If I can be trite, evil is bit like a football team: it has both offensive and defensive aspects. With the offensive arm, it kills, maims, murders, and enslaves; with the defensive arm, it does everything it can to ensure that "good people do nothing", to quote the famous saying about how the Holocaust was enabled.
My political opposites believe quite deeply in the UN, because, I suspect, they look at what the UN says. The UN says it's in favor of peace, human, rights, and all those other wonderful catchphrases everyone supports. For these reasons and others, the political "left" insists that the UN be put in charge of pretty much every international issue. The UN is a kind of god of the world, and action without this god's approval, or contrary to this god's will, is immoral.
But in reality, the UN simply serves to anesthetize and paralyze the few relatively "good" people and forces in the world who would normally oppose (and more importantly, prevent) evil -- frequently through the introduction of "peacekeeping troops". One one hand, the presence of these "troops", under UN control, keeps powerful and moral nation states from playing a similar role more effectively. So if there's a war zone somewhere, the US or Israel or Europe is told to "stay out of it" because, hey, the UN is there. Or will be. Or something.
But the beauty is that such troops don't prevent more malevolent groups from operating: they either close their eyes (if there is no danger to them) or turn tail and run (if there is a remote possibility one of their "troops" might get bruised or break a nail while "protecting" civilians). And when the resulting genocide or chaos ensues, the media is mute -- being on the left means never having to say you're sorry, after all -- or blames us for not supporting the UN quite enough, yet.
This has been the modus operandi of the UN (and the media) in every single situation I can remember: in Vietnam, in countless third-world conflict zones (recently, Sudan), in Kosovo, in Rwanda...
... and, as noted by the wonderfully-named Mere Rhetoric, in Lebanon. (Again.)
More than a year after the summer war in southern Lebanon ended, the United Nations said Wednesday the Hezbollah militia has "rebuilt and even increased its military capacity." A report to the United Nations Security Council on progress to pacify southern Lebanon said Hezbollah's military strength is now comparable to the period before the July-August 2006 war with the Israel Defense Forces, which ended with a council-ordered ceasefire. The report said the findings about the situation in the region is "deeply disconcerting and stands in stark contradiction to the terms of Resolution 1559," which contains the ceasefire provisions.
Nobody's paying attention now, of course. The media functionally only works to oppose Israel, the US, or the UK from getting involved. