Kofi becomes useful again

Ta-Ta Boutros-Boutros Kofi
Ends U.N. tenure with dig at Bush

Here's a bittersweet moment.  Kofi Annan, the third-world hand puppet chosen by Bill Clinton to head the UN is giving his farewell  speech today, in Independence, MO.  That's the sweet part.  The bitter part is that he will use the occasion to blast a sitting President of the United States- and will be introduced by RINO Senator Chuck Hagel. In his remembrance of former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jed Babbin included a personal conversation with her. [A Greatness of Mind: Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, RIP] It's instructive. No, it's mandatory . We spoke about all aspects of the UN, its motley membership, how the staff is chosen disproportionately to American and Western influence, how corruption can be dealt with and why the Secretary General's influence on the UN's agenda is not at all what the founders envisioned. (The SG was supposed to be an administrative officer, not a political power. Under Boutros-Boutros Ghali and the Clinton administration, the SG position began to evolve, and the process accelerated under Kofi Annan to where the SG is now thought of as what one-time SG Kurt Waldheim semi-jokingly said was "president of the world.") Most importantly, she was very firm about the fact that the UN should play no role in the decision of American presidents to employ military force. Amb. Kirkpatrick said, "There is no ground in the UN Charter or in precedent to support the position that the Security Council is the only source of legitimacy for the use of force...The importance of American sovereignty over American action is of the utmost importance." She explained that, "We must never agree that the US needs permission of the Security Council or any non-American entity to take action to protect our security. That is an irreducible responsibility of our government, which of course is responsible to the Congress and the American people as specified in our Constitution." That sort of clarity - of mind, principle and purpose - is all too rare among our leadership.