JUSIPER

 
On applause

Posted by Sini

It was a speech replete with those lines that get rapturous applause in God's Country.

But the thing that got me, watching on C-SPAN, was the silence. No one clapped, not even once, till the very end, when they had to.

And it's not me reporting it--it's NBC affiliates in Idaho: "Delegates sat in silence. No applause."

This from Glasgow's Herald:

Iraq dominated Mr Bush's UN speech which met an oppressive silence from its audience, the only applause arriving when the president gathered up his notes to leave the lectern. This was not anger on display but resignation bordering on despair.

And don't think for a moment that it was the usual collection of hack diplomats and their toadies present today: The Guardian reports that the speech was "attended by 64 presidents, 25 prime ministers and 86 foreign ministers."

It's not that applause is prohibited at the U.N. Jacques Chirac spoke today, as did Kofi Annan. "Mr Bush's speech was received with polite applause from the 191-member states, while his critics were given a far warmer reception."

So which was the speech that, according to The Times of India "drew applause from the presidents and ministers on hand?" Well, naturally, it's the one that CNN didn't cover, but that most new outlets in the rest of the world did, not least because their leaders may have been there to witness it.

Opening the UN's annual debate, Annan said Iraqi prisoners had been "disgracefully abused" and made veiled references to the United States in a wide-ranging speech calling on all nations to obey the rule of law.

[...] Aides had insisted Annan, an outspoken critic of the war who last week called it "illegal," would be keen to avoid re-opening old wounds. But he cited the prisoner abuse among "flagrant" examples of lawlessness across the globe.

"In Iraq, we see civilians massacred in cold blood, while relief workers, journalists and other non-combatants are taken hostage and put to death in the most barbarous fashion," Annan said with Bush in the audience.

"At the same time, we have seen Iraqi prisoners disgracefully abused," he said, drawing a parallel between the Iraq bloodshed and the prisoner scandal in a way destined to irk the US administration.

Annan has repeatedly been at odds with Bush's contention that the UN Security Council, which had passed a resolution threatening "serious consequences" for Saddam, had provided the legal basis for the war.

The UN chief last week called the war "illegal" and on Tuesday said Security Council resolutions were the "best foundation" for bringing law to a lawless world marked by bloodshed, genocide and attacks on the innocent.

[...]Annan also repeated a warning he gave the assembly last year, that the United Nations was at a "fork in the road" following the UN split over the US decision to launch the war without full backing from the UN Security Council.

"If you, the political leaders of the world, cannot agree or reach agreement on the way forward, history will take the decision for you, and the interests of your peoples may go by default," Annan said.

"More than ever, the world needs an effective mechanism through which to see common solutions to common problems. That is what this organisation was created for," he said.

Why do public leaders applaud? Usually because they have to, most particularly if they are elected or have to deal with a restive populace or military. And here's a fact which plenty of ousted ruling parties the world over (and failed opposition parties, as in Germany) whose onetime MP's and premiers can attest to: you don't stay in power if you applaud George W. Bush.

Sadly for our troops in Iraq and their families, that also means that the rest of the world will do nothing, nothing, to help ease their burden. Anyone who saw the bevy of foreign ministers telling Wolf Blitzer what they were willing to do to help reconstruct Iraq (we'll let you bring Iraqi policemen to Germany and we'll train them, we just won't send any German troops to Iraq) can attest to our national predicament.

A country no one will applaud is a country that international leaders cannot afford to cooperate with. It is impossible to overstate how devastating that is for national security.

And no one will cooperate with the United States in a meaningful way until there is a new president.

12:15 AM |