The Americans are also seeking virtually to remove all references to the Kyoto treaty and the battle against global warming. They are striking out mention of the disputed International Criminal Court and drawing a red line through any suggestion that the nuclear powers should dismantle their arsenals. Instead, the US is seeking to add emphasis to passages on fighting terrorism and spreading democracy.
Very quickly, Mr Bolton has given the answer to anyone still wondering whether his long and difficult journey to New York - President George Bush confirmed him to the post after the US Senate was unable to - would render him coy or cautious. Far from that, he seems intent on taking the UN by the collar and plainly saying to its face what America expects - and does not expect - from it.
To the dismay of many other delegations, the US has even scored out pledges that would have asked nations to "achieve the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product for official development assistance by no later than 2015". All references to the date or the percentage level are gone in the Bolton version.
Passages that look forward to a larger role for the General Assembly are gone. Rejected also is a promise to create a standing military capacity for UN peacekeeping.
This show of contempt from Washington and its new envoy comes at a time when Mr Annan has been severely weakened by allegations of widespread corruption, fraud and nepotism. The White House is aware, for example, that Mr Annan himself could be further undermined when investigators into corruption in the oil-for-food programme in Iraq issue their final report, probably just days before the summit itself, due to be held from 14 to 16 September.
The move by MrBolton has thrown preparations for the summit into turmoil, prompting some to question whether there will be anything for the leaders to put their pens to in New York. "We can't be entirely sure there will be an agreement," one senior United Nations aide admitted last night. Failure to reach an agreement could embarrass Tony Blair, who is believed to have given broad backing to Mr Annan's original draft.
"It is not great news," said one Western diplomat of the American paper, which had been distributed only to a select group of UN ambassadors by yesterday. "What they are proposing is quite radical. If we start negotiating now the way the Americans want, it is going to make for a very difficult process."
Some UN insiders concede that at 29 pages the proposed text was probably far too long for many of the world's presidents and prime ministers to accept. They all also see that in its present form it would ask the US to promise to uphold treaties and conventions it has already rejected, including the Kyoto pact.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article308269.ece
Note: http://news.independent...
The US Vs. The UN
Posted on Saturday, August 27 at 15:40 by Ed DeakContributed By
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Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. (archive)<br />
<br />
August 22, 2005 <br />
<br />
Like John Wayne in a classic Hollywood Western, John Bolton has ridden to the rescue at the United Nations with scarcely a moment to spare. As a result, he may just be able to spare America and George Bush the mugging – let’s call it the UN AmBush – that the denizens of the East River had in mind for us next month.<br />
<br />
It turns out that, during the months Mr. Bolton was being denied a Senate confirmation vote as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Kofi Anan’s folks and those from other countries who tend to dominate UN deliberations (generally, undemocratic and unfriendly sorts) were organizing what might be described as a surprise party for President Bush...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/9njv8">http://tinyurl.com/9njv8</a><br />
<br />
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. (archive)<br />
<br />
August 22, 2005 <br />
<br />
Like John Wayne in a classic Hollywood Western, John Bolton has ridden to the rescue at the United Nations with scarcely a moment to spare. As a result, he may just be able to spare America and George Bush the mugging – let’s call it the UN AmBush – that the denizens of the East River had in mind for us next month.<br />
<br />
It turns out that, during the months Mr. Bolton was being denied a Senate confirmation vote as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Kofi Anan’s folks and those from other countries who tend to dominate UN deliberations (generally, undemocratic and unfriendly sorts) were organizing what might be described as a surprise party for President Bush...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/9njv8">http://tinyurl.com/9njv8</a><br />
<br />
Paul Heinbecker, former ambassador and Canada’s permanent representative to the United Nations, spoke at the Couchiching Conference in Orillia, Ontario on August 7, admits that veto power and its sometimes arbitrary use is “a fundamental problem we all face. Washington is deciding itself to use force, and that undermines the whole international legal system,” he says. “The United States exercises veto regularly on behalf of Israel had there been no veto, the UN would have authorized intervention on Kosovo without a question,” he says. “On Iraq, had there been no veto, the UN would not have authorized, in all probability, a war.” As well it must be said that the United States of America for decades has worked feverously to block any attempt to change the
Security Council’s permanent members veto system.
Lets not forget that it was the United States of America that vetoed the U.N. resolution in the late 1980's that would have condemned and charged Saddam Hussein for crimes against Humanity for using poison gas against the Iranian Army when Iran and Iraq were at war and Iraq was then an Ally of the United States of America. Also let’s not, as well, forget that it was the U.S. Government, (Donald H. Rumsfeld) member of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control (1982 - 1986), who gave Iraq the ability to produce and use such a weapon.
Until this changes nothing that America's controversial new ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton does will reform the U.N. except to undermine and make the U.N. a poppet organization of the United States Government.
---
Perception is two thirds of what we perceive reality to be.
Difficult decisions are a privilege of rank.
<br />
Tony Allen-Mills, New York<br />
<br />
THE last thing the embattled United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan needs as he prepares to host a major summit on reform next month is an embarrassing new exposé of incompetence, corruption and espionage at the heart of his troubled organisation.<br />
<br />
Yet the opening of a new session of the general assembly will coincide with publication of a scathing memoir by a former high-ranking UN official who claims the recent Iraqi oil for food scandal is part of a pattern of abuse that member states, including America and Britain, have made little attempt to curb.<br />
<br />
Having worked for more than a decade in the UN secretariat, Pedro Sanjuan, a former political affairs director, argues in his book The UN Gang that America needs to get tough with “the crooks, the hardened criminals, the spies, the terrorist sympathisers, the nepotists and the racists at the UN don’t like to be interfered with”.<br />
<br />
Sanjuan warned last week that even John Bolton, the controversial new US ambassador, would find it hard to push through reforms without heavyweight political support from the White House and the US Congress..."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1753499,00.html">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1753499,00.html</a>
On 25 April 1945, delegates of 50 nations met in San Francisco for the United Nations Conference on International Organization. The delegates drew up the 111-article Charter, which was adopted unanimously on 25 June 1945 in the San Francisco Opera House. The next day, they signed it in the Herbst Theatre auditorium of the Veterans War Memorial Building.
On 24 October 1945, United Nations is created as its Charter is ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and the majority of other signatories, and comes into force.
The real purpose was to forestall an all-out nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. You may have heard of the Cold War - it was over before you were born, most likely.
So, yeah. Americans built the damn thing. Most Americans think it has outlived it's purpose, and become a self-serving pit of dictators, thieves, and corrupt politictians.
Hey, maybe that's why Canada loves the UN - honor among thieves - safety in numbers!?
Canadians should also ask our own government if they would be so kind as to allow us low-life average citizens the opportunity to vote for our representative to the United Nations. Setting this kind of precedent would be a good example to the rest of the world, but unfortunately it would take away one of the PMO's prime patronage appointments - so it is unlikely to happen.