democracyarsenal.org: Speaking Truth to (super)Power

June 08, 2006

Speaking Truth to (super)Power
Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Given John Bolton's purple-faced comments about Malloch Brown's podium rumpus at the Power and Superpower conference (see Suzanne's post below) you'd almost think that Malloch Brown said something really offensive--like the organization was so worthless that it could lose 10 stories and nobody would notice!

Bolton's threatening response are the words of a bully. He's like those kids in junior high who would steal your lunch money--and still beat you up. At least where I went to junior high (in Farmington, New Mexico) the shocking behavior got old, the fear got tiresome and underneath the smiles and cafeteria banter, everyone loathed the bullies, suspected every motive and tried hard not to be assigned to their homework team.

Brown was just pointing out the obvious political angle (something that very few of the SPI conference speakers did, unfortunately) That our self-centeredness over the past five years has cost us lots of political capital with our friends and handed us years of damage control with our challengers. It appears that we not only need better intelligence from our national security agencies, we need more emotional intelligence from our political appointees. Re-cap on Emotional Intelligence: Relationships are vital for life achievement. Understanding and relating well with others is often more important than run of the mill smarts because self-awareness and the ability to build lasting meaningful relationships are fundamental keys to success. All the public diplomacy gimmicks and flackery in the world will never overcome this basic fact.

The administration's squandered political capital is splattered all over the place these days.

This is a problem only indirectly acknowledge by administration officials (like Karen Hughes having a revelation at the Council on Foreign Relations that our policies must match our rhetoric) At the conference, Michele Flournoy made a great point on the Use of Force panel: how this administration has taken the long-standing right of pre-emptive self defense (in the face of an imminent danger) and twisted it so that force is acceptable as prevention in the face of a gathering threat. If Iraq is Exhibit A of this policy, you'd think that heavy revisions are in order. Not so.

Here are four relatively progressive initiatives taken by our government over the past year that may well be squandered because this bully mandate drowns out the kind of cooperation (like bipartisan support and allies) that you need to actually make progress.

Department of Defense Directive 3000.05 Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction, National Security Presidential Directive appointing the State Department as lead agency for Stability Operations, the portions of the Quadrennial Defense Review that give execution plans on Building Partnership Capacity, Irregular Warfare and Stategic Communications, Transformational Diplomacy within State and the Agency for Intl Development (AID)

Maybe the new Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who seems to have lots of emotional intelligence, could use some of it to explain a really basic economics term to the Bush team: Opportunity Cost: it's the benefits you miss out on when you choose one course of action over the alternatives. Its how economists value choices. In human relations terms, its that people aren't stupid and because of that you almost never can have your cake and eat it too. Well, the opportunity cost of being a bully is the diminishment of every American national security objective that requires cooperation, trust and goodwill from Hearts and Minds to public diplomacy to UN reform.

June 08, 2006 at 02:05 AM in UN | Permalink

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Comments

Bullies in junior high school. Emotional intelligence. Right.

That's a message to take to the American people: John Bolton's being mean to the UN! Which prospective Democratic Presidential candidate do you think will be the first to give a speech with that theme? Hillary Clinton? Joe Biden? How about Wesley Clark?

After all this time Democrats still talk about foreign and national security policy as if their only audience was people just like themselves.

Posted by: Zathras | June 08, 2006 at 11:34 AM

The U.N. Should Share the Fate of the League of Nations

Once again, the U.N. proves that it is nothing more than a power thirsty organization that wants to reign in the U.S. to serve its own purpose. The U.N. consistently squanders U.S. wealth and shows no appreciation. Mr. Annan's so-called reforms are a joke and do not address the real issues that matter most.

The United States and the global community can address modern issues without U.N. interferrance. U.N. 'dues' would be better spent on HIV research, training counter-terrorist forces, etc. Despite its propaganda, the U.N. does not legitimize U.S. foreign policy.

It is time to put the U.N. to rest. There are many reasons that the U.N. failed. Chief among them, their lack of standards for membership. Their refusal to expel member nations like Iran, thinking instead that "honey & sugar" and no stick is the best approach.

What are some real reforms that the U.N. can make besides the worthless reforms being proposed by the U.N.'s worst UNSG ever? For one, the U.N. should revoke the membership of all nations that have not ratified the UDHR. The U.N. should also revoke the membership of nations like Iran & Iraq, and the U.N. should apology, repudiate, and correct the statement by its UNSG that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was illegal.

We do not need the U.N. stealing credit for work done by Americans. We do not need the U.N., we do not need to reform it, we do not need to replace it. The best option for Americans is to eliminate it, granting the U.N. more power now will only embolden future UNSG's to seek more power later.

