My run-in with Bolton

by Joe Hoeffel, Tue Mar 22, 2005 at 02:32:55 PM EST

Stop Bolton! More on this coming soon--Chris

George Bush just does not seem to get it. Just when he makes some progress convincing some Americans and some Europeans that he understands the principles of multilateralism and the benefits of working with, not against, our traditional friends, he goes and appoints John Bolton to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

This is a truly terrible appointment.

Terrible not because Bolton is a conservative, although he is. Terrible not because Bolton is a critic of the UN, although he is.

Conservatives and UN critics are still capable of honorable and effective service in key foreign policy positions like UN Ambassador.

No, Bolton is a terrible appointment, and the President should know better, because Bolton is an ideologue with a closed mind and a blind opposition to international law and international institutions. He distains the UN and its work and all that it stands for, always has, always will, and is damn proud of his head-in-the-sand position.

I had a memorable run-in (at least for me) with Bolton in late spring 2003 during a public hearing of the House International Relations Committee on which I then served. We were taking testimony from administration spokespeople about the status of the war in Iraq, and this was several weeks after our invasion. I was pushing the witnesses about the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction, and Bolton was citing the discovery of two "mobile chemical labs" as proof positive of Hussein's active WMD program. I reminded Bolton that the CIA had just admitted that those two trucks that were suspected mobile labs had turned out to be support vehicles for weather balloons and very harmless. Bolton started shouting at me,"They scrubbed them clean! They scrubbed them clean!" I tried to follow up and get Bolton to identify who "they" were, and just how they did their "scrubbing", but Chairman Hyde ruled my time was up.

Now we have this same Bolton representing us at the UN -- the one institution in the world that offers the best hope of performing the peacekeeping, the reconstruction, the election staging, the nation building and the democracy spreading so needed in Iraq and around the world -- and this man has spent his public career scorning the United Nations and the important work it tries with mixed success to achieve.

How in the world does the appointment of this right wing, true believing ideologue help us in the world?

Tags: (all tags)

Comments

8 Comments

Sort by

permalink

Thanks for keeping the pressure up on this

With all the chaos and distractions right now, we do not want this nomination to go through unchallenged because attention is currently being focused on a lot of other matters.

Thanks for pointing out we need to keep focused on this terrible appointment. Having a full plate is no excuse. We just need to dig a little deeper.

by afs 2005-03-22 12:36PM | 0 recs

permalink

We need newer, much more flexible thinkers

on security issues. The point I am trying to make is that ultimately, we have limited resources and we have to put them where they will do the most good for our security, not where US military contractors will make the most money.

We also need to acknowledge the need for respected international institutions, although the UN is currently failing in a lot of areas. Its not just the UNs fault, if we were more involved in the process, if we were really 'engaged' instead of trying to destroy the UN, things would go more smoothly for everyone involved and we would get much more done.

These guys are cowboys and they do not see that they have anyone to learn from others.. its like they think the whole world revolves around them.. It doesn't.

OTOH, I do agree with Bolton on a few, very specific things, and I think that in those, fairly important areas, we could easily have made worse choices.

But that doesn't change my opinion much, largely I agree with the previous posters.. this is not a person who will bring us good, as we need there.. We need a diplomat of consummate skill who represents all of us, not just the extreme right..

What is happening to this country?

by ultraworld 2005-03-22 01:24PM | 0 recs

permalink

this is just scary

Watch this video-it's chiling: Stop Bolton! You can also write a letter to the committee who could block his nomination.

by Levana 2005-03-22 01:35PM | 0 recs

permalink

NeoCon answer

The NeoCon answer to your question would probably be it helps us because it puts the evil UN on notice that we don't respect it and that it had better start doing our bidding if it wants our continued support.

What that says to the rest of the world has probably not received the level of thought and analysis that it deserves.

by Curt Matlock 2005-03-22 01:52PM | 0 recs

permalink

This is another media problem as well

If the RWCM provided any reasonable facsimile of factual coverage of international affairs, Bush and the neo-cons would never have gotten away with their speil. Of course, Bush never would have been able to steal his second election either.

Corporate media is responsible in so many ways for the mis-perceptions that Americans have about the world. There's the old joke that "war is the way America teaches it's citizens geography."

Unfortunately, it is a very sad joke with terrible consequences for the rest of the world.

by Gary Boatwright 2005-03-22 02:23PM | 0 recs

permalink

He'll Move Up The Start-Time on Armageddon

Which is just what they want.

So... you want to keep God waiting, eh?

by Paul Rosenberg 2005-03-22 04:47PM | 0 recs

permalink

Making Reality

I think this is just another example of the Neo-con opinion that since they are in charge here in the US (and thus, in their mind, the world), that they get to dictate what reality is. If they say those trucks were mobile weapons labs, then they were, despite all evidence to the contrary.

We definitely are not well represented at the UN by these folks.

by Matusleo 2005-03-23 12:39AM | 0 recs

permalink

A Bolton appointment

will fix in place the decline in standing of the US on the international stage. The Bushies have sent our country into a downward spiral that, I fear, even the best possible result in 2008 cannot fully reverse. Europeans in particular have almost no reason to depend upon the US, much less to trust in our diplomatic pronouncements, and the EU is in a position now to go its own way. Also, their economy may well leave the US in the dust, especially if the dollar collapses because of Republican fiscal idiocy. I'm afraid that we're watching the beginning of a long-term decline in American prestige, power, and influence. I've often wondered whether and to what degree informed Romans, for example, understood that their power and their very way of life was crumbling under them--I mean in quite the way modern historians reconstruct the collapse. Every day I'm more confident that many of them must have seen it all clearly.

by smintheus 2005-03-24 04:05PM | 0 recs