with Ollie North - the now star on Fox News duh).
"...the worst you can say about him is that Bolton is not the cuddliest bear in the zoo..."
And zoo it is! The worst that can be said about Bolton would be said by the survivors of all of the disappeared, tortured (including Catholic missionaries) in Nicaragua.
"INSULTING THE LUNATICS...that glass-encased nuthouse perched on Manhattan's Turtle Bay."
And was it not that same glass-encased nuthouse that right wing radical nuts embraced when they used UN sanctions violations to go to war in Iraq?
"...the non endorsement of Bolton by the Foreign Relations Committee and the gauntlet of abuse he has been forced to run will certainly hurt his ability to do the job."
That sentence is backwards. Bolton's gauntlet of abuse hurts his ability to enhance the UN's ability to broker peace between nations - a need that has been recognized after the first use of the atomic bomb.
"How is it that a man who presided over one of the greatest thefts in history, as Kofi Annan did with the U.N.'s oil-for-food program in Iraq..."
The greatest thefts in history is the theft of natural resources from third world countries.
The degree of culpability of Kofi Annan is still to be determined. Go back and listen to Galloway of England's recent testimony in the investigation and hear some hard truths about American foreign policy.
"Everyone, even Kofi Annan, knows that the United Nations must be reformed."
And any honest reformer will tell you, whether it be a father beating his child or one nation thinking they can shock and awe, with great military might, another country into submission followed by occupation, what you get is anger...hatred.
"Since Bush wants Bolton, those who oppose Bush oppose his man..."
Since Bush wants Bolton, those who lockstep with Bush support Bolton.
"First, by painting Bolton as the devil incarnate for his tough-guy style, they are sending a message to the international community that Americans are not united behind the cause of a complete housecleaning at the United Nations."
Most Americans want complete exposure of all the participants in the oil for food program, including American companies.
"A short list of its faults would be too long for this space, but let it suffice to say that under Annan's genial leadership, an already rotten institution got even worse."
The US of A has full veto power in the UN and is as guilty for any wrong doings as any other member.
"On top of its lack of accountability for the billions stolen and siphoned to Saddam Hussein..."
On top of US's lack of accountability for the billions in cash missing from Iraq immediately after the invasion.
"Israel is the only nation whose actions are worthy of censure...."
Iraq was not censured? Sudan? (just from the top of my head this moment)
"...Biden and the Democratic leaders...target Bolton...think they can advance the interests of their party in red states...solidify their hold on the Jewish vote on the basis of their unwillingness to countenance rudeness to Kofi Annan?"
Every thing in politics is not about advancing the interests of party. A diplomat by definition needs diplomacy.
"Are they nuts? This is exactly the sort of foolishness that has lost the Democrats the support of enough centrists to put the GOP in control of the White House and both houses of Congress."Are you nuts? The GOP lost control thru newspeak - e.g. 'If they don't want peace, kill them all'. p.s. The angry Swift Boat Vets against Kerry were seeking revenge for having been outed. 9/11 became a fear factor measured in with 'values' of abortion and gay rights.
"If the Democrats are tailoring their foreign policy stands to please extremists like George Soros and the rest of the MoveOn. org crowd, they are shooting themselves in the foot."
The Democrat foreign policy has been nearly the same as the Republican foreign policy for too long. George Soros, MoveOn.org and a myriad of other crowds want to change the US foreign policy that has been so destructive to third world countries. It is about winning, but it is also about making a stand against oppression of others. Old liberals know well the mounds of work and passing of years before change occurs - legally and culturally.
"...the model for Bolton's brand of blunt but effective diplomacy was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose memorable tenure as U.S. representative to the United Nations earned him many of the same criticisms as those directed at Bolton."
"...the massacres of East Timorese by pro-Indonesian militias. Daniel Patrick Moynihan had a hand in that disaster...as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, he helped snuff out any opposition to Indonesia's invasion in 1975 of what had been a Portuguese colony seeking independence. In his U.N. memoir, A Dangerous Place, Moynihan boasts "the United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."
Alas and alack - Jonathan Tobin still has no olive branch to offer.
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