The Center for Security Policy held a pre-July 4th press conference at the National Press Club on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Samantha Power as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
In a packed press conference room, Former Florida congressman Allen West said that radical Islamists are “exerting a bold influence for sharia dominance” and “Russian belligerence is clearly evident,” yet the Obama administration saw fit to nominate a “globalist” Samantha Power to the U.N. ambassadorship. She was clearly “a wrong choice for these troubling times” and it was an “ill-conceived” move on Obama’s part. Power, in the words of Allen West, “is nothing more than a loyal Obama acolyte” like her predecessor Susan Rice.
He said, “the nomination of Samantha Power to be the US ambassador to the UN is simply fubar.”
Jose Sorzano, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under Ronald Reagan, said that Power, as a tentative academic, is ill-equipped to serve there. “The United Nations is mischaracterized as a diplomatic place,” said Sorzano, when it “is a battleground.” Votes are constantly being taken and the real meeting rooms are in the U.N. corridors, not offices or conference rooms.
Sorzano pointed out that “Dr. Power has said the US should express humility.” But, Sorzano said, “humility does not work in the United Nations” because if you are humble, “you’ll be run over.”
Retired General William Boykin said that today, “maintaining our sovereignty and maintaining our pride is fundamental to our future.” However, “here is a strong indication that [Power’s] attitude is just the opposite” adding that she does not see America as most Americans do and pushes for an apologist America.
Author Diana West observed that although many believe that Marxist-Leninism has died out, “these ideas are alive and well and have seeped into our society at large,” including Power’s own views. In her opinion, “the US has been better served” in the U.N. when there were other countries that had “U.S. interests as their top priority.” After the Cold War, West believes that the U.S. has “been ill-served in the U.N.” and that Power, “who is well-described as a globalist, is ill-suited to serve” in the U.N. She also issued another warning, saying that Power’s Responsibility to Protect philosophy will mean “an increase in aggressiveness of the deployment of American troops across the world without American interests.”
Dana Milbank of The Washington Post covered the event, and, predictably, took issue with it. “A group of conservatives gathered in Washington on the eve of Independence Day to provide a preview of the opposition to Samantha Power’s nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations,” he wrote.”Their technique was clear: They would impugn the patriotism of the Irish-born nominee.”
Milbank went on to conclude: “Critics of Power won’t get far simply by saying they disagree with her philosophy because it closely tracks that of the president. Instead, they are using a method against Power that they have often used against Obama: That she is something alien, something other than a patriotic American.”
“Milbank’s technique was clear, too,” Diana West pointed out. “There was no substance here; no reflection on why, for example, Samantha Power’s “humanitarian” concerns never include violence against Christians or Jews throughout the Middle East. There were only quotations out of context and push-button terms to fry the mental circuits of the reader: How hateful conservatives are for impugning the patriotism of anyone they merely disagree with!”
British journalist Melanie Philips points out of Power that:
- “In April 2003 she signed a Statement on Cuba, initiated by the Democratic Socialists of America member Leo Casey calling for the lifting of trade sanctions against Cuba.
- “Along with Susan Rice (the former UN ambassador, now appointed Obama’s National Security Adviser, heaven help us) and Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, Power is considered a key architect of the disastrous Libyan intervention.
- “And despite her advocacy of attack or invasion to prevent threatened genocides, she has sneered at concerns about the race to build a nuclear bomb by Iran, which has repeatedly threatened genocide against the Jews of Israel, as a figment of the war-mongering Republican imagination.”
Diana West will speak at the next Accuracy in Academia author’s night.
Spencer Irvine is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia.
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