The woman charged with the protection of global human rights for the White House for the last four years was promoted Tuesday to represent the United States at the United Nations.
Despite leading an embarrassing policy of inaction — during which 80,000 plus Syrians were killed by violence created by their own government, thousands of Sudanese were ethnically-cleansed in Darfur, and hundreds of thousands were murdered and displaced in the Congo — President Obama announced Tuesday that he has selected Samantha Power, an academic and 2008 Obama presidential campaign aide, as his next nominee to represent the United States as ambassador to the United Nations. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Kofi Annan
30 reasons why susan rice shouldn’t be secretary of state
Ambassador Susan Rice had nothing to do with Benghazi, as President Obama told us, but she appeared on five Sunday political talk shows anyway. On those shows, Rice mouthed talking points that weren’t true. Continue reading
Cutting the Ribbon in Burma, Ignoring Iran & Syria
Today, President Obama will be the first U.S. President to visit Burma. The unprecedented trip is a celebration for the second largest country in Southeast Asia. It’s also a remarkable achievement since Burma only recently held national elections in 2010 after holding the leader of the democratic opposition party, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest for 21 years. Continue reading
kofi annan calls obama’s libya policy “not very helpful”
When Barack Obama was running for president he committed to leading the United Nations and other countries towards a common global goal. Obama believed that he could speak to allies and dictators directly and charm them into seeing the error of their ways. Since becoming President of the United States, Barack Obama has failed to convince the UN to follow his lead. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, a member of the President’s cabinet, has only been able to pass one resolution (compared to the Bush Administration’s five) on Iran’s illegal nuclear ambition despite the issue being the U.S.’ most important foreign policy goal. Rice also failed to convince Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon to support that one resolution despite 17 months of diplomacy.
Obama and Rice have been unsuccessful in their attempt to convince the Security Council to make progress on international problems they committed to deal with, issues like Sudan, North Korea and the Israeli-Palestinian issues. Recently, Obama and Rice failed to convince Russia, China, India, Germany and Brazil to support a no-fly zone over Libya. Despite all the talk of global unity, team Obama has been wildly ineffective at the UN and scored fewer victories than the Bush team they so heavily derided as unilateralists. This week, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called President Obama’s Libya policy “not very helpful” in an interview with the Financial Times. Most every main stream U.S. media outlet failed to report the former UN leader’s slight.
We learned from Annan this week that White House staffers have called upon him for advice and counsel on how to deal with foreign policy crises. So far, Obama staffers have failed to convince the former Secretary-General of the merits of their slow response to the Middle East revolutions. Samantha Powers, the liberal academic who made a career out of calling for more international intervention, has tried to convince Annan that there is no civil war in Libya and sought his advice and counsel on what to do next. Annan responded by criticizing the White House team’s approach. In speaking with the FT, Annan said:
“And, as I suspected, the rebels will not be ready to talk to Gaddafi. They want Nato to help remove him, and of course, I think eventually probably he will have to go, but you cannot put it upfront the way people are saying: Gaddafi must go. A future Libya without Gaddafi must be part of the negotiations and handled properly. It should be part of the agenda, and this mantra of Sarkozy, Cameron, Gaddafi is one… Obama saying Gaddafi must go. Putting it upfront like that…it’s not very helpful.”
In typical UN double-speak Annan goes on to say “on the other hand, I see their problem…But on the other hand, I think they were right…”
Annan also questions the benefits of liberating Iraq and fails to see any progress made from turning that dictatorship into a developing democracy:
“One of my biggest regrets was the fact that as an institution and an international community we could not stop the war in Iraq. That really was very difficult and very painful. Every fibre in my body felt it was wrong. I spoke to leaders, we spoke to people, we tried… we couldn’t stop it… and we see the results.”
Annan goes on to dismiss accusations that his son, Kojo, benefitted from the UN’s Oil for Food program and told a story how he thought U.S. Ambassador John Bolton was a bully for reminding the Security Council that “Uncle Sam isn’t going to like it (increased UN spending)”. Annan also outrageously links a Mexican Ambassador’s lack of support for the 18th Iraq draft resolution in 2003 with a car accident that killed him more than 18 months after he was recalled for inappropriate comments made about the United States.
