I'm listening this Memorial Day to Fox News as they get maudlin over the deaths they created in their war in Iraq. What an irony! They weep crocodile tears for the "heroes", men and women who didn't really want to be there, and who once again - as in Vietnam are dying for something meaningless. And I want to know, will this war, like the one in Vietnam, spread further in the Middle East as the administration covetuously eyes the oilfields of Iran? We sent our troops into Iraq, claiming that we are there to "liberate" them, and make their lives better. Well that's the excuse Bush has switched to, now that the WMD hoax was discovered. Have we "accomplished" that "mission"? Not according to anyone outside of the government who has been there.
After two years of occupation just the electricity alone has not been restored. Water? the only liquid you can readily get is what's in the freely flowing sewage. Clean water? That's a more difficult problem! No Iraqi business homegrown or introduced has been allowed to start up again, or flourish. Only foreign businesses are allowed to operate Not one Iraqi is working, and everyone is poor, disease is rampant, as well as hunger, but no NGO's feel safe enough to come back during this 4th of "Major Military Actions", which were supposed to be over after Bush stood under the "Mission Accomplished" banner. As for justice? We have replaced the "justice" of Saddam, with the "justice" of the GITMO GULAG! Insurgents continue to be well armed well supplied and well lead. And every day someone dies, not counting the soldiers! Our allies are dwindling away every month. the world has called us "murderers, butchers", and worse yet, "torturers"! And yet Bush does not listen to wiser heads and continues to plow ever more deaply into the mire. There can be only one reason. He wants American economic hegemony over the Middle East. Men have died for George W. Bush's arrogance.
And how does this tie in John Bolton? Bolton's appointment as Ambassador to the U.N. is symbolic of the projection this policy towards the rest of the world. How can one be welcomed to that body after insulting it at every oppportunity? Bolton is a man who can't even show proper respect and sensitivity to his own (former) wife, let alone to countries overseas. A few
"There's no such thing as the United Nations. If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
"Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests."
"Many Republicans in Congress - and perhaps a majority - not only do not care about losing the General Assembly vote but actually see it as a "make my day" outcome. Indeed, once the vote is lost, and the adverse consequences predicted by the U.N.'s supporters begin to occur, this will simply provide further evidence to many why nothing more should be paid to the U.N. system. "
"As you know, I have over the years written critically about the U.N. I have consistently stressed in my writings that American leadership is critical to the success of the U.N., an effective U.N., one that is true to the original intent of its charter's framers."
"In an interview in 2000 on National Public Radio, Mr. Bolton told Juan Williams, "If I were redoing the Security Council today, I'd have one permanent member because that's the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world." ... "And that one member would be, John Bolton?" Mr. Williams queried. "The United States," Mr. Bolton replied. (New York Times, March 9, 2005)"
From these quotes it can be seen that this is not a man who wants to know or care what other nations think of the boneheadedly rude politics of the Bush administration. Clearly Bolton is intemperate, illogical and chauvinistically so. The only thing that Bolton can do in the UN is make enemies for us. Then Dubya will say, "See, they are all against us, those lily-livered-tea-drinking-pinky-up europeans!" This should suit China fine of course since we are already moving ever so swiftly off the stage as the economic giant of the world. There is a most frightening thought! The next superpower of the world will be - totalitarian China!
See, what Bolton doesn't seem to understand is that we are not the supreme power on the planet anymore. We are in a deficit. Our industry is dwindling and the corporations do not see fit to build it up. NAFTA and soon CAFTA allow them the luxury of looking to their own interests! But this is only an illusory imperialism. Globalism can only go so far. If you don't have a firm national base to stand on, how can you compete against the world.
Yet what an irony this creates! And so Bolton is hoist on the petard of corporate globalism! NAFTA has made us all the more dependent on the good graces of the world! Bolton is arrogantly blind about the our loss of greatness, like some pathetic old Victorian, fighting desperately the loss of Kenya.
"Bolton's extremism does not stop at the UN's front door. A year and a half ago, I described Bolton, who's widely considered the leading hard-ass of the neocon clan, this way:
Bolton is a hawk's hawk in the Bush administration. He is the agent conservateurin Colin Powell's State Department. He has led the administration's effort against the International Criminal Court. Last year, he single-handedly tried to revise U.S. nuclear policy by asserting that Washington no longer felt bound to state that it would not use nuclear weapons against nations that do not possess nuclear weapons. (A State Department spokesman quickly claimed that Bolton had not said what he had indeed said.) Bolton also claimed that Cuba was developing biological weapons--a charge that was not substantiated by any evidence and that was challenged by experts. In July, he was about to allege in congressional testimony that Syria posed a weapons-of-mass-destruction threat before the CIA and other agencies, which considered his threat assessment to be exaggerated, objected to his statement. When England, France and Germany recently tried to develop a carrot-and-stick approach in negotiating an end to Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, Bolton huffed, 'I don't do carrots.'"
And the only reason that people like
"Despite Soros's millions and the Times's resources, the assault on Bolton has been pathetic. What does it amount to? He's a longtime U.N. skeptic--appropriate, one would think, given the U.N.'s "Zionism is Racism" history during the Cold War, and its ineffectiveness (to be kind) in Rwanda in the '90s and in Sudan in this decade. But he's worse than a skeptic, the critics say: He has been disrespectful of the august body in which he will represent us. Why, he once joked, "The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." Well, truer words were never spoken."
And truer colors have never been revealed.
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