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September 09, 2009
Obama to Seal US-UN Relationship
Obama to seal US-UN relationship
By Harvey Morris at the United Nations
Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council.
The topic for the summit-level session of the council on September 24 is nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament – one of several global challenges that the US now wants to see addressed at a multinational level.
“The council has a very important role to play in preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and it’s the world’s principal body for dealing with global security cooperation,” Susan Rice, US envoy to the UN, said last week.
Her remarks were the latest by the Obama administration to emphasise a shift from the strategy of the previous Bush administration, sometimes criticised by its UN partners for seeking to use the world body principally to endorse its own unilateral policies.
The US currently holds the month-long rotating presidency of the Security Council.
Mr Obama will join other heads of government in New York during the week of the nuclear summit for the opening of the 64th session of the UN General Assembly. The annual meeting of world leaders is this year raising expectations on a number of fronts.
UN officials hope a climate change debate on September 22 will give fresh impetus to the search for a global climate deal at Copenhagen in December. There are also hopes a possible meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, that Mr Obama would host, could lead to a breakthrough about a timetable for Middle East peace.
Heads of state are also likely to consider how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Mr Obama gave Tehran a September deadline to reply to his offer of negotiations. Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad will attend the General Assembly “to encourage Iranian views in managing the world,” an aide said.
US officials are concerned Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi might try to steal the limelight during his first visit to New York. A public outcry at the Libyan leader’s visit after he last month welcomed home Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the freed Lockerbie bomber, has already stymied his plans to pitch his tent in Central Park.
“How President Gaddafi chooses to comport himself, when he attends the General Assembly and the Security Council in New York, has the potential either to further aggravate those feelings and emotions or not,” Ms Rice said.
The State Department has not ruled out the possibility that Mr Obama and Colonel Gaddafi would cross paths. They are both due to address the General Assembly on the same day, and the Libyan leader, whose country is a temporary member of the Security Council, is entitled to attend the nuclear summit session that Mr Obama will chair.
Obama’s UN Gambit: King of the Universe and the Polls
He’ll chair a Security Council meeting — and pander to rogue states.
By Anne Bayefsky
Looking for a quick and easy boost in the polls, President Obama has decided to go to the one place where merit bears no relationship to adulation: the United Nations. On September 24, the president will take the unprecedented step of presiding over a meeting of the UN Security Council.
No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN’s highest body.
But Obama apparently believes that being flanked by council-member heads of state like Col. Moammar Qaddafi — who is expected to be seated five seats to Obama’s right — will cast a sufficiently blinding spell on the American taxpayer that the perilous state of the nation’s economy, the health-care fiasco, and a summer of “post-racial” scapegoating will pale by comparison.
After all, who among us is not for world peace?
Unfortunately, however, the move represents one of the most dangerous diplomatic ploys this country has ever seen. The president didn’t just decide to chair a rare council summit; he also set the September 24 agenda — as is the prerogative of the state holding the gavel for the month.
His choice, in the words of American UN Ambassador Susan Rice, speaking on September 2 at her first press briefing since the United States assumed the council presidency, is this: “The session will be focused on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly, and not on any specific countries.”
This seemingly innocuous language has two profoundly disturbing features. First, UN documents indicate that the Security Council is currently dealing with over 100 issues. While “non-proliferation” is mentioned, “disarmament” is not. Similarly, a UN Secretariat compilation “forecasting the Council’s program of work” for the month of September — based on prior activities and requests — lists non-proliferation specifically in relation to Iran and North Korea and does not list disarmament. But in light of Obama’s wishes, a tailor-made subheading will likely be adopted under the existing entry “maintenance of international peace and security.” The new item will insist on simultaneous consideration of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament and make no mention of particular states.
This is no trivial technicality. The linguistic formula, which Obama’s confrere Qaddafi will undoubtedly exploit, shamelessly panders to Arab and Muslim states. It is a familiar recipe for stonewalling efforts to prevent Iran or other Muslim and Arab states from acquiring nuclear weapons until Israel is disarmed or Israel’s (unofficial) nuclear capacity is exposed and neutralized. It is also a frequent tool of those whose real goal is to stymie America’s defenses.
Second, Obama’s agenda preference indicates that he is dead-set against chairing a session on the non-proliferation issues already on the council’s plate — those that name Iran and North Korea. This stretches his “beer summit” technique to the global scale. Naming names, or identifying the actual threats to world peace, would evidently interfere with the spectacle of proclaiming affection for world peace in the abstract. The problem is that this feel-good experience will feel best of all to Iran, which has interpreted Obama’s penchant for form over substance to be a critical weakness. As a Tehran newspaper close to the regime snickered in July: “Their strategy consists of begging us to talk with them.”
At Ambassador Rice’s news briefing, she gave “an overview of the principal important meetings” to be held in September on her watch. After finishing the list of subjects without mentioning Iran or North Korea, she added: “So those are the highlights. We also have . . . three sanctions regimes that are up for regular review, chaired by the heads of the sanctions committees. We have Sudan, Iran and North Korea, and these are, I expect, likely to be uneventful and routine considerations of these various regimes.”
