Crazy Dictator Day at the U.N.

Posted on September 20, 2006

Apparently it was Crazy Dictator Day at the U.N. today. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez called President Bush the Devil and told the U.N. that it was a worthless organization.

"The devil came here yesterday," Chavez said, referring to Bush, who addressed the world body during its annual meeting Tuesday. "And it smells of sulfur still today." Chavez accused Bush of having spoken "as if he owned the world" and said a psychiatrist could be called to analyze the statement.
"As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: 'The Devil's Recipe.' " Chavez held up a book by Noam Chomsky on imperialism and said it encapsulated his arguments: "The American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its hegemonistic system of domination, and we cannot allow him to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated."

Chavez also blasted the United Nations, calling the General Assembly "merely a deliberative organ" that meets once a year. "We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world," he said. Chavez called the veto power shared by the five permanent members of the Security Council "anti-democratic," and cited the U.S. veto of a resolution that would have demanded the Israelis halt their bombing of Lebanon this summer.
That move "allowed the Israelis with impunity to destroy Lebanon in front of us all as we stood there watching," Chavez said. He recommended that the world body's headquarters be moved to another country and offered Venezuela as a possible new home. He noted that he recently returned from a summit of more than 50 heads of state from nonaligned nations in Havana, Cuba, and urged his audience to support their efforts for "a world of peace."
At a news conference after the speech, he further lambasted the United States and U.N., saying of the latter, "There is no way to save it." The U.N. was founded in an era of two superpowers, he said. "The Soviet Union collapsed. The United States empire is on the way down and it will be finished in the near future, for the good of all mankind." He also said the U.S. government was the "first enemy" of its people. "Their freedoms are restricted through the Patriot Act. They are sent to die in Iraq for no reason. The people of the United States are being deceived," he said.

This is classic Hugo Chavez. It's actually one of his milder speeches. Once you've told world leaders that you have the ability to "smell the Devil" when he's in the room (another barnburner of a speech he made), your credibility suffers a bit. And that sulpher he smelled was probably just a plumbing problem.

But it's too easy (and tempting) to dismiss Chavez and his ravings. Unfortunately for us, there are a lot of people around the world that view America and the U.N. the same way he does. And that is a direct result of President Bush's disastrous foreign policies.

It's interesting to note that Hugo Chavez and the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolten hold exactly the same view of the United Nations: they both want it destroyed. And that would not be good for the U.S., regardless of what Bolten (who is just as crazy as Chavez) says.