There's a wild party going on down in New York City tonight, and you're footing the bill.
The United Nations, including its various "peacekeeping" and "anti-poverty" agencies spend upwards of $27 billion per year. I do not think that peace has broken out in the world since 1945; quite the contrary. We get treated to the spectacle of leaders from around the world coming in and making grand and not-so-grand speeches. Huge amounts of money pour in from U.S., Japanese, British and Canadian taxpayers for what purpose?; to listen to Ahmenejad's diatribes.
If non-Western dictators hate us, let them rant elsewhere, and at their own (not mine or their peoples') expense.
The party must be grand; they've shut down the FDR and lots of other roads for it. Someone's having a good time. And politicians (excerps below, including such luminaries as Obama and Ahmejenejad) bloviate.
Obama Makes Gains at U.N. on Iran and Proliferation (link)
Published: September 23, 2009
UNITED NATIONS — President Obama, in his first visit to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, made progress Wednesday on two key issues, wringing a concession from Russia to consider tough new sanctions against Iran and securing support from Moscow and Beijing for a Security Council resolution to curb nuclear weapons.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
UNITED NATIONS — President Obama, in his first visit to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, made progress Wednesday on two key issues, wringing a concession from Russia to consider tough new sanctions against Iran and securing support from Moscow and Beijing for a Security Council resolution to curb nuclear weapons.
The successes came as Mr. Obama told leaders that the United States intended to begin a new era of engagement with the world, in a sweeping address to the General Assembly in which he sought to clearly delineate differences between himself and the administration of President George W. Bush.
One of the fruits of those differences — although White House officials were loath to acknowledge any quid pro quo publicly — emerged during Mr. Obama’s meeting on Wednesday afternoon with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, the first between the two since Mr. Obama decided to replace Mr. Bush’s missile defense program in Eastern Europe with a version less threatening to Moscow.
With a beaming Mr. Obama standing next to him, Mr. Medvedev signaled for the first time that Russia would be amenable to longstanding American requests to toughen sanctions against Iran significantly if, as expected, nuclear talks scheduled for next month failed to make progress.
"I told His Excellency Mr. President that we believe we need to help Iran to take a right decision," Mr. Medvedev said, adding that "sanctions rarely lead to productive results, but in some cases, sanctions are inevitable."
White House officials could barely hide their glee. "I couldn’t have said it any better myself," a delighted Michael McFaul, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser for democracy and Russia, told reporters after the meeting. He insisted nonetheless that the administration had not tried to buy Russia’s cooperation with its decision to scrap the missile shield in Europe in favor of a reconfigured system.
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The circus continues in another ring, with a thug proclaiming his "re-election" as "glorious and fully democratic."
President of Iran Defends His Legitimacy
By MARK LANDLER and NAZILA FATHI
Published: September 23, 2009
UNITED NATIONS — With thousands of demonstrators protesting outside that he had stolen Iran’s election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stoutly defended his legitimacy here on Wednesday, declaring in a speech that the Iranian "people entrusted me once more with a large majority" in a ballot he described as "glorious and fully democratic."
In a 35-minute address, Mr. Ahmadinejad leveled familiar attacks against the United States and delivered an oblique rant against Jews, saying it was unacceptable for a "small minority" to dominate the politics and economy of much of the world through "private networks." But he did not raise the Holocaust, the subject of another anti-Semitic theme he has used in speeches.