← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 17478 | Posts: 13 | Started: 2005-03-23
2005-03-23 16:00 | User Profile
Barnes demostrates on why he is a FOX News "All Star".
WSJ.com OpinionJournal
THE SECOND TERM Bush's Shake-Up-the-World View Wolfowitz, Bolton and Hughes understand it--and share it.
BY FRED BARNES Tuesday, March 22, 2005 12:01 a.m.
When the rumor erupted in the press recently that Carly Fiorina, the deposed CEO of Hewlett-Packard, was being considered for the presidency of the World Bank, it prompted guffaws at the White House. President Bush was not conducting a job search for the World Bank post. There was no short list. He'd selected his nominee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, many weeks before. "There was an early consensus around Paul," a senior White House official said. That means the president knew exactly whom he wanted from the start. By the time the choice of Mr. Wolfowitz was announced last week, European leaders had been consulted and discussions on replacing Mr. Wolfowitz at the Pentagon were well on their way.
Mr. Wolfowitz is controversial, given his role as an early advocate and architect of the Iraq war. But his nomination is also typical of the president. In lesser administration positions--commerce secretary would be one--Mr. Bush is happy to take suggestions and consider people he barely knows or hasn't met at all. But in jobs he views as critical, especially in foreign affairs, he prefers a known quantity, usually a tough, loyal administration veteran with an agenda. His agenda. Two other Bush nominees, John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N. and Karen Hughes as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, are also in the agenda category.
Anyone shocked by the nominations of Messrs. Wolfowitz and Bolton doesn't understand the president's approach to multilateral organizations. The conventional idea is that these organizations are wonderful, though perhaps flawed and infused with too much anti-American sentiment. And the chief task of U.S. representatives is to get along amicably, not buck the system and cause problems. This idea is popular in the press, the State Department bureaucracy and diplomatic circles, and with foreign-policy "experts." But not with Mr. Bush.
The president's idea is simple: No more Mr. Nice Guy. He believes international organizations have failed largely and must be challenged and reformed. He was miffed when outgoing U.N. Ambassador John Danforth rushed to the defense of Kofi Annan in the midst of the Oil for Food scandal. Mr. Annan opposed the war in Iraq and even declared it illegal. More important, he's viewed by Mr. Bush as part of the problem at the U.N.
Assuming Mr. Wolfowitz is confirmed as president by World Bank leaders, he'll bring impressive credentials and strong opinions. He's experienced in Third World development issues, having been ambassador to Indonesia and assistant secretary of state for East Asia. He's also a champion of democracy and free markets as indispensable weapons in the fight to eradicate poverty. What Mr. Bush admires is his fearlessness and willingness to take on the status quo. The president wants results at the World Bank, a senior aide said. Mr. Bush thinks there has been too much stress on process, not enough on results. "Process trumps results" at the World Bank, the aide said. The yardsticks for success are out of whack. The only one that matters, in Mr. Bush's view, is how much poverty has been reduced. "Wolfowitz will bring a sharp focus to results," the aide said. That's his agenda.
Mr. Bolton will bring a sharp focus to corruption, waste and left-wing ideology at the U.N.--precisely the matters the U.N. would rather not dwell on. His supporters insist he'll serve, once confirmed, in the tradition of Ambassadors Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, both sharp critics of the U.N. Mr. Bolton, however, is even more hostile to business-as-usual at the U.N. than they were, is considerably more conservative, and is a tough political operative besides.
He's been aided in forcing his way into a series of key foreign policy jobs by a bevy of prominent backers. The first was James Baker, who urged Colin Powell to hire Mr. Bolton in 2001. But Mr. Powell offered Mr. Bolton marginal posts, which he turned down. That brought another Bolton enthusiast, Sen. Jesse Helms, into the picture. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Helms invited Mr. Powell to his office and pointed on a State Department organizational chart to exactly the job he wanted for Mr. Bolton--undersecretary for arms control and national security affairs. Don't come back until Mr. Bolton gets that job, he told Mr. Powell. Mr. Bolton got it.
With Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, Mr. Bolton sought to become deputy secretary. He didn't get it, but Ms. Rice suggested the U.N. job. Conservatives in Washington lobbied on his behalf. And Mr. Bolton had another influential backer, Dick Cheney. Mr. Bolton has a trait much admired by the president: He doesn't care about being liked. At the U.N., he won't be. That comes with his rock-the-boat agenda.
Ms. Hughes is one of Mr. Bush's most trusted advisers. Her path back to Washington--she was White House communications director in the first two years of his presidency--was paved by two unlikely sources, Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky. Both have met privately with the president. And both noted an anomaly. Where there are close U.S. ties to governments (Saudi Arabia, Egypt), America is unpopular with the people. And where relations are strained or hostile (Iran), America is popular.
In Mr. Bush's first term, State Department efforts at public diplomacy failed miserably. An ad executive proved to be the wrong person for the job. Ms. Hughes's skill is political communications. So she knows she must take a different tack. Rather than market the president or America, her mission is to sell ideas, especially democracy. No doubt this will produce heartburn among governing elites in friendly but autocratic countries. But she'll have all the support she needs in her sales campaign from the only person who matters, Mr. Bush.
The nominations of Messrs. Bolton and Wolfowitz produced shock and awe around the world. Ms. Hughes's didn't. But what's significant is that all three have agendas that reflect the president's own worldview. Or, put more precisely, their agendas stem from Mr. Bush's shake-up-the-world view.
Mr. Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
Copyright é 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
"There was an early consensus around Paul," a senior White House official said. That means the president knew exactly whom he wanted from the start.
No, it means that Dick Cheney knew who he wanted.
The president's idea is simple: No more Mr. Nice Guy. He believes international organizations have failed largely and must be challenged and reformed. He was miffed when outgoing U.N. Ambassador John Danforth rushed to the defense of Kofi Annan in the midst of the Oil for Food scandal. Mr. Annan opposed the war in Iraq and even declared it illegal. More important, he's viewed by Mr. Bush as part of the problem at the U.N.
If the last four years are examples of being nice, then God help us. The only meaningful reform of the UN is to get us out and the UN out of the U.S.
Ms. Hughes is one of Mr. Bush's most trusted advisers. Her path back to Washington--she was White House communications director in the first two years of his presidency--was paved by two unlikely sources, Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky. Both have met privately with the president. And both noted an anomaly. [u]Where there are close U.S. ties to governments (Saudi Arabia, Egypt), America is unpopular with the people. And where relations are strained or hostile (Iran), America is popular.[/u]
Barnes never ceases to amaze me with his ability to only see what he wants to while ignoring the obvious. One, he seems to think that America and the U.S. government policy are one and the same. Two, He can't seem to extend this line of thought to the abusive Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.
2005-03-23 17:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE]The president's idea is simple: No more Mr. Nice Guy. He believes international organizations have failed largely and must be challenged and reformed. He was miffed when outgoing U.N. Ambassador John Danforth rushed to the defense of Kofi Annan in the midst of the Oil for Food scandal. Mr. Annan opposed the war in Iraq and even declared it illegal. More important, he's viewed by Mr. Bush as part of the problem at the U.N.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Mr. Bolton will bring a sharp focus to corruption, waste and left-wing ideology at the U.N.--precisely the matters the U.N. would rather not dwell on.[/QUOTE]
Of course Bush & The Neocons hate everything about the UN and fool many a person to believe that the UN is some kind of 'world communist-leftist' plot to wreck the world, yet the US has no problem shaking UN Resolution sticks against countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc but continually ignore and dismiss again and again any UN Resolutions against Israel.
Don't be fooled. The UN, as an institution of world diplomacy, is a vital part of world stability and postive relations however flawed it might appear in it's current compostion. The US has effectively turned every so called red-blooded American against the institution itself, of diplomacy and fairness in world relations, where Americans believe that only what they and their government says is absolute truth. Welcome John Bolton. This man will be America's arrogant face to the world and drive the UN, as an institution, into further decline and insignificance. The real problem is that the US, as a powerful lapdog of Israel, sees the UN as an "unfair" and "commie" and "weak" institution because the countries of the world have no problem issuing negative resolutions agaisnt the destructive actions committed by the Zionist State. That's all you need to know about why Americans "hate" the UN.
