Daniel Patrick Moinahan, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, And Now John Bolton

When I heard the news that President Bush had nominated John Bolton to be the new Ambassador to the United Nations, my first thought was "Good, time to take names and kick ass in the tradition of Moinahan and Kirkpatrick." My second thought was "The Dems are going to go nuts on this." I was right on both counts.

James Taranto in the "Best of the Web Today" in yesterday's column noted "...it will be interesting to see how many democrats take the side of the U.N. and complain about "harsh criticism" from Bolton to the U.N. in the past.

Indeed, the Dems voted against Bolton in 2001 when he was up for confirmation as Undersecretary of State in early 2001. The vote then was 57-43 in favor with all but 7 Democrats voting no. (You didn't hear Democrat complaints then about a lack of bipartisanship did you?) Bolton has been harsh, but also accurate in his assessment of some U.N. activities, responsibility as a world body and some treaties.

Each time, however in my opinion he has been right, spending good "time on target" as the Artillery folk might say. But being right goes against the grain of many so called diplomats. Those diplomats want to "talk" without taking any action, they want dialogue, they want to make nice and kissy face, while some of the major despots in the world such as Korea and Iran and China prepare for war and/or repress their own citizens in ways most Americans cannot even come close to imagining.

The Wall Street Journal in today's Opinion Journal notes:

"Right now, the U.N. is beset by two great crises. The first is of efficacy. Over the past few years, the world has seen a depressing series of demonstrations of everything the U.N. can't do. It cannot prevent mass killing in Rwanda, Bosnia and now Darfur. It cannot competently (never mind ethically) administer an Oil for Food program. It cannot speedily deliver assistance to the victims of natural catastrophes. It cannot enforce its own Security Council resolutions. It cannot stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It cannot even define terrorism.

Up to a point, these failures can be blamed on inadequate resources--although so far that hasn't prevented the U.N. from spending more lavishly on its staff than the average American corporation. Up to a point, too, the failures are the fault of U.N. member states and not the organization itself."

No self respecting observer however can honestly say that the inefficient and corrupt practices of the U.N. haven't been aired. They have, usually by conservatives, both Republican and Democrat alike. Wilson's dream of the League of Nations died when the US saw that it was likely to be a boondoggle (and the isolationism we moved toward following WWI) and refused to ratify the treaty. The U.N. was formed following WWII as an attempt to lend strength to the idea that nations, united in common cause, could monitor other nations to prevent an outbreak of another major catastrophic war.

To some extent it has, but at the cost of increasing corruption, scandal, and moving from true statesmen such as Dag Hammarskjôld or even (to many) U Thant to such obviously incompetent and perhaps thoroughly corrupt Secretary’s General such as Kofi Atta Annan. Indeed, Annan has a history of incompetence that goes back at least to 1994 when in charge of U.N. operations in Rwanda.

According to Wikipedia

"In his book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, ex-General Roméo Dallaire claims that Annan was overly passive in his response to the 1994 in the Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda. Dallaire claims that Annan, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations at that time, held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict and from providing more logistic and material support."

"The UN Security Council refused, several journalists laying blame on a gun-shy Clinton administration which refused to provide requested material aid after the failed US efforts in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Security Council further voted to reduce UNAMIR down to 260 men."

[Note: For those interested, in the movie Hotel Rwanda, General (then Col.)Roméo Dallaire (with a fictitious name of Col. Oliver) was played by none other than Nick Nolte.]

Back to Bolton. Bolton will not be popular in the U.N. in many quarters because of his willingness to call a spade a spade. He "violated" diplo-speak by uttering such egregious truths as calling North Korea "a hellish nightmare" ruled by a "tyrannical dictator." This just won't stand in the eyes of some.
Pillage Idiot (with a HT to Polipundit for the pointer) has instituted the "Bolty Awards for the best comments regarding Mr. Bolton. My Favorite:

"My problem with you over the years is that you've been too competent," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) told Bolton four years ago. "I would rather you be stupid and not very effective."

Indeed, for some folk the possibility that Bolton will be "too competent" and may reflect well on President Bush is just too much. It will be quite interesting to see what Biden has to say when the Senate meets on the Bolton nomination. As the WSJ goes on to note:

"Of course, it would not do if Mr. Bolton's nomination wasn't greeted by the usual bellyaching of our supposed multilateralists. Sure enough, John Kerry obliged, calling the appointment "baggage we cannot afford" and reminding us why Americans prefer to call him Senator."

"...we can think of no better candidate than Mr. Bolton... During his most recent State Department tour, he engineered the Proliferation Security Initiative, the most successful and meaningful multilateral effort undertaken by this Administration--or the previous one, for that matter. He negotiated the 2001 Treaty of Moscow, the most comprehensive nuclear disarmament treaty in history. In the real world, this is called "getting stuff done," something the U.N. could learn more about."

Bolton will undoubtedly raise a lot of lefty and international hackles. Good, damn good!