Just Another Day in Paradise, UN-style
Don Sensing continues to list the foolishness (to be overly nice about it) perpetrated by the United Nations, including
- Allowing Syria to have a significant role in the setting of the Israel/Hezbollah terms.
- Allowing those doing the killing in Darfur to decide if they want UN oversight.
- Allowing North Korea to starve more of its people while Annan fiddled.
And yet, there are those who still believe that the UN is simply in need of fixing, rather than scaling it way back or doing away with the idea. How, exactly, has the UN helped those in Rwanda, Darfur, N. Korea or the many other places where the are or aren’t?
Has the UN done good? Yes, you can name places and even programs where they’ve made things better. But more often than not, their monumental failures overshadow those successes. Typically, they prevent action and allow murderers to buy time to ply their craft while this august body deliberates, studies and flies diplomats around the world, culminating in a harshly worded piece of paper.
And Chavez quakes in his boots. Or not.
The main problem I see with the UN is that it has the liberal tendency to avoid passing value judgements, and instead assigns moral equivalence in even the least gray areas. Thus, it lacks clarity, instead painting everything with an overly broad brush, and allowing those who do understand the nature of evil–because they’re practicing it–to continue on, playing the UN for patsies.
Technorati Tags: United Nations, Darfur, Rwanda, North Korea
Filed under: United Nations
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I would like to write a major post about Darfur and encourage some other bloggers as well. Perhaps we could create an online demonstration like we did in May
Raising more awareness for the suffering in Darfur is good and necessary. However, I believe there is already a lot of awareness, but awareness is not enough.
I think most or all of our readers know what is going on in Darfur. They want to see an end to the Darfur crisis, but they don’t know what EXACTLY should be done.
Therefore, I would like to ask you: What kind of action shall we advocat?
What exactly should the international community do?
Donate more to aid agencies isn’t enough, because the agencies can’t do their work freely in the current (in)security situation.
Only more divestment and diplomatic pressure?
Create safe heavens?
Try to disarm the Janjaweed? How many troops do you need for that?
Bomb Khartoum? Then what?
Regime change? Are we prepared to deal with civil war and attempts of “ethnic cleansing in reverse” after a regime change? How long would that occupation last?
What realistic and fast course of action shall we advocate?
What are the Darfur and military experts suggesting?
The African Union has a Chapter VII resolution for Darfur and can use force to protect civilians. Shall we ask the international community to send more money and ressources to the African Union? Is the African Union willing and capable to fight and disarm the Janjaweed and their supporters?
The consensus seems to be that the AU hasn’t done enough and that UN troops are needed, but I don’t quite understand, why the UN would do a better job. The countries with most military and peace enforcement experience are not volunteering to sending troops to the UN, are they?
What exactly should the UN troops do?
I will write about Darfur soon and create awareness for the Darfur Day on September 17th, but I would also like to mention some specific suggestions by the experts.
Any help you can provide (like some links to expert recommendations) would be very much appreciated! Thank you.
Thank you for your work in this area, and for asking some of the tough questions that need to be asked. This is a great first comment for the blog.
I’ll try to be on the lookout for expert opinions on what should be done. As you noted, awareness is being raised already, although I would say that in America the news that most people get is quite short on Darfur references. Awareness among the typical American is, I think, not enough to really register.
But, as you say, awareness is one thing, action is another. I would think that the AU, being closer to the problem, would be the better group to stop this. Failing that, it may be a job for an international force. Why would that work when the AU wouldn’t? It may be that there is a Lebanon/Hezbollah situation there. If the Lebanese army were the only group policing the actions of Hezbollah, there might be a reluctance to do so since many Lebanese support Hezbollah. I don’t know the ethnic or political situation in Darfur, but it may be that an international force may be more dispassionate in their work than a local one.
A military force could defend the defenseless until such time as the situation could be resolved. I would think that unless the defending force could respond in-kind to attacks, it wouldn’t be much of a deterrent, so that would have to be a condition.
Thanks for your thought-provoking comment.