Smoking Some Strong Stuff
Is Mister Mark Malloch Brown, deputy to Kofi Annan. You see, in Mr. Brown's world the real, honest truth about the UN is being stifled, absolutely RE-pressed by those evil overlords of American information Rush Limbaugh and Fox news. No, really, he said so in a speech.
"The prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable," said the deputy, Mark Malloch Brown. "You will lose the U.N. one way or another."
In a highly unusual instance of a United Nations official singling out an individual country for criticism, Mr. Malloch Brown said that although the United States was constructively engaged with the United Nations in many areas, the American public was shielded from knowledge of that by Washington's tolerance of what he called "too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping."
"Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News," he said.
Well, that certainly explains a lot, doesn't it? So do these remarks:
The speech reflected frustration in Mr. Annan's office with a looming crisis over the United Nations budget, which, under a six-month gap agreed to under pressure from Washington in December, will pay the bills only until the end of June.
The deal was struck to link budget approval with achievement of significant management reforms, and Mr. Bolton made frequent mention of Congressional impatience with the United Nations and legislation that would authorize Washington to start withholding its dues. The United States is the largest contributor to the United Nations, paying 22 percent of its budget.
"In recent years the enormously divisive issue of Iraq and the big stick of financial withholding have come to define an unhappy marriage," Mr. Malloch Brown said.
He noted that the United Nations was fielding 18 peacekeeping operations abroad at lower cost and higher effectiveness than "comparable U.S. operations." Yet, he said, that fact has been ignored or underplayed by policy makers and opinion shapers in Washington.
Ah yes, the UN, keeping costs down by running sex-slave rings. Gotta love these guys. Oh heck, Mr. Brown. That link is to that other monolithic news organ that never tells the ignorant American peepul anything true, either. The Washington Post, don't you know.
Incidentally, I never listen to Limbaugh and haven't watched Fox News much in the past several years.
UPDATE: Others: Flopping Aces, NRO Media Blog
UPDATE: John Bolton is NOT happy with the deputy to Mr. Annan:
"I spoke to the secretary-general this morning, I said 'I've known you since 1989 and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen in that entire time,"' Bolton told reporters on Wednesday.
"To have the deputy secretary-general criticize the United States in such a manner can only do grave harm to the United Nations," Bolton said.
UPDATE: Daniel Drezner has quite a lot more of the speech. It's even worse than the press reports.
By Blackhawk, Wednesday, 7 June , 2006 @ 7:29 pm
‘Comparable US operations’? WTF is that? Iraq? Afghanistan? I don’t see a whole lot of UN ‘help’ there.
UN peacekeeping operations? You mean like…Bosnia? Oh, that’s right, the UN couldn’t get it done with UNPROFOR, so Uncle Sugar had to bail their asses out. Bosnia is no longer a UN mission.
Korea? That is still a UN mission, and let’s see who’s here besides the Koreans………still looking…….wait for it…..why, the US. And……still looking….
Does he mean the other peacekeeping operations? Those costs less only if the US doesn’t play because it costs less for these other armies to operate.
What a maroon. With statements like that, he’s sure to whine, I mean win, support from middle America.
By Gaius, Wednesday, 7 June , 2006 @ 7:46 pm
Yeah, that was a particularly stupid comment, I think.