OBAMA RETURNS UN AMBASSADOR TO CABINET LEVEL - TROUBLE LIES AHEAD

Barack Obama announced Monday that Susan Rice would be taking the post as United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Her significance as an Obama appointment is not a crucial as the status that Obama is going to give the post of UN Ambassador, returning it to Cabinet status. From a diplomatic view point this places the UN Ambassador on the same level as the Secretary of State, signaling that Obama will be placing emphasis on the UN.

Under President Bush the UN Ambassador was removed as a Cabinet position. A position it was first given by Bill Clinton the only other Administration to hold the UN Ambassador at Cabinet level. This in essence creates two cabinet level positions from the same Department. Both the Secretary of State and the UN Ambassador are part of the State Department.

With the UN Ambassador holding cabinet level in an Obama Administration emphasis on working closely with the UN in relation to United States Foreign Policy is obviously going to be a key to US diplomacy under Obama. A close association with the UN like this can only spell disaster for The United States.

First the corruption within the UN has made it an extremely weak organization throughout the world. Secondly the majority of the Nations who participate in the UN are Nations who have either dictatorial leaders like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or militaristic governments with Generals who continually over throw their government with military coups in order to obtain power.

Both types of governments abuse their people and are on far less than friendly terms with The United States and condemn our actions using the UN as their platform. As a UN member we have already removed ourselves from the UN Human Rights Council because of the hypocrisy in allowing the worst human rights violators to either head or have a strong voice within the council and the UN position on human rights.

Now Barack Obama will allow this corrupt anti-American organization to have a voice in US foreign policy and our UN Ambassador the same level of power as the Secretary of State. Obama has long been an advocate of the UN even to the point of backing legislation that would cost American tax payers an additional 65 billion dollars per year to finance a UN poverty initiative. An initiative which has all the markings of the oil for food program that funnelled billions of dollars to the UN and Saddam Hussein while the Iraq was under UN sanctions before the war.

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton who as Ambassador was a strong critic of UN corruption considers the elevating of the position to cabinet level a bad idea. According to Bolton, "One, it overstates the role and importance the U.N. should have in U.S. foreign policy," Mr. Bolton said. "Second, you shouldn't have two secretaries in the same department."

As far as the appointment of Susan Rice as UN Ambassador, her credentials less than stellar but she does have one extreme blemish on her record while she was serving as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton Administration. Rice played a major role in the decision to refuse the offer by the government of Sudan in turning over Usama bin Laden to the US.

Sudan was also willing to share intelligence information of Al Qaeda activities with the US through David Williams then Middle East and African Agent in Charge for the FBI. Rice assisted in the decision process which resulted in the White House also rejecting the intell offered by the Sudanese government.

Rice obviously has an appeasement mentality and along with Obama's policy of involving the UN in US foreign policy this appointment and elevation to cabinet level of the UN Ambassador sends a signal that as a Nation we will become subject to the UN and the anti-American attitude that permeates within this corrupt organization.

Ken Taylor