You’ve got to hand it to Bush, he continues to surprise everyone. He goes to Europe, does more or less what had to be done and then lined up everyone on Lebanon. He surprised. Now he proposes that John Bolton, a stand up sort of character who has always been very hard on the UN, as our ambassador to the UN. This will give the Dems an opportunity to obstruct and to clarify their lack of thought on foreign policy issues. Foreigners are also, somewhat diplomatically, being critical. Perhaps this guy from Syria, identified as a political analyst in Damascus, is a bit less diplomatic: "This is an extremely bad message that Bush has submitted to the neo-conservatives. They should have a more moderate figure representing them at the United Nations, but instead they have one of the most radical."
Jean-Francois Kerry and Harry Reid have already come out sniping at Bolton’s appointment. The Senate Dems appear to be lookin for a fight. This is almost too easy. Once again (as with Kerry’s inane "global test" remark last year) the Dems are eagerly jumping into a big blender labeled "national security," pulling the lid on after themselves, and begging W to hit the "frappee on grounds of unseriousness" button. Fish in a barrel; the ocean from a boat--could there be an easier-to-hit target than the Democratic Party of Dr. HoHo, "Nervous Nancy" Pelosi, and the AquaMan of Chappaquiddick? Is Reid’s campaign motto "40 Democratic Senators in ’06 or Bust"?
Don’t forget President Bush’s appointment this past Friday of my friend former Senator Rudy Boschwitz, a profoundly knowledgeable supporter of Israel, to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The president sent an admirably dissenting message to one of the world’s most disgusting venues for the promulgation of anti-Semitism with that one.
That’s a good point, Scott. Boschwitz is a solid guy, and can shine light not only on the situation you mention but also on two others:
1) The UN treatment of the Palestinians. They’ve had their own UN agency for decades now (it’s called something like the UN Relief Works Office and is supposed to be in charge of helping the "displaced" Palestinians w/ their living circumstances) yet they still live in squalor in nasty refugee "camps" (really slums, bidonvilles, or favelas) that provide redoubts for terrorists. Could it be that UN officials were as complicit or delinquent regarding corruption in Arafat’s West Bank, Gaza, and South Lebanon as they were regarding cheating in Saddam’s Iraq?
The UN refugee agency’s disgraceful failure to do or say anything on behalf of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans who have fled to China to escape severe political repression at home (and you know NoKo has to be pretty bad if so many of its people regard Red China as a haven of freedom). The office of this UN agency in Beijing in fact parrots the Kim Jong-il line that these people yearning to breathe free of tortune, imprisonment, and oppression are purely "economic" refugees and hence can’t possibly deserve any form of political asylum. As I said, it’s a disgrace the way the UN has made itself complicit in this particular totalitarian lie.
Here’s hoping Sen. Boschwitz can help shine the light of truth and accountability on both these and other UN derelictions--the UN simply must reform or be done away with in favor of more honest and effective multilateral/international institutions (a "concert of democracies," perhaps). This is the choice that the UN and those who cynically draw advantage from it (like so many dictators) or naively worship it (like so many Western elite liberals) would prefer to deny and must be made to face: reform or die.