John Kerry and Shashi Tharoor have a lot in common when it comes to how the United States should defend itself. Tharoor endorses Kerry's "global test" and argues that "acting in the name of international law is always preferable to acting in the name of national security." Spoken like a true utopian who never bore the responsibility of protecting citizens of his nation.
The UN is not capable of protecting innocents from those who mean them harm because the elites who take up space and oxygen at the UN spend their days debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The most infamous example is the UN's inability to define "terrorism." That is unlikely to change with Tharoor at the helm. During an interview at the University of California at Berkley, Tharoor said that "truth is a particularly difficult issue."
He went on to explain: "A lot of the work of the world's diplomats in international affairs consists of reconciling different forms of truth, different perceptions of truth, of being able to see every international conflict from the point of view of both or all the protagonists, not necessarily to sympathize with them, but to understand that there is more than one answer to every question and more than one way of looking at every particular problem."
That explains a lot. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that Israel should be "wiped off the map," I now understand why UN officials respond with, "Hmmm, interesting, tell me more."
There is one truth that Shashi Tharoor holds, and that is that America-bashing is good for business. From his ivory tower, Tharoor tried to undermine the 2003 U.S. liberation of Iraq saying, "the difference between a UN operation, in which everyone wears a blue helmet, and a 'coalition of the willing,' led by one big power," he wrote, "is similar to that between a police squad and a posse." And in a 2004 speech to the Asia Society in Hong Kong, he began with several criticisms of the UN's most generous contributor nation and then said, "I am not here just to pick on the United States."
But if elected Secretary-General, Tharoor will make a career out of undermining the United States. Stay tuned – a decision from the Security Council is near.
Thomas P. Kilgannon is the president of Freedom Alliance and the author of Diplomatic Divorce: Why America Should End Its Love Affair with the United Nations.