"Because the real job of the U.S. at the UN is more often to try to contain the damage and to minimize the waste and corruption, rather than wield the U.S. seat as an active force for good."
The Rosett Report » A Job From Hell: What Awaits Samantha Power at the UN
By Claudia Rosett On June 6, 2013
For the moment, I’ll leave it to others to sift through the credentials of Samantha Power, President Obama’s nominee to become the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Let’s talk about what awaits a new ambassador at Turtle Bay.
In terms of creature comforts, there is plenty to enjoy. The UN is completing a $2 billion renovation of its New York headquarters, 22% of that at America’s expense. The asbestos is gone, the refurbished stonework gleams, the digital eco-age has arrived. For the U.S. Mission to the UN, which underwent its own re-do in recent years, there is a new building — bigger, more secure, and located conveniently across the street from the main UN complex. The diplomatic parties are never-ending, the delegate’s dining room — overlooking the East River — caters to the kind of parties at which Sudan, in 2009, celebrated its chairmanship of the G-77 by serving lobster, shrimp, and strawberries dipped in chocolate. [1]
But for anyone who must ultimately account to the American people — especially someone with big hopes to save the world — today’s UN can be at best a mud pit, and more likely a minefield. When Obama announced on Wednesday that he was nominating Power for the job, he described her as “someone who showed us that the international community has a moral responsibility and a profound interest in resolving conflicts and defending human dignity.” Presumably the idea is that she will now take this crusade, hands-on, to the UN.
But the UN, for all its high-minded rhetoric, is not about moral responsibility and human dignity. Not in practice.
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