The Oil-for-Food "Scandal" is another jab by the Americans at the institution, further alienating Americans from the UN. (the "scandal" has pretty much fell off the media radar after it became evident that several American corporations were involved in the deals, eg Halliburton)
Who died as a result of a little grease changing hands in facilitating the trading of food for oil??? I think many an Iraqi was fed as a result of the program, right? I mean with US enforcing UN sanctions and all with 500,000 Iraqi children dying in the process, a program of oil-for-food definitely had to help huge numbers of Iraqis eat, no matter if a little kickback money was changing hands. What political action anywhere doesn't involve a little grease? On the other hand, do I even have to remind everyone how many Iraqis the US has slaughtered over the past two years in order to "liberate" them by dropping tons of bombs on their heads?? Where's the scandal?
I know it's sounding like I'm apologizing for the UN. I'm not. I recognize that it, like so many political institutions, gives into the sin of greed and lust for more and more power, but as institution and vehicule of dimplomacy it's a vital check on unipolar and unilateral aggression.....and that's exactly why the US and Israel work to see it's destruction.
2005-03-23 21:06 | User Profile
[quote=xmetalhead]I know it's sounding like I'm apologizing for the UN. I'm not. I recognize that it, like so many political institutions, gives into the sin of greed and lust for more and more power, but as institution and vehicule of dimplomacy it's a vital check on unipolar and unilateral aggression.....and that's exactly why the US and Israel work to see it's destruction.
That's a good point. I always thought they were just hot to eliminate a competing crime cartel.
2005-03-23 23:03 | User Profile
To me the UN was one of the greatest thing in the world but after allowing the Zionist state of Israel to break the rules of the world over and over again (67 times) to me they are now nothing but a paper tiger.
2005-03-25 16:32 | User Profile
The UN is almost as despicable as the US government itself.
Let's not be fooled that Bush & Co. are somehow looking out for American interests. Their anti-UN rhetoric is a mask. What I think is happening here is that the American transnational progressives are trying to substitute one set of global elites (the Neocons) for another set (the UN, the World Bank, etc).
2005-03-25 16:37 | User Profile
Despite their anti-UN statements the Necons really have only one problem with the UN and that is they don't have total control over it. Other than that, the UN is fine with them otherwise they would be demanding we get out.
2005-03-25 18:44 | User Profile
Excellent post, xmetalhead. I believe you're right on the money.
2005-03-25 19:00 | User Profile
[url=http://www.theamericancause.org/patthetrojanhorse.htm]The Trojan Horse of Global Tyranny[/url]
Patrick J. Buchanan
12/14/01
As every schoolchild used to know, the Trojan Horse was the scheme of the "wily Ulysses," one of the Greek warriors besieging Troy. For a decade, the Greeks had failed to capture the great city. In defeat and resignation, they adopted Ulysses' plan.
They would build a great wooden horse and leave it outside the city walls, ostensibly as a tribute to the goddess Minerva. The Greek army would then board ships, sail over the horizon and wait – for the Trojan Horse was hollow, and filled with Greek warriors.
If the Trojans left the horse outside the city, the Greeks would sail home. But if the Trojans wheeled the horse into the city, the warriors within would open the gates and signal their comrades to return and attack. "Beware of the Greeks bearing gifts" said old Laocoon, who urged the Trojans to burn the horse. But the Trojans thought the horse magnificent and wheeled it in. And then began the revels of victory. The rest is history, or marvelous myth.
On receiving his Nobel Prize, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan dulcetly described the Trojan Horse that is to bring about an end of nations. In a speech that The Washington Post's James Hoagland hailed as "subtly subversive," Annan declared: In the 21st century, "the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound, awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every human life. ... This will require us to look beyond the framework of states."
