Official of U.N. Says Americans Undermine It With Criticism (Faux/Rush)

[norml]

Official of U.N. Says Americans Undermine It With Criticism

By WARREN HOGE
Published: June 7, 2006

UNITED NATIONS, June 6 — Secretary General Kofi Annan's deputy assailed the United States on Tuesday for withholding support from the United Nations, encouraging its harshest detractors and undermining an institution that he said Washington needed more than it would admit.

"The prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable," said the deputy, Mark Malloch Brown. "You will lose the U.N. one way or another."

In a highly unusual instance of a United Nations official singling out an individual country for criticism, Mr. Malloch Brown said that although the United States was constructively engaged with the United Nations in many areas, the American public was shielded from knowledge of that by Washington's tolerance of what he called "too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping."

"Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News," he said.

Richard A. Grenell, the spokesman for John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said Mr. Bolton had not had time to read the speech to react to it fully on Tuesday evening. "Mr. Malloch Brown did not extend to us the courtesy of a copy of the speech," Mr. Grenell said. "We need to read it and will certainly have to respond."


snip


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/world/americas/07nations.html

[Spazito]

1. Good, it is about time the UN starts to speak out about this, imo

I wish they would specifically name Bolton instead of dancing around it.

[norml]

3. US infuriated by UN official's speech

US infuriated by UN official's speech
No. 2 at United Nations criticizes US

The Associated Press (apwire)

Published 2006-06-08 00:06 (KST)

The United States demanded Wednesday that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan repudiate a speech in which his No. 2 official broke with tradition and accused the United States of undermining the United Nations.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton called the speech by Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown a "very, very grave mistake" that could undermine Annan's own efforts to push through an ambitious agenda of reform at the world body.

"I spoke to the secretary-general this morning. I said 'I've known you since 1989 and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen in that entire time,'" Bolton told reporters.

snip

In the speech, delivered Tuesday, Malloch Brown said that the United States relies on the United Nations as a diplomatic tool but does not defend it before critics at home, a policy he called unsustainable.

He lamented that that the good works of the U.N. are largely lost because "much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News." The speech was delivered at a daylong conference sponsored by two think tanks, the Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation.


snip


http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?no=297246&rel_no=1

[Spazito]

4. LOL, I think just about any DUer could have written what Bolton would

say, threats, threats and more threats which are becoming emptier and emptier every day.

[joefree1]

2. "Why do you hate the world?"

My question to repukes. Unfortunately a lot of these bitter folk have no problem hating the world and anyone who isn't a right wing merican.

The earth, love it or leave it.

[uppityperson]

5. good for Annan. Good for him.

[rodeodance]

6. speaking the truth!