Steyn on Bolton

Apropos of a post I wrote earlier in the week is Mary Steyn’s Sunday column on the John Bolton confirmation delays. As always, he says it far more artfully than I.

He starts by giving you an interesting little statistic or two about those tsunami relief supplies America and other nations gave so generously:

Five hundred containers, representing one-quarter of all aid sent to Sri Lanka since the tsunami hit on Dec. 26, are still sitting on the dock in Colombo, unclaimed or unprocessed.

At the Indonesian port of Medan, 1,500 containers of aid are still sitting on the dock.

Four months ago, did you chip in to the tsunami relief effort? Did your company? A Scottish subsidiary of the Body Shop donated a 40-foot container of “Lemon Squidgit” and other premium soap, which arrived at Medan in January and has languished there ever since because of “incomplete paperwork,” according to Indonesian customs officials.

This is, Steyn says, indicative of the corruption and broken promises so common in the “world community”. Did I mention broken promises? Here’s one:

What matters in global diplomacy is that you pledge support rather than give any. Thus, Bolton would have no problem getting nominated as U.N. ambassador if he were more like Paul Martin.

Who? Well, he’s prime minister of Canada. And in January, after the tsunami hit, he flew into Sri Lanka to pledge millions and millions and millions in aid. Not like that heartless George W. Bush back at the ranch in Texas. Why, Prime Minister Martin walked along the ravaged coast of Kalumnai and was, reported Canada’s CTV network, “visibly shaken.” President Bush might well have been shaken, but he wasn’t visible, and in the international compassion league, that’s what counts. So Martin boldly committed Canada to giving $425 million to tsunami relief. “Mr. Paul Martin Has Set A Great Example For The Rest Of The World Leaders!” raved the LankaWeb news service.

You know how much of that $425 million has been spent so far? Fifty thousand dollars — Canadian. That’s about 40 grand in U.S. dollars. The rest isn’t tied up in Indonesian bureaucracy, it’s back in Ottawa.

Steyn’s point is much like mine: Bolton is part of the antidote to the belief that words and kissy-kissy is more important that taking action. Read the whole thing.

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Category: Cool Columnists and Wicked Writers, Our Foreign Policy