Viva Bolton, Or Should We Just Bolt?

In today's Washington Times Frank Gaffney invokes images of the cavalry riding to the rescue at Turtle Bay with John Bolton leading the charge:

It turns out that, during the months Mr. Bolton was being denied a Senate confirmation vote as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Kofi Annan's folks and those from other countries who tend to dominate U.N. deliberations (generally, undemocratic and unfriendly sorts) were organizing what might be described as a surprise party for President Bush. The idea was, when he turned up for a special summit meeting from September 14-16, to oblige him to sign on to the most far-reaching - and outrageous - U.N. agenda in years. He wouldn't be able to refuse at the last minute, lest he reinforce the rap that he is a "unilateralist cowboy."

Since when? Don't they know George W. Bush by now? Why would he suddenly bow & curtsey to them when he's been bypassing them as functionally irrelevant for the past four and half years?

Sorry, reflex digression....

That agenda is laid out in a 40-page paper dated August 5 with the self-important title "Draft Outcome Document of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly of September 2005." It reads like a wish-list assembled by advocates of world-government and foes of American sovereignty and power.

For example, the Outcome Document would have us believe that the United Nations has a critical role to play in all world affairs. Reforms it envisions for the institution are largely cosmetic, not the far-reaching, systemic and ongoing ones so clearly required. Support is also given to what amounts to an evolving permanent U.N. army.

Were President Bush to sign on to this document, he would commit the United States to "meeting all commitments and obligations under the Kyoto Protocol." Last time I checked, that was something he has strongly and repeatedly refused to do.

Then there are the disarmament provisions. Signatories would agree to "maintain a moratorium on nuclear test explosions pending the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and call upon all States to sign and ratify" that treaty - something a majority of the United States Senate refused to do a few years back, judging the treaty to be inconsistent with America's national security interests.

They would also authorize "the commencement, without delay, of negotiations on . . . effective measures for the prevention of an arms race in outer space." Successive U.S. administrations of both parties have opposed such negotiations as incompatible with our need to have assured access to and control of space.

Most egregious of all, perhaps, is the bold grab the Draft Outcome Document makes for "globotaxes" - the authority to raise revenues for U.N. functions by levying taxes on various international transactions. Obviously aware of the radioactive nature of such an idea with most tax-averse Americans, the drafters have come up with a variety of euphemisms to obscure what they are about: "innovative and additional sources of financing for development on a public, private, domestic or external basis;" "solidarity contributions on plane tickets to finance development projects;" and "other solidarity contributions that would be nationally applied and internationally coordinated."

The UNuchs wouldn't have bulldozed Dubya into signing off on any of this nonsense. But they would have used what Mr. Gaffney coins this "AmBush" to score propaganda points and give the White House more public relations headaches, something of which they definitely have no need these days.

Gaffney adds, accurately as far as it goes, that, "If ever there were proof that President Bush was right to insist on having a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who represented him and the American people, this document is it." I would take that take a step or two further, though: If ever there were proof that the United States needs to junk the United Nations and replace it with a new international assembly based upon the principles of universal democracy that President Bush is championing as the core of his foreign policy vision - and which was the original vision of the UN, once upon a time - this document is it.

John Bolton is the missionary in the cannibals' village. He's standing for what's right, and he's got fangs enough not to get eaten by the natives. But he's not Jonah preaching to the Ninevites; there's no way that anybody, even JB, is going to reform that globalist, Jew-hating sewer. The UN is irredeemable, and no one, including the President, should have any illusions on that score.

All we can do is fight for our interests in that snake pit and hope that GDub will, like Belshazzar in ancient Babylon, see the handwriting on the wall and pick up our "ball" - and our quarter of the UN budget - and throw the bums out.

I understand some prime real estate has become available in Gaza....