The US has finally announced the
appointment of its new Ambassador to Australia.
The announcement was made ahead
of Condi Rice’s upcoming visit, suggesting that the US wanted to avoid any
embarrassment for the Presidential aspirant, given that the post has been
vacant for more than a year.
And whilst the US was doubtless
more than satisfied with the fawning way John Howard has looked after its
interests in the interim, he would simply never be able to do the job as well
as a real American no matter how hard he tried.
With the appointment of the new US
Ambassador & the scheduled Rice visit, it’s worthwhile catching-up on the
world of US diplomacy & its role in executing US foreign policy.
‘In her January 18, 2006 speech
at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attracted
attention by arguing that U.S. foreign policy would henceforth be shaped by a
“transformational diplomacy . . . rooted in partnership, not paternalism.” Her
address was taken by some observers to mean that the neoconservative policy
assumptions which have condemned the United States to the tragedy in Iraq and
elsewhere were being replaced by a realist perspective taking American policy
back to the more constructive days of the partnerships George Marshall and Dean
Acheson (whom she singled out for praise in her question-and-answer session),
formed with Western Europe and Japan. These partnerships aimed to
institutionalize both the rebuilding of those war-devastated partners and the
containment of the Soviet Union.
A closer reading of her speech
leads to another conclusion: the address is mostly old, failed policy dressed
in necessarily different rhetoric. Most significantly, Rice began the speech
not by emphasizing partnership, but with George W. Bush’s Second Inaugural
Address from which she quoted that it is U.S. policy “to seek and support the
growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture
with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” This “mission,” Rice
added, is “transformational diplomacy,” and nowhere does she say this diplomacy
came out of any partnership – which is well, because it didn’t.’
Why Condi Rice's Foreign
Policy Approach Is Flawed
none so blind .....
‘Unfortunately, when U.S.
officials such as Rumsfeld compare Chavez to Hitler for “consolidating power,”
their own arrogance and hubris prevent them from seeing that President Bush has
been doing the exact same thing ever since 9/11 — and arguably to a much
greater extent than Chavez — “consolidating power.” While they have no
hesitancy in placing the label of “Hitler” on foreign leaders for doing so,
U.S. officials scratch their heads in befuddlement when foreigners place the
label of “hypocrites” upon them.’
Bush,
Chavez, and Hitler
Pssst ...
The bots are out and about, some caution required.
Read the full 'Fyscke', where he draws some alarming antipodean parallels.
Article reprinted at the Raytchel Korry website.
Where do you think I get some info from?
from the ABC...
Secret CIA details found easily on Internet: report
The names of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel, including covert operatives, internal telephone numbers and locations of two dozen CIA installations can be found through Internet searches, a US newspaper has reported.
Through online services that provide public, legally obtained information for a fee, a reporter netted a directory of 2,600 CIA employees and 50 internal phone numbers, according to a Chicago Tribune investigation.
The Chicago daily also discovered the identities of CIA operatives assigned to US embassies in Europe.
At the request of the CIA, the newspaper did not release the names of the operatives.
It did quote an unnamed source saying CIA director Porter Goss was "horrified" at the discovery.
To torture or not to torture, what an awful quest
From the BBC
UN rights body faces suspension
By Imogen Foulkes
BBC News, Geneva
The United Nations may be left without a human rights watchdog for the first time in 60 years after a vote by its Human Rights Commission on Monday.
The Commission is deadlocked over reform and when it meets in Geneva, members are expected to vote to suspend it until a final decision is taken.
Otherwise it would be beginning its annual six-week session to look at human rights standards worldwide.
Members with poor human rights records have recently discredited its work.
Plans to reform the Commission are, however, deadlocked because the United States objects to parts of it.
_____________________________
Gus ponders:
China has a poor record... the US has a whatever record...
Is being hung by your thumbs in a jail in China a violation of human rights and is having your private electrocuted in Egypt under the auspices of the US a necessary protection of someone else's rights?