Wednesday, March 9, 2005
Davids Medienkritik has some of the reaction of the German press as well as a few choice Bolton quotes. Good stuff.
Wonderful nomination. No appeasement for tyrants and no appeasement for the UN. Bolton will work with the UN because he has to, he'll be part of the system, but he'll do so while vigorously representing American interests, not going along to get along. If you're going to hire a lawyer to represent you, who do you hire? Some namby-pamby guy who doesn't want to offend the opposition and argues "sort of," but not tooo strongly on your behalf, or someone who's just a little bit cynical about the whole process, who takes nothing for granted, who's ready to kick ass in your name and make sure that everyone understands that you and your interests are numero uno and doesn't let anyone forget it? I'll take the latter.
Interesting albeit predictable reactions from Diploworld on this nomination. It seems to me that was has many people upset about this is that Bolton is going to be the US ambassador to the UN, *not* the UN's ambassador to the US. I think it is a telling tale of the main difference between (generalization alert here) the US view and the european view on the UN. The US sees the UN as a forum, a place to met, greet and come up with agreements. Whereas the europeans (and to be fair leftists of any country) tend to see the UN as a governing body. The UN was never built as a governing body and is too full of ulterior motives because of its structure to ever be one effectively. There are many things that the UN *could* do but doesn't because it has become a social club. Nobody wants to rock the boat, nobody wants to make the hard decisions or pay the price. Leave it to the US, they will take care of it and then the UN can all run about beating their collective breast in human anguish and righteous anger about it. Perhaps a spinal graft can take some hold this time. Hopefully, the UN will learn that it has to step up to the unpleasnatries inherent in international relations if it wants to reap the benefits from them. Maybe this time it will be different and we can stop being the worlds public whipping boy and private wet dream...
Or not.
"It seems to me that was has many people upset about this is that Bolton is going to be the US ambassador to the UN, *not* the UN's ambassador to the US."
I like that.
I may have already posted this link at this site, but it's been a few months if I did. This Risk of Freedom (edited by Roger Scruton) edition, entitled Transnational Governance (small pdf), has a succinctly telling article by Bolton on the fourth and final page.