Annan said, “On the question of Iraq, some governments showed incredible courage: the way even Mexico and Chile wouldn’t roll over for the US; but the ambassadors paid the price. Both of them were recalled fairly shortly, and in fact the Mexican one died in an accident soon after he got out.”
susan rice refuses to call out libya as they are elected to the human rights council
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 to compliment the Human Rights Council’s work. It was a stunning blow to human rights activists around the world.
The Obama Administration last year joined the Human Rights Council after the Bush Administration took America off the UN committee for its lack of action on serious issues and its inability to name violators of human rights. The Bush team felt strongly that the Council was spending too much time beating up on the U.S. and Israel and too little time looking at serious human rights violators. And while the Bush Administration withheld the Human Rights Council’s funding in protest, the Obama Administration restored it. In re-joining the UN’s Council, Obama and Rice said that it would be better to work from within rather than criticize from the outside. But now that Rice is inside the Council, she doesn’t have the guts to say the name of the newly elected country that has a history of rights violations and terrorism. Today Rice repeated her claim, “…it is preferable to work from within to shape and reform a body with the importance and potential of the Human Rights Council, rather than to stay on the sidelines and reject it.”
So let’s look at Rice’s attempts to “shape” the Council for this year’s vote.
In typical UN fashion, four African countries were running for four regional seats on the world body’s most prominent human rights committee. Although Rice has known for weeks that Libya would win a seat on the Human Rights Council because there was no competition for the African seats, she chose not to highlight the issue before the vote or attempt to find another African candidate to challenge the election status quo. In a letter sent to Rice by more than 30 human rights organizations before the vote, the clean slate attempt by the Africans was highlighted as a violation of the original reform commitment. The letter said, “This contravenes the 2006 promise that the reformed Council would bring competitive elections, and sets a poor example.” Rice ignored the human rights groups’ appeal and didn’t try to make a competitive race for Libya.
Making no attempt to find another candidate country is not working to “shape” the Council as Rice claims the U.S. is doing by joining it. Shaping the Council means that you help elect countries that have a strong human rights record and you work to keep countries that violate human rights off the Council. Rice didn’t speak up to highlight the problem, didn’t try to find another candidate and couldn’t utter Libya’s name today.
But Rice did compliment the Human Rights Council for its work. Although the Council hasn’t been able to seriously confront widespread rights violations in Sudan, North Korea, Burma or Cuba, Rice thinks the Council deserves praise for its important efforts. Contributions like the Council’s condemnation of Israel for war crimes in Gaza, or the recent statement by 6 UN human rights experts that the new Arizona law on illegal immigration could violate international standards.
Even Former Secretary General Kofi Annan recommended reforming the Human Rights Council by limiting membership and questioning the regional voting system that creates geographic quotas in his March 2005 report titled, `In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights For All’. To be fair, you can’t blame the UN when the members fail to act. But we can expect the American representative to show up and speak with moral clarity.
What is clear is that Susan Rice hasn’t found her voice at the UN even though she has been in the job for over a year. It’s hard to take her seriously when in one week’s time she doesn’t speak out on Iran’s election to a UN Committee to promote women’s rights nor Libya’s ascension to sit and judge human rights violators. One has to ask, how is staying silent “working from within”? And how is doing nothing to stop a human rights violator from getting elected to a human rights committee “shaping the Council”? If working from within means that Rice loses her voice, then America needs a stronger voice at the UN.
bill clinton should be furious with obama’s nobel win – politico.com
bill clinton must be furious with obama’s nobel win
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-grenell/what-peace-did-he-achieve_b_386972.html
What Peace Did He Achieve?
Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Barack Obama have all been given Nobel Peace Prizes. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher have not.
Since 1901, the Nobel Committee has awarded the annual Prize to an entity, group or individual who works for peace in a significant way. Well, technically there have been 19 times that the Committee felt as if no one deserved the Prize and chose not to name a winner. The last time no winner was named was 1972.
