Obama team fails to lead United Nations Security Council

It’s happened again – Susan Rice has skipped another UN meeting critical to U.S. interests.  Today’s UN Security Council debate on the Middle East was the last open meeting scheduled before the planned UN vote to recognize Palestinian statehood.  The Obama Administration has said it doesn’t think it’s a good idea for the Arabs to push for a General Assembly vote on the issue, but U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice obviously doesn’t translate that into working against the dress rehearsal.

This week, United States Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford participated in a tour sponsored by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government in the Northwest province of Idlib. The propaganda tour was organized to show the devastation caused by what government officials described as “foreign outlaws” and “radical Islamists”. The excursion included Syrian officials who explained to Ford that Islamic extremists were responsible for the more than 1,500 deaths that have occurred since anti-government protests began on March 15. Government officials also told Ford that there have been no peaceful freedom marches, as has been reported by the international media, only foreign radicals looking to destabilize Syria. Ambassador Ford dutifully attended the government’s tour but has since failed to respond or react.

This week, two different religions were mocked and disrespected in the United States and the followers’ reactions couldn’t have been more different.  While a lone preacher in Florida burned a copy of the Koran, a Broadway show opened in New York making fun of the Mormon faith with irreverent humor and sacrilegious musical numbers.  Some Muslim followers in Afghanistan reacted to the burning by storming the UN compound and killing innocent international public servants.  The Mormon Church reacted to the musical by pointing the public to the superficial nature of it and the supernatural power of their faith.

So it turns out that French fries are really freedom fries after all.

From the moment Moammar Gaddafi started his vicious military campaign against his people, French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke of confronting the Libyan madman. While President Obama thought about what to do, Sarkozy met with members of the Libyan opposition at the Elysee Palace on March 10 to support an overthrow of the Libyan leader.

At great personal risk to himself and his family, Libya’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, pushed the UN Security Council to take up the violence in his home country. Dabbashi said he could no longer support the regime of his boss Moammar Gadhafi and stepped out to condemn what he called “a genocide”. The dramatic event prompted the first UN meeting of the 15 member Security Council on the uprisings sweeping across the region since the beginning of Tunisia’s revolution, Egypt’s violence and the developing protests in Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine and Iran.

The United States was represented by Foreign Service officer and Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo. The Obama Administration’s appointed Ambassador, Susan Rice, skipped the Libya meeting and instead flew to South Africa to attend a UN panel discussion on global sustainability.

dana milbank may think its funny but to say that Bolton wanted to blow up the UN is ridiculous and terrorizing – not to mention completely inaccurate.  responsible reporters shouldn’t joke about bombing the un.  to be accurate, bolton said, “The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”.  bolton was obviously commentating on a bloated bureaucracy and the need for efficiency.  i”ll put dana (don’t let the name fool you , he’s a guy) down for advocating for a waste of u.s. tax dollars and using bomb jokes to be funny. dana…

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America’s involvement in conflicts for the foreseeable future will be determined by Washington’s appetite for nation-building and debated by asking tough questions about whether or not we will be temporary occupiers or outside supporters. Americans, after all, have spent billions of dollars, and thousands of lives have been lost, fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban from inside Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bravo, Canada A U.N. snub is a badge of honor. Life must be very good in Canada, or at least dull, judging by the domestic reaction to its failed bid last week for a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council. Listen to the yowls in the papers north of the border: “A nation reeling,” “humiliating defeat,” “a rebuke from the global community,” “tarnishes our reputation,” “a slap in the face.” We say: Way to go. Canada seems to have annoyed a sufficient number of Third World dictators and liberally pious Westerners to come up short in a secret General…

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The United Nations General Assembly elected five new Security Council members this week.  India, South Africa and Colombia ran in uncontested races from the Asian, African and Latin American regional groups and will begin serving on the Security Council in January.  But the remaining races were contested, with Germany, Portugal and Canada competing for two seats from the Western European and Others group.  With the European Union already represented by veto-wielding France and Great Britain on the Security Council, and either Portugal or Germany certain to win another seat for the EU, it was critical that America’s close ally Canada…