Posted by: Scott | June 08, 2006 at 12:25 PM

(Iraq being referred to as when under Saddam's regime)

Posted by: Scott | June 08, 2006 at 12:32 PM

What about the Millennium Summit in 2000? I would say the UN did some real good for the world there. The Millennium Goals were agreed to by the US and 188 other countries, and provide for a viable end to extreme global poverty. Interestingly enough, it's actually the US who is trying to back out of the Millennium Goals in a major way. We're currently only giving .2% of the .7% we promised at the Millennium summit and again in the Monterrey consensus. The UN came up with a working, reasonable plan to end poverty, stop AIDS, provide for education, and so on. The UN does not need to be put to rest. It needs to be mobilized to be a positive force in the world. To the extent that America stands as an obstacle to the achievement of global stability and peace, it is rightly criticized.

Posted by: Than | June 08, 2006 at 12:43 PM

The Millenium Goals can be achieved without the U.N. The U.N. can not end poverty, it can only take credit for work done by member nations. The U.N. can not stop AIDS. If the U.N. were interested in ending AIDS they would tell the U.S. to direct funding for the U.N. bureaucracy towards AIDS research instead.

Posted by: Scott | June 08, 2006 at 01:05 PM

And it is not the U.N.'s place to 'educate' people. I took part in the U.N.'s "education" and I don't want my children to take part in any of it. U.N. education misleads our children, as it misled me, and it has no place in the real world. I do not want my children celebrating U.N. day, I do not want them exposed to the U.N.'s fake propaganda. The U.N. needs to stop propagandizing the American people and start spreading values in the terrorist countries. Because while our children are being trained to love these terrorist nations by a U.N. that has inherited the flaws of the League of Nations, those same nations are indoctrinating their children to hate our own. The U.N. is 22nd Century organization that has no business being prominently displayed. The U.S. is *not* an obstacle in global peace & stability, the U.N. *is* and it is exactly that type of attitude that proves more than anything else that the U.N. has no business continuing to exist.

Posted by: Scott | June 08, 2006 at 01:11 PM

If the U.N. wants to help the U.S. and the world, the first thing it can do is to step down and disband. There is no such thing as a "united" nations organization. And pseudo-U.N. nationalism should be erradicated before its 'beautiful lies' are allowed to infect future generations.

Posted by: Scott | June 08, 2006 at 01:14 PM

Scott, are you Bolton's speechwriter by any chance? I could name quite a few international treaties that the USA hasn't ratified (CEDAW)that if we did would blaze a trail for human rights, better governments and Rule of Law the world over..counter-terrorist measures that you seem to care about. The USA could have been, since the 1980's, monitoring international curriculum and textbooks through UNESCO except some conservatives threw a tantrum and pulled out, right when we needed to be at the table. Please spare me the hysterics. We are a great nation, not a nation of quitters.

Posted by: Lorelei Kelly | June 08, 2006 at 05:21 PM

Lorelei, you quit that great nation when you started placing the interests of the UN over the interests of the US. The UN does not serve US interests, it serves UN interests.

Posted by: Scott | June 08, 2006 at 05:38 PM

"It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world." -George Washington

Lorelei, you are a quitter. Not the critics of the U.N.

Posted by: Scott | June 08, 2006 at 05:49 PM

Lorelei, one final addition before you respond. The U.N. is not leading us into peace. They are trying to lead us into more wars in order to impose their order. Korea, Iraq, these are just the beginning of the U.N. Wars. You are part of a movement assisting a government organization that is attempting to usurp the authority and state devices of the United States in order to wage a global campaign to establish a global U.N. Hegemony. You can pay lip service to democracy, equal rights, but the fact of the matter is that the U.N. shelters the biggest criminals, drug dealers, and terrorists on the planet.

UNESCO is not something we can place our security in. Our subsidization of U.N. is exactly the ammunition that foreign tyrants and terrorists point to that the U.S. is trying to create a Global Empire. The U.N. is that global empire and you are one of those advocating its creation and as long as you advocate it, you place American lives at risk. Foreign nations do not want or need us dictating to them what they put in their text books and I do not want the U.N. tell U.S. what we should be putting in our text books.

I will never salute the UN or its flag. It is a cheap immitation of the US and I will never subordinate the US to serve the inferior interests of the UN. Any organization that seeks to rob the "developing" US of its wealth in order to subsidize the construction of terrorist nations like Palestine, Iran, Syria, etc does not deserve the time of day. Until the U.N. adopts a policy of censure for nations like Iran whose Legislature has opened with 'Death to America' chants and who's leaders have consistently encouraged these activities, then the U.N. has no reason to expect American support.

The only 'reform' that the U.N. can make to vindicate itself is the censure and the expulsion of nations like Iran & Cuba. Only then, will it be shown that U.N. membership has value.

Finally Lorelei, if you were truly not a 'quitter' you would be out there convincing UN member states the benefits and advantages of joining the US. Not the other way around.

Posted by: Scott | June 08, 2006 at 06:21 PM

I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in trading my US liberty for UN security. Not one bit, and you'll notice that there aren't many people out there rising up to Brown's call to making the US a UN puppet govt. Been there, done that.

