Thursday, December 21, 2017

So That UN Vote Should Have Been Expected


The Trump Administration doesn't really seem to have any idea about diplomacy or how alliances work or why governments don't just go around saying they will be "taking names" and threatening foreign aid. There have been lots of stories about how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is a bad fit for a difficult job and the "hollowing out" of the State Department all around. Nikki Haley was a weird appointment as UN Ambassador to the UN because she has no foreign policy background at all. I think that leaves her just articulating what the Trump Administration line is pretty much unvarnished, and it sounds...well, like bullying and an opportunity for other governments to tell the US to stuff it.

And that's what the vote amounted to.  Even countries that received a good bit of US foreign aid had no qualms about voting for a resolution to condemn the US decision with respects to Jerusalem because they well understand that foreign aid grants aren't just for the benefit of the recipient nation. Even countries on good terms with the US either voted to condemn or abstained. I don't know if the "taking names" language necessarily hurt, but it certainly didn't help. And if the Trump Administration cared about such things, they might note they have a very basic problem that really isn't going to make America "great" in the eyes of the world, at all.

1 comment:

Ten Bears said...

These religious nutballs on whose behalf Our Tea Pot Dictator and his Not A Native American “Ambassador” to the United Nations are stirring up more War in the Middle East don’t “love” Israel, don’t love the “Jews”. In their worldview before their precious spectral lord and master will float down out of the sky on a flying rainbow unicorn with thousands of spectral helpers on flying rainbow unicorns to carry them all away to paradise two-thirds of Israel must be destroyed. Two-thirds of the Jews must be destroyed, their blood rising to a horse’s bridle.

These people don’t “love” Israel, don’t love the Jews. They want to see it destroyed. And don’t care if the rest of the world, and the rest of us, are destroyed right along with it.

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