Bolton Admonishes U.N.; U.S. Could Bypass World Body if Reform Fails, He Says

This will get our lefty friends worked up into a lather. Further proof that Bush is a "divider, not a uniter", more of the same "Texas cowboy - we go it alone - swagger", well you know the usual diatribe.

From The Washington Post:

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 22 -- John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, warned Tuesday that the United States might bypass the United Nations to solve some of the world's pressing problems if the organization is unable to make management changes that will make it more effective and prevent a recurrence of corruption.

My opinion is that I don't think it is possible...... that the UN is not capable of making "management" changes to make it more effective. A system of tin-pot dictators banding together and forming an alliance, to make them more effective and powerful than they are capable of being on their own, advancing their less-than-honorable causes, most often in direct conflict with what's in the best interest of the US of A, is not and will not be interested remotely in "changing for the better." "We must stop 'The Big Satan' " is a cause that most of them can rally around.

Bolton's remarks come as the Bush administration is encountering stiff resistance from poor countries to United States-backed initiatives aimed at streamlining the United Nations' management practices. The influential Group of 77 developing nations recently issued a letter sharply criticizing plans by Secretary General Kofi Annan to establish an ethics office and to review General Assembly-created programs that are more than five years old to determine whether they should be shut down.

Why would the poor nations object to the UN "streamlining" its' management practices? Why would the "influential" Group of 77 developing nations be opposed to establishing an ethics office? Can you think of any reason .....no strike that.... any noble reason that they would object to an ethics office? Surely one can see that ethics has been lacking at the UN with the Food for Oil Scandal, which theMSM in large part has been disinterested; and let's not forget the World Bank scandal.

Post-Libby indictment, the Bush administration has been laughed at for having ethics classes mandatory for its employees. Will the UN receive, from the left, the same ridicule for implementing an ethics office? Don't hold your breath. But philosophically, why should an ethics office be needed at the UN? If this is an institution of the world, and for the good of the world, why would the policies for any one nation be so separate... so dissimilar from those of the "global community"? You wouldn't think that ethics would play a very large role. But the fact they do, tell us something. Some of the UN administrators, and many of the tin-pot dictators, goals are not in convergence with that of their county's or that of the global community. They're personal.

The fact that the Bush administration has not been able to "parlay" (as the WP wants to call it, even though I don't see it as a game/wager/bet) the findings of the Volcker report is proof enough that 1) ethics are sorely lacking at the UN, and 2) there is little interest in changing the unethical climate that exists as demonstrated by the mere fact the American administration has to even try to make the case, as if the fact that it did happen isn't incentive enough.

Nope. Radical positive changes? Don't see it happening. I am not sold anymore on the idea that some some big global institution can serve any useful purpose. Ethics or no ethics.