Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I also rise to support the nomination of Samantha Power to be our Ambassador at the United Nations. Within the last month I had a unique opportunity as the junior member of the committee that my friend Chairman Menendez chairs, as the head of Foreign Relations, to spend the day at the United Nations and learn about it from then-Ambassador Rice. I left that day with a couple of reactions: first, very proud to be an American, and, second, concerned about the challenges the institution faces.

First, on the proud to be American, I think it is important for us to realize, for whatever its flaws, the United Nations would not exist if it were not for this country. It is a quintessential American idea to pull together an institution that tries to build peace, that tries to solve hunger, that tries to solve global health needs. The idea first gained force through the efforts of American President and Virginian Woodrow Wilson who won the Nobel prize for trying to get the League of Nations going at the end of World War 1. That league lasted for 20 years and collapsed, for many reasons, including the lack of participation in the United States in the global effort. But the idea did not die. The American idea stayed alive, and in 1939 the State Department, within 2 years after the collapse of the league, started to work on the next version. FDR worked on it during his entire Presidency and was scheduled to have the first conference on the United Nations 2 weeks after his untimely death in 1945.

The second decision made by President Truman in 1945--the first was to keep FDR's Cabinet--was he was posed with this: After FDR's death, we can postpone the meeting in San Francisco about the formation of the United Nations. But Truman said: No, we are going to go ahead because this is something the world needs and America is uniquely positioned to lead.

Ever since its start, in funding and support, through good times and bad, through controversies Senator Rubio described on the floor, this United Nations has worked hard to do good, worked hard to achieve an ideal that may be impossible to achieve. It is a tribute to the U.S. role as a global leader that the United Nations exists today.

I was also struck again by many of the challenges--the challenges of a tough globe, the challenges of U.N. problems in the ethics and finance area, the challenges that confuse many Americans as we look at the U.N., principally those referred to by my colleague Senator Menendez, a history of anti-Semitism at the U.N. that confuses us as we watch it.

What are we to do with this institution that we birthed, more than any other nation, that still offers great hope and service every day, yet still needs significant change? I think what we should do is put a strong person in to be U.S. Ambassador, and Samantha Power is that individual. She has the strength to tackle the challenges that need tackling at the U.N. She has had the career, as described by earlier speakers, as a war correspondent, a writer, somebody who snuck across borders to take photos of atrocities in Darfur and then bring them to the attention of the world. Her writings and her activism have inspired generations of activists around the world to take up the cause of human rights.

She has been the President's senior adviser on matters in the United Nations in the last 4 years. To focus on this issue, here is what Samantha Power has done in that role to help deal with this issue of anti-Semitism at the U.N. and the double standard in the treatment of Israel. She worked to ensure the closest possible cooperation between the United States and Israel at the U.N., where she championed efforts to stand up against attempts to delegitimize Israel. She was key to the decision of the United States to boycott the deeply flawed ``Durban II'' conference in 2009, which turned into an event to criticize Israel. She helped mobilize efforts for the U.N. sanctions against Iran. She has challenged unfair treatment of Israel by U.N. bodies, including the one-sided Goldstone Report, and efforts to single out Israel in the Security Council after the Turkish flotilla incident, and she opposed the unilateral moves in the U.N. by the Palestinians that could undermine prospects for a negotiated peace agreement between Palestine and Israel, and how hopeful we are at the events this week, and we pray it goes forward and finds positive possibility. This is the activity she has had helping the U.N. while she was not the U.N. Ambassador. I want her in that seat so she can carry forward on those initiatives and others.

She will champion efforts to protect persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East and beyond, and she helped spearhead the creation of new tools for genocide prevention and she led the administration's efforts to combat human trafficking, all values of which we can be proud if they would be on display at the United Nations.

I said during her hearing the one thing that made me scratch my head a bit about her when I heard she was nominated is I think of her primarily as a very blunt and outspoken person, and blunt and outspoken is not always the best job description of a diplomat. But in the case of the United Nations, with the challenges there, the challenges in the needed financial reform, the challenges in the need to push back against some instances of anti-Semitism, the challenges of ethics and other issues, we need blunt and outspoken at the United Nation. We don't need vague and ambiguous. We need the kind of strong leadership that Samantha Power would provide.

I think of many United Nations Ambassadors. It has been an ``A'' list of people from Henry Cabot Lodge to President George H.W. Bush before he was President to Bill Richardson and Andrew Young. We can think of many. But the two I think of most--I guess I think of them because they are Irish Americans--when I think of Samantha Power is Daniel Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, strong United Nations Ambassadors who stood proudly for the values of this country, who gave no quarter, who were good diplomats but did not hesitate to call the truth whenever and wherever they saw it. I think Samantha Power will do the same, and that I is why I support her nomination.

I yield the floor.

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