In
DC,
Power Is
Confirmed
Without
Apology,
Goldman
Sachers to
Geneva
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 2 --
The day after
the US
Presidency of
the UN
Security
Council ended,
the US Senate
confirmed
Samantha Power
to
replace Susan
Rice as
Permanent
Representative
to the UN.
After
breathless
narratives of
widespread
opposition to
Power, after
her
confirmation
hearing
performance at
the committee
level, she
sailed
through 87-10.
In
a memorable
moment at her
hearing, she
said not only
that America
is
the greatest
country on
earth but that
it never has
anything to
apologize for.
At
the UN
covering the
Security
Council, Inner
City Press was
watching
the
hearing on
C-SPAN, and
something
sounded wrong.
Didn't Bill
Clinton
apologize, for
example, for
the US' votes
at the UN to
shrink
the UN
Peacekeeping
force during
the genocide
in Rwanda?
Wasn't
that what
Samantha
Power's book
"A Problem
from Hell" was
all about?
There was
grumbling from
within the
delegation of
Rwanda,
members of the
Security
Council for
the next year
and a half.
It
will certainly
liven things
up. Some
predict that
Susan Rice's
commitment on
issues
relating to
Sudan and
South Sudan
will wane --
that may be an
over-personalization
of the US
Mission's work
-- and
others predict
that the whole
Problem from
Hell approach
will focus
only on Syria.
But
probably one
should judge
or predict a
person on a
body of work
rather than
this hearing
performance,
or what Sri
Lankan Tamil
activists saw
as Power's
strange
silence during
what they call
their
genocide, in
May 2009. This
finger-pointing
at silence
extended to
Obama himself.
And
Obama the same
day nominated
as a US
Ambassador to
the UN in
Geneva a
former
classmate who
worked at
Goldman Sachs,
Pamela K.
Hamamoto.
Another
campaign
bundler,
Dwight L.
Bush, Sr., was
nominated as
ambassador to
Morocco.
(While this
Bush is not
one of those
Bushes,
the
pervasiveness
of this
process is why
some call this
a one party
system.)
Coming
so quickly
after Susan
Rice's gambit
to include a
human rights
monitoring
component in Herve Ladsous' mission in Western
Sahara --
such a
component
exists at his
mission in the
Congo but is
mostly
used on an
ideological
basis -- the
financialization
of the Morocco
post seems
telling. On
the Security
Council,
Rwanda has a
year and a
half, while
Morocco has
only half a
year left.
And
while we'd
previously
reported
Georgia -- not
Georgia on my
mind, but
Tblisi -- as a
candidate for
the Eastern
European seat
on the
Council, Inner
City Press
spend part of
an American
night on July
29
hearing how
ECOSOC would
be enough for
now for the
Georgians, and
Lithuania
edged out by
Vuk Jeremic
for President
for the
General
Assembly would
now get the
Council seat.
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
rather than
look to the
past, even the
recent past of
Power's
confirmation
hearing, why
not look
forward, and
not only at
the "big picture"
items on the
Security
Council's
agenda? As
Inner City
Press exclusively
reported
yesterday, the
US had thought
France would
draft a
resolution on
Central
African
Republic in August.
Due to
vacations,
they plan not
to. Might
that change?
Shouldn't it?
, 
