It's Confirmed: Bolton A Nutter!

It's Confirmed: Bolton A Nutter!

George Bush's nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton is currently suffering confirmation hearings. Every day, the voices of the many people he's stepped on during his grotesque career are rising, painting a portrait of a pathological liar with sociopathic tendencies. -{ape}

John Bolton: At the Heart of Power

It's Confirmed: Bolton A Nutter!
C. L. Cook
Pej News
April 18, 2005

It seems everywhere John Bolton goes he leaves a trail of bullied and embittered subordinates. Any who contradict his often fantastical conclusions, or merely question his confabulations, are immediately berated, belittled, and find themselves the objects of smear campaigns designed to ruin their careers.

Consider the case of Melody Townsel. Ms. Townsel still feels the sting more than a decade later. So much so, she presented a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee weighing the nomination. She claims, while working with US AID in Kyrgyzstan she ran afoul of Bolton. She'd written a letter to complain about the many problems with the contractor carrying out the aid contract. At the time, Bolton represented as legal counsel one of the contractors named. Townsel goes on to describe what happpened next.

John Bolton in his own words.
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

"Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began. Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel - throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats."

"When US AID asked me to return to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in advance of assuming leadership of a project in Kazakstan, I returned to my project to find that John Bolton had proceeded me by two days. Why? To meet with every other AID team leader as well as US foreign-service officials in Bishkek, claiming that I was under investigation for misuse of funds and likely was facing jail time. As US AID can confirm, nothing was further from the truth."

"As a maligned whistleblower, I've learned firsthand the lengths Mr. Bolton will go to accomplish any goal he sets for himself. Truth flew out the window. Decency flew out the window. In his bid to smear me and promote the interests of his client, he went straight for the low road and stayed there. John Bolton put me through hell - and he did everything he could to intimidate, malign and threaten not just me, but anybody unwilling to go along with his version of events. His behavior back in 1994 wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological."

Serious charges, but coming from a self-described "whistleblower" easily brushed aside. But there's more. As an officer of the U.S. government, Bolton has consistently lied and schemed to further his own ambitions, sacrificing his sworn duties to his superiors. Unnamed insiders say Bolton, during his term as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security actively blocked intelligence reports from reaching his boss, Colin Powell, and Powell's successor, Condoleezza Rice.

This selective use of information concerning matters of State urgency are more than reckless, more than simply a case of individual ambition; these are treasonous offences that kept vital information regarding U.S. strategies for dealing with Iran and their alleged nuclear program; issues that could see another war in the middle-east.

The anonymous officials go on to cite a dozen examples of Bolton's "back channeling" information while serving as the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. And worse, Bolton not only held on to information that didn't jibe with his world view, he also created "intelligence" that furthered those views. Remember Cuba's chemical weapons program? That hoary bit of nonesense came straight from the horse's mouth.

And now, the man who so famously said the U.N. building could lose ten stories and it wouldn't matter is poised to be the United States' top man? Only if he can outrun the hordes he's stepped on during his illustrious rise to power in George Bush's America!



Chris Cook hosts 'Gorilla Radio' a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada and serves as a contributing editor at PEJ.org News.