Nancy Reagan must surely be disappointed that her husband helped bring Communism to its knees and yet President Reagan didn’t get the Prize, Mikhail Gorbachev did in 1990. Although maybe there is still hope for Reagan since Dag Hammarskjold won the prize in 1961 after he was dead. And Jimmy Carter was first ignored in 1978 after bringing Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat together to forge a peace deal between Egypt and Israel. Begin and Sadat won that year instead and Carter won a make-up award in 2002. Gore didn’t win as a sitting U.S. Vice President – he also got a make-up win later in 2007. Although Charles Dawes was a sitting U.S. Vice President in 1925 when he won for the Allied Reparation Commission.
Although you don’t have to be Mother Teresa to win one (she won in 1979), Bill Clinton still hasn’t been awarded the Prize and I am sure he must be furious. All that work on the Dayton Peace Accords and handshakes on Middle East peace at Camp David weren’t enough to get President Clinton the nod. Although other sitting Presidents have won – Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.
While some people talk about Obama’s win as an award for the HOPE of peace, last week’s escalation of war in Afghanistan with the announcement of an additional 30,000 American troops certainly is awkward timing.
And if the criteria to win the Prize is about HOPE, then why not John Danforth in 2004 for bringing the Northern and Southern Sudanese leaders together to sign an agreement in front of the United Nations Security Council whom he brought to Kenya, Africa in a special session? Or George Mitchell could have been this year’s make-up win, like Carter was, for the plethora of issues he has worked on or is currently working on. At least HOPING for Mitchell is based on past performances.
The United Nations seems to win without the Committee looking at its performance record. And UN Secretary-Generals are a shoe-in to win the Prize just by getting their title. Kofi won in 2001, the UN peacekeepers in 1988, UNHCR in 1981. And although UNICEF hasn’t won since 1965, they are currently led by a Republican so we all understand why they aren’t currently eligible.
The Nobel Prize Committee has damaged its credibility by giving the 2009 Prize to Barack Obama. It should have chosen a make-up award from past credible peace makers or it could have made this the 20th time it hasn’t named a winner.
new UN spokesman named
http://www.newser.com/article/d9c1gfb05/veteran-british-foreign-correspondent-martin-nesirky-appointed-new-un-spokesman.html
let’s hope he is fair and confident. fair enough to not treat conservatives with disdain and confident enough to withstand the elitism of some in the international community.
finally….i am moving on
http://newsmax.com/insidecover/grenell_resigns_un/2008/09/17/131871.html
U.N. Spokesman Richard Grenell Resigns
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
6:14 PM
By: Stewart Stogel
Richard Grenell, the longtime communications director and de facto press secretary for four U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations, tells Newsmax he will conclude his eight-year U.N. term Sept. 29.
Grenell plans to return to his California home to become a senior vice president and communications director at DaVita, a healthcare company based in El Segundo.
But Newsmax also has learned that Grenell is on a short list for consideration as the next State Department spokesman if Sen. John McCain is elected president in November.
Should Grenell return to D.C., he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Jamie Rubin, who also was press spokesman at the U.S./U.N. mission before accompanying his boss, Madeleine K. Albright, to Washington for the second term of the Clinton administration.
Grenell’s resignation comes on the heels of the recent departure of his chief deputy, Ben Chang, who left the U.N. for a White House posting. Next in line for the exit is said to be Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who is expected to soon depart for the private sector.
That would leave Deputy Ambassador Alex Wolff, a career diplomat, to guide the U.S. operation until a new administration takes office in January.
The shifts take place with several high-profile issues confronting the White House, including the Iran nuclear standoff, the Russian invasion of Georgia, and the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
Grenell, one of the longest-serving press spokesmen at the U.S./U.N. mission, had what many consider a thankless job. He came to the U.N. in mid-2001 after stints working for San Diego Mayor Susan Golding and New York Gov. George Pataki.
He was forced to defend the eventually discredited speech on alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003.
He also led a quiet campaign that the Bush administration orchestrated to marginalize former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, whom the State Department considered a Clinton appointee. Annan had stated that Albright was influential in his decision to run for the U.N.’s top post in 1996.
Grenell also worked overtime trying to salvage the doomed nomination of John Bolton to the U.N. post. Eventually, Bolton withdrew his name under intense pressure from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del.
The colorful Grenell, long a fixture at many press gatherings in New York City, insists that his public life is far from over.
“Stay tuned,” the coy official said, with a boyish grin.