Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Very nicely done by our UN Ambassador. How shameful that his had to be a recess appointment.
VOA: US Blasts Security Council for Failing to Condemn Terror Attack in Israel
The envoy singled out Algeria for blocking a U.S. drafted statement.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton issued a statement Tuesday unequivocally condemning the bomb attack in the Israeli town of Netanya that killed at least five people. The unusual action came after a U.S. attempt to have the statement issued by the Security Council was rejected.
Diplomats attending the meeting say several Council members raised concerns about language in the U.S.-drafted document. Ambassador Bolton, however, blamed Algeria for quashing the measure by objecting to a passage urging Syria to close offices of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which claims responsibility for the attack. "Other governments had questions about particular language. We were perfectly prepared to engage in discussions about constructive suggestions, but Algeria categorically refused to name Syria and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad," he said.
The U.S. envoy later read the text of the statement to reporters, and lashed out at the Council for what he called "failing to speak the truth".
He said "you have to speak up in response to these terrorist attacks. It's a great shame that the Security Council couldn't speak to this terrorist attack in Netanya, but if the Council won't speak, the United States will."
(H/T's: Michael B., Daily Alert and American Future)
http://www.currentviewpoint.com/cgibin/news.cgi?id=11&command=shownews&newsid=826
Amb. Bolton will continue to show the American people that the United Nations is irrelevant, and has been co-opted by radicals. I await his comments on the ceremony of solidarity with the Palestinians, which included a moment of silence for the terrorists who use suicide bombings, and where a map of the area was prominently displayed, showing Palestine, but not the state of Israel. Shameful, but I bet the EU delegates loved it.
Quarterbacking the offense again, Ambassador Bolton Criticizes U.N. Human Rights Commissioner, excerpt, Bolton speaking:
"The United States here in New York is engaged in a very difficult struggle to reform the broken U.N. human rights decision-making machinery to abolish the existing Human Rights Commission and to replace it with an effective new Human Rights Council," he said. "We are not helped in that difficult struggle by comments like Ms. Arbour's."
[...]
There is a lot of opposition to the Human Rights Council "for the same reason that countries like Cuba and Zimbabwe and Burma like to try to get on the existing commission -- to block real scrutiny of their human rights record," Bolton continued.
"Those countries that are the worst abusers of human rights fear a new human rights mechanism that they can't block or pervert to their own ends," he said.
We need more linemen, fullbacks, tight ends, wide receivers, even a few more quarterbacks - on the offense; disciplined professionals, to be sure (no unnecessary triumphalism or jingoism), but that is what we need. Fewer kickers and punters.
h/t AF