Schadenfreude

Martin Peretz (a contra-war backer and a signer of PNAC) offers yet another rant on the UN in The New Republic. The commentary posted on Freepers. I'm unable to pull up TNR for some reason tonight. The usual Peretz waxing on and on i.e. "It is typologically the same people who wanted the United States to let communism triumph--in postwar Italy and Greece, in mid-cold war France and late-cold war Portugal--who object to U.S. efforts right now in the Middle East. You hear the schadenfreude in their voices--you read it in their words--at our troubles in Iraq. For months, liberals have been peddling one disaster scenario after another, one contradictory fact somehow reinforcing another, hoping now against hope that their gloomy visions will come true." Or blame liberals first, liberals love commies and Arabs. (Schaudenfreude means 'enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others', liberals must also be sadistic.)

He continues: "I happen to believe that they won't. This will not curb the liberal complaint. That complaint is not a matter of circumstance. It is a permanent affliction of the liberal mind (liberals also mentally afflicted). It is not a symptom; it is a condition. And it is a condition related to the desperate hopes liberals have vested in the United Nations. That is their lodestone. But the lodestone does not perform. It is not a magnet for the good. It performs the magic of the wicked. It is corrupt, it is pompous, it is shackled to tyrants and cynics. It does not recognize a genocide when the genocide is seen and understood by all. Liberalism now needs to be liberated from many of its own illusions and delusions. Let's hope we still have the strength." I happen to agree somewhat with Peretz on this one. The UN is a lodestone, attracting, as he says, the corrupt, the pompous, shackled to tyrants, and cynics. But we might disagree on who needs liberating from delusions, who is shackled to who.

UN Ambassadors:
1971-1973 George H. W. Bush.

1973-1975 John A. Scali. Special Consultant to the President from 1971 to 1973. Jewish World printed rave reviews of his career which were officially read into the senate record on his death in 1995.

1975-1976 Daniel P. Moynihan. Elliot Abrams was once Moynihan's Chief of Staff. Christopher Finn of Carlyle also once served as Moynihan Chief of Staff.

1976-1977 William W. Scranton. Formerly a Director of Cummins Engine, IBM, Mobil, The NYT, H.J. Heinz and the New York Life Ins. Co. Member of the Trilateral Commission. United States Congressman from 1961-1963; Gov. of Pennsylvania from 1963-1967; US Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1976-1977; Member of the US National Group in the Permanent Court of Arbitration from 1977-1984; and, Member of several Presidential Commissions. Yale graduate.

1977-1979 Andrew Young. Board of director on Delta Airlines, Argus, Host Marriott Corporation, Archer Daniels Midland, Cox Communications. Aide to MLK (took the safest path after Memphis and there's something to be said for theocracy but seems to have kept his nose clean).

1979–1981 Donald McHenry. Author of Micronesia: Trust Betrayed. Director of the International Paper Company, the Coca-Cola Company, the Fleet National Bank and its holding company Fleet Boston Financial Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline and AT&T. Ambassador McHenry serves on the Boards of the Institute for International Economics, International Institute for Education and the American Ditchley Foundation.

1981–1985 Jeane J. Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick, ambassador during the Reagan administration, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Project for the New American Century: Signed several PNAC advocacy letters. Nicaraguan Freedom Fund: Vice president. She argued that "rightist authoritarian regimes can be transformed peacefully into democracies, but totalitarian Marxist ones cannot. They can be changed only by aiding armed opponents of communism. In the final analysis these enemies of freedom can only be deterred from greater aggression . . . by the military capacities of the United States."

1985–1989 Vernon A. Walters. Served 1972 to 1976 as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.

1989–1992 Thomas J. Pickering. Pickering served as special assistant to Henry Kissinger in 1973-74, when the US was attempting to avoid defeat in Vietnam. He was Kissinger's special assistant when the latter helped mastermind the US-backed coup that brought the fascist general and mass murderer Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile. He served as US ambassador to El Salvador under the Reagan administration, when Washington was supporting that country's death squad regime.

1992–1993 Edward J. Perkins. Perkins is member of the Council on Foreign Relations and edited books include Preparing America's Foreign Policy for the 21st Century, with David L. Boren. In 1996, he retired with rank from the Career Minister in the US Foreign Service. During his career, he has held positions within the Bureau of Far Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Office of Management Operations. He has served in the US Embassy in Accra, Ghana, as Deputy Chief Mission to the US Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia (1981), and as Director of State’s Office of West African Affairs (!983-1985). In 1985, he was appointed Ambassador to Liberia and in 1986 he was appointed Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa. In 1992, he was appointed as a US Representative to the United Nations and US Representative in the UN Security Council (1992-1993). Ambassador Perkins has been honored with several distinguished and meritorious service awards. A trunk load of kudos but he hasn't really done much. All his African experience sat idle during Rwanda.

1993–1996 Madeleine K. Albright. Infamous remarks "CBS Reporter Lesley Stahl (speaking of post-war sanctions against Iraq): "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And - and you know, is the price worth it?" Madeleine Albright (at that time, US Ambassador to the UN): "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." The rightwings hit the fan over the comments, so concerned were they that killing of Iraqi children was being done under a Democrat (as opposed to the 2 Bush men killing them).

1997–1998 William Blaine Richardson. In 1997, President Clinton appointed him to be the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He served until 1998, when he was appointed as U.S. Secretary of Energy. He served here until 2001. Think Wen Ho Lee. Richardson was elected governor of New Mexico in November 2002. He succeeded a two-term Republican governor, Gary Johnson. Richardson is the only Hispanic Governor in the United States (although his daddy is Boston white who met his momma while a Citicorp exec in Mexico City). He has also been criticized for expanding and enjoying too much the perks of the position. As governor, Richardson continues to be interested in foreign policy. During the summer of 2003, he met with a delegation from North Korea to discuss concerns over that country's use of nuclear energy. (I smell tat a Wen Ho for tit your Governorship.)

1998–1999 A. Peter Burleigh. Thirty-three years in Foreign Service. Stated in 1999 "There has been no disruption of humanitarian assistance under the Oil-for-Food program, and it is a matter of the utmost importance that the program continue without disruption. " In 1989 Burleigh served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the United States Department of State. Prior to this, he served at the Department of State for the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs as: Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, 1987 - 1989; Director of the Office of Northern Gulf Affairs, 1985 - 1987; and Deputy Director of the Office of Analysis and Research, 1982 - 1985. Poppy Bush nominated Burleigh for the Rank of Ambassador While Serving as Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism in 1991.

1999–2001 Richard Holbrooke. LBJ staff on Vietnam, google East Timor, Indonesia, 200,000 dead, human rights abuses, genocide, etc.

2001 James B. Cunningham (acting). Helped bring Muammar Qaddafi to his knees, so it's been said.

2001–2004 John D. Negroponte. God help us all.

2004– John Danforth. Yale Divinity, ordained minister, Republican senator, Missouri. Shortest tenure. Resigned after 6 months (his staff was "stunned"), citing his wife's broken ankle needed him. Confidentially, he was pissed b/c he was expecting Colin's job.

(Beware of those posing as "liberals" or liberal mags.) Peas in the same neocon pod.