That "new, more profound awareness of the sanctity of human life," of course, does not extend to the unborn – millions of whom are butchered yearly through forced abortions under revolting regimes like China's, the principal beneficiary of U.N. population funds.
"The sovereignty of nations must no longer be used as a shield for gross violations of human rights," said Annan. And if a nation violates human rights, who has the authority to intervene? His answer: We do, the U.N. Yet, there are only two ways this can happen: The U.N. creates its own army or the U.N. conscripts the armies of member states. But what is the only country with military forces capable of global intervention for the U.N. to conscript?
Americans, too, hold that we are endowed by our Creator with "certain inalienable rights" that no government may violate. But in America, those rights are not protected by foreign armies, but by a Constitution that binds rulers – it does not empower them.
The notion of a world government to defend our rights would have sent the founding fathers running for their muskets.
"Today," said Annan, "no walls can separate humanitarian or human-rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another." But this is a formula for endless interventions into the affairs of nations whose practices do not conform to U.N. standards, as agreed upon by a General Assembly made up of regimes that range from the democratic to the dictatorial to the criminal.
The new U.N. role is "eradicating poverty, preventing conflict and promoting democracy," said Annan. But the U.N. has no money to eradicate poverty, other than what we give. And the U.N. cannot promote democracy without more power or prevent conflict without an army. Hoagland's phrase "subtly subversive" is dead on.
Behind every paragraph of Annan's speech lies this assumption: The U.N. must have more authority, more money, more power to create the new world. Yet, such a transfer of power cannot occur without a commensurate cost in American sovereignty and independence. And what reason is there to believe a world government can better bring peace on earth than a world where America is the lone superpower?
"The idea that there is one people in the possession of truth has done untold harm through history," said Annan, "especially in the last century." But that is because communism, Nazism and all the "smelly little orthodoxies" of Orwell's ridicule were rooted in lies. That does not make world government the truth.
As Christians, we believe the Word of God, Christ Himself, is "the Way, the Truth and the Life." Not the U.N.
**The U.N. is not only a Trojan Horse of global government bent upon a diminution of the liberty for which our founding fathers risked their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. It is an idol, a false god, a totem, a golden calf to which modernists burn their incense – another smelly little orthodoxy, just like all the rest.
So, Kofi, my man, congrats on the tin badge in Stockholm, but your big tent of global parasites up there on Turtle Bay is as big a scam as the rest of them, and, down deep, you know it. It's all about power, fella.
Like Laocoon said: Burn that horse!**
2005-03-25 20:52 | User Profile
I am all for keeping the UN out of internal US affairs. But as a moderator for international relations, I think it has some merit.
2005-03-26 00:47 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]I am all for keeping the UN out of internal US affairs. But as a moderator for international relations, I think it has some merit.[/QUOTE]Yes, because as we all know the UN was sooo useful in Biafra, Rwanda, and the Balkans, to name just three examples. :wink:
2005-03-26 03:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE][QUOTE] I know it's sounding like I'm apologizing for the UN. I'm not. I recognize that it, like so many political institutions, gives into the sin of greed and lust for more and more power, but as institution and vehicule of dimplomacy it's a vital check on unipolar and unilateral aggression.....and that's exactly why the US and Israel work to see it's destruction.[/QUOTE]
That's a good point. I always thought they were just hot to eliminate a competing crime cartel.[/QUOTE]
There is no real competition or checking and balancing going on; what there is is synergy between them vis-ÃÂ -vis the ultimate goal of amalgamating all people.
There is also a gross imbalance in their respective potential. Simply put, the UN has none while USrael is only limited by the number of reliable goy legionnaires it can field to perform global policing.
The other key difference is that USrael is already a unified body, acting with clarity of purpose and a very precise idea of who will come to run the whole shebang, while the latter is a mob which only plays at being ââ¬Åunited,ââ¬Â and though its members may be no less ambitious they havenââ¬â¢t the chutzpah or the muscle to pull it off.
