Chris At Home

Mark Malloch Brown, aide to Kofi Annan had this to say:

“The prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable,” said the deputy, Mark Malloch Brown. “You will lose the U.N. one way or another.”

In a highly unusual instance of a United Nations official singling out an individual country for criticism, Mr. Malloch Brown said that although the United States was constructively engaged with the United Nations in many areas, the American public was shielded from knowledge of that by Washington’s tolerance of what he called “too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping.”

Mark doesn't have this whole Freedom of Speech thing down, you see. The government needs to stop Americans from criticizing the UN; the UN has no obligation to listen to criticism and correct its mistakes. As expected, UN Ambassador John Bolton blasted back:

In a furious reaction, Bolton called the speech by UN chief Kofi Annnan’s deputy a “very grave mistake.”

“We are in the process of an enormous effort to achieve substantial reform at the United Nations,” he said. “To have the deputy secretary general criticize the United States in such a manner can only do great harm to the United nations.

“Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations,” he added. “Even worse was the condescending and patronizing tone about the American people. This was a criticism of the American people not the American government by an international civil servant.”

The US envoy to the UN said the only way “to mitigate the damage to the United Nations” was for Annan to “personally and publicly repudiate this speech at the earliest possible opportunity.”

John Bolton's straight-talking mustache, Regis, reacts.
Michelle has a long list of reasons to criticize the UN.

And read this too for phrases like “Even if proof, in the classical meaning of the term, is not as yet available, a number of coherent and converging elements indicate that such secret detention centers did indeed exist" and "Mr Marty says there is enough evidence to support suspicions". How much evidence is needed to support a suspicion?

Update: Wretchard left some welts with his translation of Mark's speech.