Reply #85: Bolton & Wolfowitz: Neocons against international law and institutions

[understandinglife]

U.S. Attacks UN To Undermine International Law, Not Reform International Institutions

June 24, 2005

By Phyllis Bennis

Bolton and Wolfowitz have many things in common: primarily their extremism and commitment to military solutions to solve the world's problems. Both have shown contempt for international law and international institutions. Their appointments have shocked people and governments around the world. But there are significant differences as well.

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It is breathtakingly hypocritical for the U.S. to impose its chosen candidate on the World Bank in this way, particularly since the U.S. has criticized precisely this kind of secretive, closed-door decision-making in developing countries all over the world. There is unease in the global South especially because of what appears to be European acquiescence to the U.S. selection of Wolfowitz, in return for Washington accepting Europe's candidate, the French former EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy, to head the World Trade Organization.

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Bolton's confirmation is being opposed by a wide range of policymakers and other Americans eager to avoid sending to the UN a representative known for his efforts to dismiss intelligence analysts with whom he disagreed, who publicly asserts false claims regarding other countries' alleged weapons, and who believes international law and treaties are not binding on the U.S. And certainly his appointment would send a stark message of contempt and arrogance to the UN and to the international community as a whole. "U.S. Ambassador John Bolton" would arrive at the U.S. Mission to the UN across the street from UN headquarters flush with a mandate from the White House to do whatever he could to destroy the organization.

But the United Nations is made up of 190 other member states. And it is certainly possible that Ambassador Bolton would find it much more difficult to win support for his president's anti-UN positions than would another, perhaps more diplomatic, diplomat. With Ambassador Bolton in New York, it might even be easier for European and other governments to return to stand firm against U.S. unilateralism - and to help the United Nations join the people of the world in doing what its Charter requires: saying no to war.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/1362/1/102/

Peace.

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