So long as it endures the UN will either be used or ignored by men of action. Its composition dictates that by its lonesome it will make no radical moves. (Whatever one may think of the Bolton character, his comment that ââ¬Åfew would notice if the UN building were to loose ten of its floorsââ¬Â was spot on.) Most grasp that itââ¬â¢s just a place to meet people, perhaps advertise your socialist bona fides, and make some money (oil for food, anyone?). If saving Africa or condemning Israel is your mission, then great, but woe to you if you take it too seriously.
Because the UN was founded on good old-fashioned leftist do-gooding -- and one world Shangri-la is always implicit in such projects -- there is, or ought to be, real convergence of interest with the Neocons. The tension, apart from the perennial ââ¬Åwho will have the power,ââ¬Â is over methods used to get there: economic enticements/bribery and feel-good resolutions versus economic enticements/bribery and bombs.
Europeans in the UN support Arabs because they are repulsed by Bushââ¬â¢s methods and because his move has cost them substantial investments in the region. The result has been a permanent re-evaluation of the usefulness of the UN by the more intelligent Europeans. The do-gooders remain but men of action have turned to building up the European Union to counter the USrael block economically.
The age of make believe is coming to a close. The UN will continue to generate headlines for the amusement of the chattering classes, but it cannot fail to hide its impotence. Rich white donor countries are in decline, ergo, poor receiving black countries are also in decline. The yellow donââ¬â¢t care, nor should they for they are on the rise. The grab for the remaining global resources has begun in earnest. Up to know the contest was economic/political. USrael has upped the ante by being the first to employ force.
The appointments, then, are in effect Neocon consolidation of the economic inducement branch of the new world order blending machine. They aim to direct organizations of the UN remnants that actually produce concrete results. There will be no significant operational changes for the World Bank. Like the IMF, it will continue to be the (nation scale) corporate raider that it was from its inception. It is an exquisitely crafted nation killing method.
They set up shop in places in midst of natural or contrived economic difficulties and play the savior. Loans, as the hapless saps always learn too late, have consequences. Business with foreign investors equals wealth leaving the country. Capital and natural resources flow elsewhere while domestic talent pools diminish as foreign owners contract/outsource with non-locals. When interest begins its cursed work en mass, and when enough wealth has been shifted from one group to another, the country will have been delivered to the Internationals. Native politicians, appreciative of new economic realities, become progressive. Behold, democracy takes hold!
The presence of Wolfie will do little to fine-tune this already well oiled machine. What it really means is that more of the blood money will flow to the right people, i.e., more support for the Neocon cause.
Whatââ¬â¢s really amazing here is Bushââ¬â¢s ability to secure these postings, to sell it as a done deal, as if there isnââ¬â¢t any significant opposition. Here I find myself thinking that the ââ¬ÅBush is Hitlerââ¬Â crowd may have a point after all. If there is an aspect to Bushââ¬â¢s character that merits the comparison it is that he is a doer. Others talk and play at being a politician. Bush talks and does what he says. He doesnââ¬â¢t flaunt power, he shows what power is.
Okay, at least someone in that administration knows what they want and makes it happen. These guys donââ¬â¢t dick around.
2005-03-26 13:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Excellent post, xmetalhead. I believe you're right on the money.[/QUOTE]
Thank you.
2005-03-27 19:55 | User Profile
Sorry about posting this here but I am pissed off and didn't know where to put it.
The Zionist state of Isral wants 500 million of US tax payers money in order to "disengage" from Palestinian occupied lands.
By "disengage" the Jews are talking about tearing down all the houses in the settlements that you and I paid to put up in the first place.
This 500 millions dollars is not part of the billions of dollars that they want from us in order for the settlers to move out of occupied land.
And we know that they will want more billions for their Jewish new houses and on top of that I know (at least I hope so) that we will give some money to the Palestinian people in order for them to build new houses..... houses that the Jews took down to start with.
Meanwhile our own people here in the US are sleeping in the streets and our vets are going down the road to hell because medical services are being cut down.
For how long will the American people take this crap from the Khazar Zionist Israelis?