before someone slams me for this:

when i wrote: "I don't think we can judge her statements according to our time unless we all want to condemn the same thoughts our grandparents and parents have probably said or written at one time or another too."

i was actually thinking that unless we want to condemn our parents and grandparents as people for saying or writing those thoughts. we are free to condemn the thoughts themselves.

1st... These were private letters she was writing. Maybe her son did something really stupid and she was pissed off. I am sure alot of people have said similar things to loved ones (although probably not as well articulated). I don't want to get into what she said about Israel, but you can't base your whole idea on Martha Gellhorn around one written statement made at time very soon after the Holocaust happened. There were alot of inflamed passions at that time, probably even more than now, and people say things they regret. She isn't here anymore to take it back or apologize or whatever so we don't know how she would have changed had she been alive today.

So really, what I see is alot of people, who don't think at all outside what is put in front of them, judging a strong woman who was a VERY well known figure of her time and who was a great journalist and even a pretty good author (who had more life in her pinky than most of us have in our whole lives). She deserves alot of credit for facing down adversity in a male dominated world and profession.

I don't think we can judge her statements according to our time unless we all want to condemn the same thoughts our grandparents and parents have probably said or written at one time or another too.

People are so self righteous today. Good for her for speaking her mind. And try looking at more of her work than that delivered by 2 sentences in a book review before passing judgement on her. And calling her a harpy? How about I call you a dipshit?

Last time there was a negative Specter article, I wrote to say i didnt think he was that bad. This article changes my opinion. This leads me to believe he really is a phony.

This is really F***ED up!

I don't think it's totally fair to say that the U.S. is to blame for the UN being ineffectual. This is because I think of the U.N. as much more than just the General Assembly.

The UN is bloated, not accountable to anyone, and therefore (in my opinion) incapable of being results driven.

I honestly don't know if agencies like UNHCR, UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO etc etc etc (and the 5 million others) CAN be results driven but I do know from first hand experience that a job in any of these agencies that an American would "sacrifice" a much better career moneywise back in the States for (because we find it spiritually uplifting to help people) are the same jobs that for people in other countries are symbols of status and power. The conflict is then that these people often care more about their own job/money/status/power than the people they have a mandate to help, the wars they are supposed to stop, and/or the economy they are supposed to jump start.

Often, people get these jobs in the same way they are given in the Bush admin (x100 because I'm sorry but there is more transparancy in the American Govt. than most third world countries). This means they get the jobs through cronyism, etc. Therefore, these people don't have the proper experience to do the job they are given (ala Brownie). In most cases, the people working the day to day jobs in UN agencies are less prepared to deal with complex situations than most people who are probably reading this thread. I probably sound classist or something but when you can't write well or read well nor do you have experience with anything other than a corrupt govt and backward ass economics, you arent really the person best qualified for the job of overseeing a computer system to track refugees or whatever. Unfortunately this is what happens.

I don't really know the solution and I probably shouldn't have started this little speech here because it's not really about Bolton so much. However, the idea I am trying to convey is that the sheer task the UN is trying to take on in all its agencies is overwhelming. I don't really know what they should do to fix everything but I could see how Bush, being a dumb ass, wants to throw Bolton at them and THIS could be the symptom of a larger problem. Not that its right mind you.

Regardless of whether or not we have some great "diplomat" there or not (which we SHOULD - don't get me wrong - Bolton sucks as our representative to the world), the UN is still pretty fucked in its bloatedness. Its not enough to say - "Well... they are the only ones who can do what they do, etc etc."

The fact remains they still need an overhaul mainly because of all those people, happy with the fact they get to keep their fat paychecks and sit on their asses doing nothing, who aren't accountable to anyone.

So, even if the USA engages the UN at a high level to try to drive an overhaul, the structure of the UN predetermines that even if we had the best intentioned people in the galaxy as our representatives, we still couldn't drive an overhaul because some other country would veto it.

That's pretty frustrating.

Please dont read in that I am condoning this as a reason to send Bolton. It's not. It's just my opinion on why dealing with the UN at any level must be frustrating.