John Bolton Speaks About The U.N.

I subscribe to Imprimus, a publication of Hillsdale College (an institution that refuses federal funding!), and use the publication to enlighten me on any number of Conservative issues (Imprimus, by the way, is free and can be acquired by an internet subscription).

In the April, 2008 issue, John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the United Nations (and one of the finest appointments made during the Bush Administation -- though later, essentially, abandoned by Bush), writes an article entitled "America's Interests and the U.N." In this article, he makes a rather surprising statement:

The fact is that the U.N., at times, can be an effective instrument of American foreign policy. Of course, to say this is heretical to the real devotees of the U.N., for whom the U.N. shouldn't be an instrument of anyone's foreign policy. But the fact is that everybody who participates in the U.N.—all of the 192 member governments, all of the non-governmental organizations, and all of the civil servants in the U.N. secretariats—try to advance their own interests. The only entity that gets criticized for that, needless to say, is the U.S. government.

(Please see, for reference, the entire Imprimus article here -- adapted from a speech Bolton gave at a seminar in Phoenix, AZ, on 02-11-08.)

Bolton then next makes a remarkably importantly point of which many Conservatives are inherently aware but, naturally, bears constant repetition -- and can be equally applicable, unfortunately, to our United States Supreme Court:

Norming” is the idea that the U.S. should base its decisions on some kind of international consensus, rather than making its decisions as a constitutional democracy. It is a way in which the Europeans and their left-wing friends here and elsewhere try and constrain U.S. sovereignty. You can see how disastrous this would be just by looking at the geography of the floor of the U.N. General Assembly. Look out at the representatives of the 192 governments spread out over the floor and you wonder where the U.S. even is. Well, we’re there somewhere. But the fact is that we’re sitting with a majority of countries that have no traditions or understanding of liberty. The argument of the advocates of “norming” is “one nation, one vote.” That sounds very democratic: Who could object to that? But its result would be very anti-democratic. As an illustration of this, a friend of mine once went to a conference on international law and heard a professor from a major European university say, “The problem with the United States is its devotion to its Constitution over international norms.”

Please, let me re-emphasize that last sentence and perhaps emblazon it into your Mental Wheelhouse:

THE PROBLEM WITH THE UNITED STATES IS ITS DEVOTION TO ITS CONSTITUTION OVER INTERNATIONAL NORMS.

And trust me when I tell you that this philosophy is the overarching philosophy of the Leftists, Socialists, Anarchists (and, apparently, the California Supreme Court) that make up the commanding portion (the George Soros/MoveOn.org portion) of the current Demorat Party.

Once again, John Bolton cuts to the core of the U.N./Globalist issue.

In summation, Mr. Bolton said:

There is one point of view here in America—a view given expression during the 2004 presidential campaign by Senator Kerry—holding that American foreign policy should meet some kind of “global test.” By this way of thinking, America needs, in effect, to demonstrate the legitimacy of its foreign policy decisions by getting the approval of the U.N. Security Council or some other international body. The same suggestion will no doubt surface again this year, in the run-up to the November election. In the 21st century, then—just as in the 20th—the political decisions we make here in the U.S. will be much more significant than those made at the U.N.

We are diminished by the loss of John Bolton at the UN -- the current rep, Zalmay Khalilzad, is the highest-ranking Afghan American and Muslim in the Administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.[1] Khalilzad's previous assignments in the Administration include U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.

And, clearly, Khalilzad is an appeasement -- a "showing-our-pasty-white-vulnerable-PC-belly" appointment.

BZ