Even hard-boiled UN correspondents were surprised. Rice was asked to explain how the recent capture by the United Arab Emirates of containers of ammunition en route to Iran from North Korea could be construed as “uneventful and routine.” Her answer highlights the administration’s delinquency: “We are simply receiving . . . a regularly scheduled update. . . . This is not an opportunity to review or revisit the nature of either of those regimes.”
A brutalized Iranian population, yearning for democracy, has repeatedly been met by nothing but sad faces from this administration. An Iranian president installed by treachery has been legitimized by American recognition of his government, a decision that has sidelined other eminently justifiable alternatives. The leaders of this state sponsor of terrorism aim to annihilate the Jewish state and are on the verge of acquiring the means to do so. But instead of making the isolation and delegitimation of Iran the top priority for America’s turn at the council presidency, the Obama administration has taken Iran off the table at precisely the time when top decision-makers will be present.
The administration’s zeal for the front-page photo-op on September 25’s New York Times has now become a scramble to manufacture an “outcome” for the session. The president’s idea for a glorious finish was described by Ambassador Rice as some kind of joint statement declaring in part “that we are united in support for effective steps to ensure nuclear nonproliferation.”
Such a result would be breathtaking — for the audacity of claiming exactly the opposite of what it really represents. Even allied council members France and the United Kingdom are reported to be very unhappy with Obama’s no-names strategy for his September rollout.
Far from bolstering his flagging image, the president’s group-hug theory of diplomacy deserves the disdain of anyone who can separate rhetoric from reality.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
My GOD. I am starting to feel like a passenger on the bus to hell. We should rush the “bus driver from Hell” and take back our country. Remember our forefathers, our country’s patriots, and who we are and what we stand for. Let’s say our prayers, and then “let’s roll!”
Obama in the Alger Hiss memorial chair....how appropriate. Just what he needs is more evidence that he has been elected King of the Universe. By the time Obama is done, we will be completely defenseless.
If this man isn’t the antichrist he’s one hell of an understudy.
Obama can't do one job right how’s he going to do two?
From the US Constitution, Article the First, Section 9:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.
Makes you think of blue helmets/turbans.
Agenda 21....coming to a former republic near you
That agricultural program,
The East African initiative coming up....
Iran nukes....
The population agenda....
LOST....
Kyoto....
New currency....
God save the United States of America.
....Thank you Jim for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at September 9, 2009 06:54 AM
Comments
I don't really think he's the Antichrist. I think he's the black horse rider of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine for everybody! (and famine doesn't just mean foodwise). He's taking every right away (now you can't eat snacky foods because of being taxed, you can't smoke, gas is taxed, etc.). Unemployment at an all time high and salaries aren't keeping up with the cost of living.
He has no business presiding over the council. He obviously has no idea what he's doing and to meld us with the UN is suicide. We truly are on the "Highway to Hell." (Thank you AC/DC!) and our he's put our "Balls to the Wall." (Anthrax). He wants to make sure we can NEVER escape his tyranny.
Posted by: Lynn at September 9, 2009 08:24 AM
Do you suppose that the 52 point something percent of American voters are realizing now that they bought "a pig in a poke", and are finding out that the "poke" was filled with Pigshit instead?
We are so screwed!
God save the USA
nuf sed
Posted by: Frankly Opinionated at September 9, 2009 10:25 AM
Maybe my wife was right. UN troops herding us into the camps. Maybe we need to look for a directive from the UN to it's member states that their armies need to know how to say "Get on the f***in' bus!" in english and spanish. It's a scary time we live in. Bush may have been incrementally coaxing us towards NWO. Obama has us on a hi-speed rail to that destination.
Posted by: Jim at September 9, 2009 12:15 PM
obama will get a momentary taste of ruling the world while presiding over the UN Security Council. His choice of agenda is scary. There is no telling what kind of deals he will sign on to, or thinks he is signing onto. This will give obama the chance to really stab America in the back as he tries to destroy the Republic he hates.
Posted by: TomR at September 9, 2009 12:32 PM
Will BHO (THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT) use this as an opportunity to cram regulations down our throat using the power of the UN and without restraint from the US Constitution ? Do we look forward to Ban Ki Moon accompanied by barefoot troops from Sub-Saharan Africa pounding on our front doors because we did not separate our trash correctly or we failed to use the correct light bulbs? Or seriously,how soon will we be under the jurisdiction of the World Court? BHO (FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT) loves to allow others to be the "heavies" when oppressive and extracontitutional measures are in order. G*d help us all!!
Posted by: willy at September 9, 2009 02:52 PM
UN means UNecessary!
Posted by: darthcrUSAderworldtour07 at September 9, 2009 05:24 PM
He is not our 1st "Black" President, remember, his mom was white. So I guess he is our first "Half Breed" President.
Posted by: dave 18Zulu at September 9, 2009 07:07 PM
Hey Jim at least experience has shown that UN troops are nothing more than paper tigers and don't do anything except be there. Yes this is scary. Perhaps he will stick to f%$k*&g up the UN and leave us alone.
Posted by: Bob A at September 9, 2009 08:00 PM
Lynn, yesss that one fits him much better.
"the black horse rider of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse"
Thank you everyone so much, this Obama scsres me so much.
Posted by: Wild Thing at September 9, 2009 08:20 PM
