Well, this was going to be the deep blue subject of my first ever diary, but
Marjorie Cohn, writing for
truthout.org, beat me to it, and in a more succinct fashion. We've already talked it out. She's detailing my car this weekend. That's her headline, too, by the way, but mine was going to be similar in tone. I haven't figured out how to make those cool quote boxes that everybody uses, but no use fiddling around, while this anti-diplomat approaches confirmation.
The main evidential bit of my argument is in a link at the bottom of the diary, just as it is in her piece. So you're going to have to read the whole damn thing to get to the good part!
[Just as an editorial aside, I was planning to ask all of you to rake my diary over the coals. I promise not to pull a GBCW a la jeremymc, whose melodramatic farewell rantlette has, so far, rung up a whopping 717 of the most hilarious and acid comments I've ever read in these pages. So don't hold back on my account. I have fairly thick hide.]
More...
I went into this research with an admitted bias, as Bolton was a co-signatory of many of the overtly expansionist documents produced by the borderline-psychotic empire builders of the
Project For A New American Century. I readily admit to being of the opinion that just about
anyone picked for
any job by the Venusians who presently occupy our nation's capitol is bound to bracketed by rabid nationalism on the one hand, and messianic and militaristic megalomania on the other hand. Talk about your litmus tests. But this nomination, in particular, has the potential to do heavy damage to one of the few remaining multilateral institutions left on the world stage. For those of us who see cooperation between nations as not only necessary for simple conflict resolution, but also as a prerequisite for the prevention of elective war-making, empire, and genocide, the UN is something of a last hope, really.
Braving the repugnance of Right Web, a review of some of Bolton's past affiliations and government service leaves little doubt as to his political genetics:
- Department of State: Nominated as U.S. Representative to the United Nations (2005)
- Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs (2001-current)
- Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs (1989-1993)
- Department of Justice: Assistant Attorney General (1985-1989)
- U.S. Agency for International Development: Assistant Administrator for Program and Policy Coordination (1982-1983); General Counsel (1981-1982)
- National Policy Forum: President (1995-96)
- Project for the New American Century: Signed four PNAC letters (1998-2000), member of board of directors (1998-2001)
- American Enterprise Institute: Senior Vice President for Public Policy Research (1997-2001)
- Manhattan Institute: Senior Fellow (1993)
- U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom: Commissioner (1999-2001)
- Republican National Committee: Former Executive Director, Committee on Resolutions
- Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs: Former member of Advisory Board (2001)
- Federalist Society: longtime activist
- Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf: Member (1998)
As I am a firm believer in using the wingnuts' own words against them, here are a few of my favorite quotes from the text of his
Right Web profile:
Bolton gained entry to the Reagan administration through strong support from Senator Helms and from New Right strategist Richard Viguerie and his influential Conservative Digest. During Reagan's second term, Bolton began working together with a team of Federalist Society lawyers under Attorney General Edwin Meese. With Federalist Society members and activists in top policy positions,
the Justice Department for the first time came under the ideological influence of the New Right.
In the 1980s he participated in Republican Party efforts to beat back the voter registration campaigns organized by labor and black organizations.
A veteran of Southern electoral campaigns, Bolton appealed to the racism of white voters and reprised his role in the 2000 presidential campaign.
...the Wall Street Journal in July 2002 reported that Bolton's "most memorable moment came after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount, when Mr. Bolton strode into a Tallahassee library, where the count was still going on, and declared: `I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the vote'."
When announcing Bolton's nomination as the new UN ambassador, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Bolton a "tough-minded diplomat" who has a "proven track record of multilateralism." Bolton certainly has a long track record, but not as a multilateralist. Since the 1970s Bolton has aggressively and stridently attacked multilateral institutions and international treaties. At the same time, however, Bolton has been a firm supporter of multilateral entities and coalitions that the U.S. controls--such as NATO, the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq, and the anti-rogue Security Proliferation Initiative led by Bolton.
"The president and I have asked John to do this work because he knows how to get things done," said Rice. A hard-line unilateralist and an aggressive opponent of multilateralism and international treaties, Bolton has served as the Bush administration's designated treaty breaker...fiercely opposing existing and proposed international treaties restricting landmines, child soldiers, biological weapons, nuclear weapons testing, small arms trade, and missile defense.
How staunchly anti-quaint of him.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 1997, Bolton articulated his dismissive view of international treaties.
"Treaties are law only for U.S. domestic purposes," he wrote, "In their international operation, treaties are simply political obligations." In other words, international treaties signed by the United States should not be considered as a body of law that the United States should respect in its international engagement but rather just political considerations
that can be ignored at will.
In law school and throughout his legal and political career, Bolton has gained a reputation as being abrasive, astute, humorless, and relentless in the pursuit of his political agenda.
I bet he runs with scissors, too.
These hideous descriptions (by ardent supporters) of Bolton's predelictions for racism, election tampering, and dismantling the work of the some of the world's great peacemakers, should be enough for any sane person to consider this guy a genuine freak. But then there are his own baldly straightforward public statements regarding the UN.
From Marjorie Cohn's article, but available just about anywhere:
In 1994, Bolton declared, "There is no such thing as the United Nations." He has also said, contemptuously, "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
And this gem:
"There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only power in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and when we can get others to go along."
Now, everyone has seen these quotes, probably. I had seen them all over the place, but they didn't really rise above the usual background level of monstrous absurdity that oozes from Washington these days. For the really scary part of this to make an impact on me, it took the coup de gras of these video clips, of Bolton literally shouting his hatred of all things cooperative, and nearly rising out of his seat to hammer home his disgust with the UN, to get through my over-stimulated numbness.
There is much more about Bolton that would make anyone's hair stand on end, provided that person has a SOUL. What I have presented here just scratches the surface of this person's life, but is already long enough to make me think that this guy is worthy of at least a pamphlet, if not a book.
I hope it was interesting enough to keep you reading.
An' ah figgered out quote boxes after awl.
