While U.N. Ambassador John Bolton was pushing unilateralism ideology for the U.N. in a speech today in London — and the U.N. is frantically attempting to help Sudanese while John Bolton ruthlessly short-circuits their efforts — Juan Cole published a blistering expose on the self-interest that led to Judith Miller and John Bolton using each other (amid hints that those two connivers may have shared more than we yet know).
Reports The Guardian, John Bolton, “set out the US [um, his?] vision for UN reform.”
“Reforming the United Nations is not a one night stand, reform is forever,” Bolton proclaimed. (And don’t miss — below Juan Cole’s rip-’em-a-new-one report — how Bolton is actively eviscerating the U.N.’s ability to respond to increasing catastrophe in Darfur.)
What Bolton wants is a smaller U.N.: “a reduction in the committees attached to the general assembly, a rethink of the role of some of the agencies and, as far as the development goals go, keeping trade negotiations firmly in the grasp of the WTO.”
One questioner asked if the US “should not pursue more than its national interest. Mr Bolton looked surprised. ‘Would you prefer that the US pursued its own interests or think for the whole world?’ he asked back. ‘I think if you think about it for a second you will say ‘Please pursue your national interest!’.”
Indeed…. pursue one’s own interests at all times. And it apparently suited Judith Miller to parrot John Bolton, writes Juan Cole:
‘ Miller began to uncritically parrot even some of the neocons’ loonier claims. On CNN’s “American Morning With Paula Zahn” for May 14, 2002, Miller explained the controversy that had broken out about allegations that Cuba had a biological weapons program. She told Zahn, “And there are a lot of very unsavory contacts, as the administration regards them, between Cuba and especially Iranians who are involved in biological weapons.” Such frankly weird assertions raise questions about where in the world Miller got her so-called information. No serious intelligence professional believes that either Iran or Cuba has a significant biological weapons program, much less that a communist Latin American dictatorship was being helped by a Shiite Muslim fundamentalist state with deadly microbes.
Miller’s statement only makes sense. … Continued below:
More Juan Cole:
Miller’s statement only makes sense in light of the speech given by John Bolton, then undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, in May of 2002, in which he alleged that Cuba had a biological weapons program.
Thomas Fingar, head of the State Department’s Intelligence bureau, along with a retired national security officer, demurred from the charges in Bolton’s speech.
When Christian Westermann at the State Department intelligence bureau raised questions about the intelligence on which Bolton was basing his campaign, Bolton called him into his office, chewed him out, and then allegedly tried to have him fired, according to the April 18, 2005, edition of the Washington Post. Miller was channeling Bolton in her comments to Paula Zahn, and very likely was simply repeating whatever Bolton himself had told her. Washington political analyst Steven C. Clemons asserted that Bolton was a regular source for Miller in her reporting on national security and weapons of mass destruction issues.
Bolton has a special interest in getting up a U.S. war against Iran, accounting for the bogus charge that it was active in Havana . . . ‘ (emphases mine)
On September 29th, I ranted about the world community’s ignorance of the increasing violence in Sudan. Here’s proof that Bolton is — let’s call it what it is — abetting the deaths, rapes, destruction of these people’s lives:
Carpetbagger: “A top United Nations envoy returned from the Darfur region of Sudan recently and had discouraging news: the calamity is actually getting worse: “I found the situation much more dangerous and worrisome than I expected it to be,” said [Juan Mendez, special adviser to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan], who just completed his second visit to the region in the past year. “Until last week, there have never been concerted, massive attacks of an indiscriminate nature against civilians” in camps in Darfur. Mendez was prepared to share his findings with representatives on the U.N. Security Council, but was denied the opportunity – by Bush’s man at the U.N., John Bolton.”
— From the indispensable UNDispatch blog (emphasis mine)
Bolton’s genocidal evisceration of the U.N. doesn’t stop there:
Stygius: “Via nadezhda‘s links, Reuters: “Ambassador John Bolton blocked a U.N. envoy on Monday from briefing the Security Council on grave human rights violations in Sudan’s Darfur region, saying the council had to act against atrocities and not just talk about them…” Let’s take a moment to remember what kind of “action” Bolton prefers in the face of atrocity and genocide.”
