Mary Robinson Is Not Worthy
President Obama, for God-knows-what reason, has decided to award former U.N. bureaucrat Mary Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor. Years ago, I expressed my intense distaste for Mary Robinson:
Mary Robinson was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2001, during the height of the Great North Korean Famine, while China flagrantly violated the U.N. Convention on Refugees to keep the starving millions outside its borders. While millions more died in a famine that was certainly preventable, but for the diversion of North Korea’s coffers to higher priorities. While North Korean concentration camps filled to the brim with families whose children had to the temerity to ask for another dollop of gruel, where was Mary?
You can read the rest here, but to summarize, Robinson squandered her tenure and the moral authority it might have carried to suck up to the radical chic crowd and the least representative member states in the U.N., mainly by sniping at easy, soft targets. Meanwhile, Mary Robinson was ineffective, incompetent, and apparently unconcerned about the greatest humanitarian tragedy to have taken place on her watch.
I see that I’m not the only one to question what honor Mary Robinson has earned, though the controversy seems focused on other reasons. John Bolton’s objections are probably no great shock, but I suspect that President Obama was caught off guard that 45 Republican members of Congress would go to the trouble of circulating and signing a letter of protest.
Really, Mary Robinson is a walking illustration of what’s wrong with the U.N., why its role should be limited to vaccinating kids and delivering sacks of grain, and why it ought to be the foreign policy of the United States to gradually de-fund the U.N.’s political activities and gently build new and better international institutions whose member states have freely elected, accountable governments. I’m almost cynical enough to believe that that’s why President Bush supported the candidacy of the conspicuously worthless Ban Ki Moon.
I agree. If the UN actually did the things they were originally intended to do, the world wouldn’t be as crappy as it is now.
This may be a case of Obama helping a fellow alumnus of Harvard Law School.
He also recently took personal interest in the case of the Harvard professor who was unfairly arrested.
The Ivy League schools have a tight-knit alumni network, resulting in favoritism.
Obama also seems to be very pro-women. He appointed Hillary Clinton and Sonia Sotomayor. Now, he has awarded Mary Robinson.
Robinson has a great resume, even though she may have been ineffective towards North Korea.
This is the first place I’ve seen pointing out the North Korea angle on this woman’s “impressive resume”. The other places where she is getting bashed for being a typical UN, anti-US, anti-Israel type are all focused on her actions and statements regarding Israel and the Durban I Conference.
It would help these other sites it they would expand the criticism to include things like North Korea and other political-humanitarian disasters beyond the Middle East…
(The Harvard professor was taken into custody just like any jackass on a scene who continues to work himself (and possible others on the scene) into a rage. The police officer in the case acted as he was trained. A police officer controls a scene for the protection of all involved. If you start working yourself into a rage, and you refuse to heed verbal warnings, you are going to get cuffed – whether you are black, white, or Asian.)
I’ve only got time for a couple of brief and rather unorganised ‘points’. Firstly, Jeff, of course if the UN did the things it was supposed to do, the world wouldn’t be as crappy as it is now; however, if the UN were to attempt to do the things it was supposed to do, you can be pretty sure China, Russia, the US, the UK, France and so forth would probably prevent that from happening.
Secondly, it’s not that I take issue with the idea that Robinson did not pay sufficient attention to Human Rights in North Korea — I don’t know enough about the particulars — but it seems to me that if we weigh it up, there aren’t many organisations that do.
Third, that Republican letter of protest you mention does not mention North Korea once. Israel is mentioned six times, ample evidence of where their priorities lie.
Finally, as much as I’d love to believe the US government has much actual interest in a multilateral polyarchial order, I think that’s pretty much off the cards while they support every single dictatorship in Central Asia, the Middle East & North Africa, bar Syria and Iran.
Speaking of others who are unworthy, here’s one who consistently comes out ahead — not that its a contest. In this article regarding possible identification of Kim Jong Il’s house, why does Hazel Smith need to say anything about whether this is or isn’t Kim’s house? Judge for yourself.
‘Kim Jong-il’s House’ Spotted on Google Earth
An American collector of satellite images of North Korea on Wednesday claimed to have spotted leader Kim Jong-il’s luxury villa in pictures of northern Pyongyang.
Curtis Melvin, speaking on CNN, claimed what appears to be a compound in photos from Google Earth is one of several houses used by Kim. On the BBC on Monday, Melvin claimed he had confirmed the house was Kim’s through a source in North Korea.
/Courtesy of Google Earth-Yonhap /Courtesy of Google Earth-Yonhap
Google Earth shows the compound with a swimming pool and a water slide in the Ryongsong District in the suburbs of Pyongyang, which is where according to other information Kim’s residence no. 21 is located. It is said to be where Kim spends most of his time when he is in Pyongyang.
But North Korea expert Hazel Smith said it is difficult to know where Kim Jong-il lives, saying the facilities in the satellite image “look similar to some of the diplomatic compounds I’ve seen.”