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Bolton-Loyalist Jeffrey Gedmin Joining America's UN Mission
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Friday, Sep 30 2005, 8:30AM
President Bush stands by those loyal to him -- as he did with John Bolton, who was precisely the wrong person to send as America's Ambassador to the U.N.
Now John Bolton is reportedly gathering a new group of staffers loyal specifically to him.
News has just reached TWN that Aspen Institute Berlin Director Jeffrey Gedmin, who worked at the American Enterprise Institute with Bolton and who directed AEI's New Atlantic Initiative, will be joining Bolton as one of his senior staff at the mission.
Jeff Gedmin is a self-described Bolton loyalist and penned his job application and writing sample for Bolton, "Mein Freund Bolton," in March of this year.
Gedmin's piece is an early preemptive attack on those who would question the appropriateness of Bolton for the key U.N. Ambassadorship and help make Bolton's style of pugnacious nationalism that has so harmed U.S. interests in the last few years seem legitimate for an American envoy.
Another article that probably underscores why Bolton wants Gedmin so badly -- and why we should all be concerned is Plan B for Iran which ran in the Weekly Standard -- and which was aptly critiqued by Jim Lobe here. Many observers believe that beyond George Bush's blind loyalty to those who blindly serve as his spear-carriers, the only logical reason to have Bolton at the U.N. is to have him there to knock heads and rip up the U.N. if it fails to heed American will regarding Iran and its nuclear program.
Iran's pretensions are a clear issue of concern -- but the "bomb them now and get it over" attitude is not going to further American interests and probably is a sure-fire path assuring Iranian commitment to a fully-deployed nuclear weapons program coupled with a pissed-off and isolated Iran.
I have maintained a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Gedmin through the years and think that the Aspen Institute Berlin's decision to hire Gedmin in Germany gave Germans a much closer feel to the thinking and motivations that ran through neoconservative circles. This was better for Germans than hiring someone who just reaffirmed dominant German biases. However, even good acquaintances have disagreements -- and John Bolton is a big one.
While I wish Gedmin well in the U.S. mission, I am alarmed that Bolton is bringing people to his side that bolster the neocon element both in the State Department and who reinforce Bolton's long-term agenda of using his perch as a rival voice on U.S. foreign policy to Rice and Zoellick -- and to make sure that the Bolton/Cheney wing of the Republican foreign policy establishment continues strong.
I should hasten to add that the State Department will not confirm or deny the news on Gedmin. What TWN has received is still in the form of doubly confirmed rumor.
That means the deal could still fall apart I suppose -- but given that there are some inside the U.S. mission complaining about Bolton's micro-management and tough bravado vis-a-vis the civil servant staff, there may be tensions brewing -- and Bolton may be bringing his own loyalists to keep order and to "compel" those bureaucrats under his control to do "exactly what he wants."
Well, we saw how well that went in his last job. . .Bolton's immediate staff as well as the rest of the world (represented at the U.N.) need to watch out.
Leakers -- you know what to do.
More soon.
-- Steve Clemons
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Steve,
Have you seen this? (I assume you are following this):
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/
Seems like Fitzgerald may have Bolton in the cross-hairs.
OOOOOh, mc, you made my day and I'm guilty of some schadenfreud or whatever the word is for taking pleasure in someone's impending come uppance. I apologize, I should feel merciful, but I can't quite manage it just yet. It's going to take inner work on this one. I was starting to feel disappointed that Miller's leaker was reportedly Libby.
The next big event at the U.N. will be at the Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, where NGO's will be raising the U.S's abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, etc. It will be interesting to see who on the U.S. Mission will be attending the conference, an underling, or the BMOC himself. Usually, Uncle Slam doesn't send the top dog unless they are feeling unduly defensive, which I think Abu Grhaib and Gitmo will do. There'll be some major arm-twisitng and procedural shenannigans going on, to be sure.
Traditional Hopi Elders placed their last hope for the world's indigneous peoples in the United Nations. They were given a prophecy for the world, handed down through oral teachings through the centuries. Their prophecy was delivered on September 30, 1985 at the UN in New York. A video documentary can be obtained through the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service Program Director or a copy of the text:
AN ANCIENT HOPI MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF MICA
UN Document EC/CN.4/Sub.2/1988/NGO/24
Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on Prevention of Dsicrimination and Protection of Minorities, 40th Session, Agenda Item 12.
Please do all you can to stop John Bolton from destroying the UN.
Kathleen -- can you synopsis and just provide the Hopi prophecy for us?
...are there any free-thinking, secular, humanistic think tanks that would pay me to work, research or write for them? There seem to be plenty of institutes on the "right" and "far-too-right."
Me, I just seethe in my middle-of-the-road moderate, stick-in-the-muddedness....
"Leakers" i.e. State Dept staffers.
"... only logical reason to have Bolton at the U.N. is to have him there to knock heads and rip up the U.N. if it fails to heed American will regarding Iran and its nuclear program." ===> Sounds like a good idea to me.
steve, you list that he was @ aei, but why not pnac ??
that's some big fucking shit, and you leave it out, why ??