Posted by: Scott | June 09, 2006 at 11:58 AM

Dear Middle America,

Recently Mark Malloch Brown, the eloquent speaking number two at the United Nations, said that "Middle America" did not know how the US is constructively engaged with the UN because of UN detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. And he complains that the US is not supporting even non-controversial issues such as renovating the dilapidated UN Headquarters in New York due to too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years.

Friends in Middle America, the UN deserves to be bashed and bashed hard. Please allow us to give you a glimpse into how the United Nations is run:

Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules and revolve almost entirely around patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications. Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management slots while others are placed in senior positions only because of his nationality.

Salaries for UN employees are free of federal, state and local taxes and come with six weeks vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are used as vacation, plus 4 weeks of home leave, rental and housing grants to supplement an already generous salary (we all make an average of $7000-$8000 a month, tax free), a pension at 8% of salary times years of service that can be cashed out tax free, and educational subsidies for the children of UN employees. Many also participate in an “alternative work schedule” in which they get every other Friday off. But don’t even try to apply. Your application will not be acknowledged nor will you ever get invited for a job interview. You must know someone to work at the UN.

Several of us have advanced degrees in administration, budgeting, finance, personnel, and other relevant areas of management, and we have been trained to manage large public organizations, and yet we are blocked from advancing by men in the 50s with no management training, education, or experience - only sitting in their chairs because they are friends with someone a higher position. We threaten nearly every person we meet because they know they are there based only on their connections.

And there is a profound lack of accountability within the UN regarding resource allocation. Simple procurement that would normally take five minutes using modern technology systems takes 2-3 months in the UN. And many United Nations Development Program country offices pay "local experts" outrageously high sums of money for products of dubious quality. Such contracts would never be made by other international aid agencies such as USAID that have much stronger internal controls and oversight.

We have witnessed several outrageous examples of graft and corruption within the UN system and yet time and again the scandal is covered up because internal UN financial audits are simply comedy. In fact, a recent article on internal management in the Financial Times cited a UN-commissioned report released in 1994 that was remarkably damning. Yet nothing changed, leading to this crisis in credibility of the UN.

Despite its dysfunctionality, if the UN were actually making a difference, many would mutter to themselves but the UN deserves its strongest bashing because of its profound inability to respond to genocide, war, famine, natural disaster emergencies, and other tragedies.

Kofi Annan, current head of the United Nations who ironically lives in a mansion in New York on the shore of the East River that is worth about $10 million, was head of peacekeeping operations in 1994 in Rwanda when 800,000 people died. He said in 2004 that "I believed at that time that I was doing my best" despite that he held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict and from providing more logistic and material support to stop the slaughter.

Kofi Annan was unable to stop mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food Program that allowed Saddam Hussein's regime embezzle $4.4 billion through pricing irregularities and an additional $5.7 billion through illegal oil smuggling. Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna which won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil for Food program.

Kofi Annan protected Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, against a report that found him guilty of sexual harassment by declaring him innocent. This created a global protest against Annan, resulting in Lubbers being forced to resign.

Kofi Annan remains in power while genocide continues in Darfur, while Zimbabwe tailspin into despotism, while up to a third of the population of some African countries will die from AIDS, and while corruption keeps the poorest countries in the starkest poverty.

And Kofi Annan and Mark Malloch Brown arrogantly ignore the fact that the quality of life of several of us has come close to being destroyed by the many bitter experiences we have experienced over the past decades. Most who work for the UN are so used to its dysfunctionality that they have NO idea how sick the organization is or they are unable to come forward because most who work for the UN come from countries where the labor laws and protections are abysmal and where speaking out will land yourself in jail or worse.

And to add insult to injury, the newly created IOIS (the new “independent” internal oversight panel established to “reform” the UN) has been strong-armed by Malloch Brown and is not independent because its budget comes directly from the UN, thus dissuading anyone from within the UN from coming forward.

And don't think for a minute that Malloch Brown is an independent UN operative. Justin Leites, a colleague of many of ours at UNDP, was placed on administrative leave to campaign for U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry - at MMB's approval.

Unfortunately, as the walls literally crumble down around them, those who work for the UN and citizens who believe in the founding principles of the UN have no understanding how bad it really is.

Unfortunately, we encourage young people who are seeking a career in international affairs or development to avoid the United Nations at all costs. We wish there would come a day when we would no longer make this recommendation.

Of course the senior leadership of the UN try to hide the profound problems of the UN but shame on them for saying that Americans don't know or understand how the US is engaged with the UN.

If you and everyone in Middle America truly understood what ails the UN, the US, who funds nearly 25% of the entire UN budget, would shut off the money spigot. In sum, the UN should be shuttered, allowing a brand new organization to emerge because the current UN is broken beyond repair.

For more information, please contact Edward Patrick Flaherty who represents UN employees including our views here. info@iowatch.org

Sincerely,
A concerned group of current and former UN employees

Posted by: Ask Yourself | June 10, 2006 at 09:12 AM