United Nations Watch: U.N. Ambassador John Bolton Rebukes UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown for Anti-American Criticism

John Bolton, US ambassador to the United Nations , responds outside the Security Council chambers at UN headquarters in New York, to a speech given by Mark Malloch Brown, deputy to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan . Bolton strongly rebuked Brown’s remarks which criticized Washington’s stance on key UN issues, demanding that they be repudiated to avoid doing serious damage to the world body.

AFP: Bolton tangles with Annan deputy over US policy toward UN

US Ambassador John Bolton rebuked a stinging criticism of Washington’s policy toward the United Nations by UN chief Kofi Annan’s deputy, demanding it be promptly repudiated to avoid doing serious damage to the world body.

Addressing a New York conference on global leadership Tuesday, UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown slammed the prevailing US “practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics.”

He noted that while Washington is constructively engaged with the UN on a host of issues such as Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon or Syria, “much of the public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as (conservative radio talk show host) Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.”

“Exacerbating matters is the widely held perception, even among many US allies, that the US tends to hold on to maximalist positions when it could be finding middle ground,” Malloch Brown said.

And who the hell is this MORON?

No wonder the United Nations is held in such LOW regard in the United States.

And Americans pay more dues to the United Nations than any other country.

In a furious reaction, Bolton called the speech by 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.”

Bolton 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.

But, the crook Koffi Annan won’t repudiate his own deputy because he hates America and so do most of the third world countries that comprise the United Nations.

Annan’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Annan “stands by the statement made by his deputy and he agrees with the thrust of it.”

“So there is no question of any action being taken against the deputy secretary general,” he added.

Malloch Brown’s speech should not be interpreted “as an anti-US speech” and in fact called for “greater US involvement in the United Nations and makes clear that the UN cannot work without US engagement and US leadership,” Dujarric said.

But, the comments by Malloch Brown, who was a Social Democrat candidate for the U.K Parliament in 1983 were anti-American and no matter how he spins it, should be repudiated.

And after the Flap Mark Mollach Brown  backpedaled:

I think I don’t need to tell any of you that I have been deeply criticized by the G-77 in recent months for telling them that they too need to get their house in order and engage iaround this reform agenda. But it takes two sides to make a bargain, and to me it was enormously important to deliver that call to my American friends. But to do it in a way, and this is where you all have, and I really do urge you to read the speech, to do it in a way, that is not, that can be possibly characterized as anti-US, but which is intended as a very pro-US speech, in that its central point is an appeal for more consistent public leadership by the United States in the United Nations. And it is a critique not just of this Administratiuon but of Adminsitrations going all the way back to Truman although in my delivery of it Ted Sorenmson sort of made a pitch that maybe Kennedy should be exempted from this, but that we just not…but it has been very hard for Administrations to stand up and publicly avow the extraordinary use they make of the United Nations, so that was the appeal, which was: Engage here. Engage consistently and go out and engage with the American public to say the U.N. matters. And for the life of me I can’t understand how that can be construed as an anti-American speech.

Stay tuned…..Flap does not think John Bolton will let this go……

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