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It sounds as if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has had enough. Her new strong tone on North Korea is a welcome, albeit overdue, shift. The Obama Administration’s North Korea policy for the past 18 months has consisted of public relations ploys of pretending to get tough on the rogue state and a propensity to re-package the hard work of the Bush team and call it something new and improved. Her announcement that the Obama Administration will enforce the existing sanctions on nuclear related materials and luxury goods going in and out of North Korea is yet another example. While…

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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is a campaign style spokesman who thrives on political spin. But after almost 18 months of acting as the official White House Spokesman, he shouldn’t be allowed to spin foreign policy facts on Meet the Press without pushback from David Gregory or other journalists. On Sunday, Gibbs tried to spin the Obama Administration’s policies on Iran and North Korea by misrepresenting the facts about the support the Obama team got at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Gibbs either doesn’t understand what happened at the UN or he is lying. Gibbs repeatedly referred to…

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After 17 months of diplomacy, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice was only able to get 12 of the 15 countries on the United Nations Security Council to vote to place increased sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yesterday, on Fox News Sunday, Rice jumped to defend the Obama Administration’s lackluster performance by claiming that previous Iran resolutions were not unanimous during the Bush Administration and that there were “abstentions”. Her strategy to minimize the Bush team’s performance in order to make her own poor performance look better isn’t factual. After so much hype about…

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Last week, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice called a press conference. She used her political capital and soapbox to bring together UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin to combat what she calls “a global problem.” She called on world leaders to follow her lead in bringing an end to this global scourge. As the powerful group gathered in front of the international media assembled to witness the announcement, Rice proclaimed, “It’s a killer. The suffering it causes is direct and immediate—lives lost for no reason, futures shattered in an instant. But its toll is truly…

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Coming on the heels of not speaking out on Iran’s election last week to the Commission on the Status of Women and three other UN Committees, Susan Rice, the sometimes American Ambassador to the UN, today didn’t even mention Libya’s name when asked about the African country’s election to the UN’s Human Rights Council. It was a softball question to Rice from a veteran UN reporter: “Some human rights groups have complained about Libya joining the Council, do you share those concerns?” Rice said that sticking with diplomatic tradition, she wouldn’t reveal how America votes. And then she went on…

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cbsnews.com richard grenell on yahoo Jerry Yang Should Follow Sergey Brin’s Lead in China Jerry Yang spent the first eight years of his life experiencing China firsthand. Born Yáng Zhìyuǎn in 1968 Taiwan, Yang and his family personally knew the limits of their freedom. But Yang’s father presumably wanted more for his son. While China offered limited opportunities for a child from a lower-middle class family, the U.S. presented limitless options. But the co-founder of Yahoo, and one of the most successful and well-known Chinese-Americans, has missed an opportunity to speak out on behalf of the people in the country…

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newsmax.com grenell interview on foreign policy Grenell: Obama’s Terrorism Approach ‘Scary’ Tuesday, 26 Jan 2010 03:43 PM Article Font Size By: Dan Weil Richard Grenell, former spokesman for the U.S. Representative to the United Nations calls President Obama’s approach to terrorism “scary.” “Here’s a guy who clearly wants to be the most popular guy in the room,” Grenell, who served President George W. Bush, told Newsmax.TV’s Kathleen Walter. “He doesn’t want to make tough decisions that anger people.” The former diplomat criticized Obama for treating accused terrorists as civilians. “Scott Brown, the winner of the Massachusetts senate race said it…

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http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/01/grenell.obama.afghanistan/index.html

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/26/some-advice-for-ambassador-rice/ Thursday, February 26, 2009 Some advice for Ambassador Rice From 2001 to 2008 I spent my days (and many nights) speaking for the United States at the United Nations. I was the longest serving American spokesman in history and it gave me a unique perspective on the United Nations and its relationship with its largest funder – the American taxpayer. The reality of how the U.N. works is not what some people on the right and the left would have you believe. As Susan Rice begins her tenure representing America at the U.N., she will find an institution in…

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http://advocate.com/news_detail_ektid68878.asp 12/20/08-12/22/08 U.S. Rejects U.N.’s Gay Rights Statement, Cites “Don’t Ask” A joint statement addressing homophobia and LGBT rights for the first time at the United Nations was tabled Thursday, without the backing of the United States. “We urge states to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention,” the draft document read. The unprecedented gay rights declaration was proposed by the French and read by Argentinean ambassador Jorge Arguello. The nonbinding statement is…

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