Jim, stick with "belligerent." Pugnacious can sound disarmingly scrappy, like a loyal pet. Whilst that sounds like a put down, it can take on , judo-like, a sentimental quality.
A German saying goes, wer einen Teich trockenlegen darf vorher nicht die Frösche fragen. - That is, he who has to dry up a swamp must not ask the frogs.
That pretty much sums up the political requirements to the ambassador of the major Western power to the United Nations of the year 2005. Mr. Bolton does have precisely that qualification, that's why the frogs are quacking at him so much. And Mr. Gedmin has lived long enough within the range of Iranian missiles to understand why this is important.
"Plan B for Iran?"
Here is - the latest plan for Iran
The United States and its allies must act to stop Iran's nuclear programs -- by force if necessary -- because conventional diplomacy will not work, three senior Israeli lawmakers from across the political spectrum warned yesterday.
As a last resort, they said, Israel itself would act unilaterally to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms.
Iran will not be deterred "by anything short of a threat of force," said Arieh Eldad, a member of Israel's right-wing National Union Party, part of a delegation of Knesset members visiting Washington this week.
Very briefly,
Hopi believe that the pure in heart survived the flood which destroyed the last world, the 3rd. They emerged into the 4th world by climbing up a reed and estasblished Oraibi, the oldest contuinously inhabited village on the North American continent.
Hopi say that Creator was waiting for them and instructed them to migrate to the farthest corners of the land to bless it and create shrines and then to return to their mother village, Oraibi. They were instructed to live simple lives, with only a loin cloth, their planting stick, seeds and a jug of water. They were instructed never to use the riches of mother earth to harm others and never to take without returning.
They were told by Great Spirit that certain people had been placed on each of the continents to maintian this simple lifestyle and that if any of them vanished or otherwise was prevented from maintaining their way of life, it would create an imbalance between man and nature and would trigger Purification Day, the destruction of the 4th world.
They were told that one day another race of man would arrive at their door and try to change their way of life, which they were instructed to resist to preserve the balance of the world.
Hopi were told that a House of Mica would arise on the eastern shores of the land where leaders of the world would gather to solve the problems of the world. They were instructed to find a pathway into the House of Mica to warn the world of the need to maintain balance between man and nature. They were told only to try 4 times and if they did not succeed, to throw the matter behind them, in the direction of the setting sun.
They were told that if they succeeded but no one listened, it would be the same as not delivering their message, but if one or two ears hear, that would be good. They were told that one day a true white brother would arrive to help them restore balance.
Most of the prohecy deals with the US efforts to destroy their culture, something which happens around the planet to indigenous peoples. We succeeded in delivering the Hopi prophecy, officially, on September 30, 1985, their 4th attempt. I arranged their appointment and took them there.
On subsequent trips to the UN Commission for Human Rights, we succeeded in getting the UN to appoint two human rights experts to come to Washington, D.C. and Arizona to report on the US forced relocation of 10,000 Hopi and Navajo. It was the first time in US-UN history that any human rights expert had ever been appointed to come to the US. The relocation was stopped, at least for the rest of the lives of the elders. Not sastisfactory to the younger generations, but all we could manage.
One other result of Hopi warnings to the UN was the formation of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. But, with John Bolton at the helm, feeling it is the right of the US to take whatever natural resources we want from wherever, it won't take long for any progress in the protection of indigenous people to be destroyed.
As I watch the news and read about extraordinary renditions, forced detentions, torture, it does not surprise me one bit. The US has routinely kidnapped Native American children, shipped them to BIA schools far away from home, where they were tortured for speaking their own language. Parents who refused to give up their children were sent to Alcatraz for 10 years. To prevent parents from hiding their children, family dogs were shot and children running away had their shins broken. Children whose parents had not given them up voluntarilly were never allowed to go home for vacations and many died of lonliness. Native American children have the highest suicide rate of any group in the world.
Hopi still speak their own language and practice their own religion, which means literally praying for rain in the desert, but the elders are dying, just as those who can teach original ways are dying all over the planet.
Watching the farce of Constitution drafting in Iraq is familiar too. The US did the same to our native people. We wanted their land and their natural resources, so we assigned tribes lawyers, killed those who resisted, bribed a few to accept a sample Constitution, and then sign the mineral leases. Those who accepted money were considered the "real" leaders of the tribe.
Sound familiar? It's what we're doing in Iraq. With Hopi it was coal, mined by Peabody Coal Co. one of John McCain's #1 contributors. McCain was a prime mover in the legislation that called for the forced relocation. In Iraq it's oil and look at Chalabi. Wasn't he taking money to tell it like Uncle Slam wanted to hear it and isn't he in charge of Iraq's oil ministry?
Bolton is a danger to the whole world. We must stop him, somehow.
Kathleen -- Thank you.
Where is Fred Fleitz working now' is he back at the CIA full-time? How about Mitchell Freedman? Steve, do you know, or can you find out? Readers...
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