The Deputy Secretary General under Kofi Annan made a speech yesterday where he insulted the American people:
Secretary General Kofi Annan’s deputy assailed the United States on Tuesday for withholding support from the United Nations, encouraging its harshest detractors and undermining an institution that he said Washington needed more than it would admit.
In a highly unusual instance of a United Nations official singling out an individual country for criticism, Mr. Malloch Brown said that although the United States was constructively engaged with the United Nations in many areas, the American public was shielded from knowledge of that by Washington’s tolerance of what he called “too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping.”
“Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News,” he said.
What an insulting speech. To say that middle America can't understand how corrupt and useless the UN is without the likes of FOX news and Rush is a pathetic attempt at bashing the US.
Americans are smart enough to know that Annan, his relatives, and employees have been pillaging the people that the United Nations is supposed to help.
Lets look at a few of the acts middle America is "shielded" from:
- Oil For Food
- Child Sex In Africa
- Anti-Semitism In UN Resolutions
- Somalia
- Rwanda
- Darfur
- Failure to Hold Saddam accountable
- Dictators on the Human Rights commissions
They are unaccountable to ANYONE but now want to stifle criticism by shutting up Rush and FOX. Pathetic.
John Bolton agrees:
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – US Ambassador John Bolton strongly rebuked remarks by a senior UN official criticizing Washington’s stance on key UN issues, demanding that they be repudiated to avoid doing serious damage to the world body. …
In a furious reaction, Bolton called the speech by UN chief Kofi Annan’s deputy a “very grave mistake.”
“We are in the process of an enormous effort to achieve substantial reform at the United Nations,” he said. “To have the deputy secretary general criticize the United States in such a manner can only do great harm to the United nations.
”Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations,“ he added. ”Even worse was the condescending and patronizing tone about the American people. This was a criticism of the American people not the American government by an international civil servant.“
The US envoy to the UN said the only way ”to mitigate the damage to the United Nations“ was for Annan to ”personally and publicly repudiate this speech at the earliest possible opportunity.“
”Otherwise I fear the consequences not just for the reform effort but for the organization," he added.
Alito, Roberts and Bolton….thank god for Bush.
UPDATE
Surprise surprise, Mr. Annan backs his deputy:
After a difficult press briefing in which Kofi Annan's spokesman said the secretary-general supported the thrust of the speech and stood by his deputy, Mr Malloch Brown himself spoke to journalists.
He said the UN was slipping towards a budget crisis and he had been appealing for engagement from Americans.
"Engage here, engage consistently and go out and engage with the American public to say the UN matters, and for the life of me, I can't understand how that can be construed as an anti-American speech," he responded.
Americans are smart enough to know that Annan, his relatives, and employees have been pillaging the people that the United Nations is supposed to help.
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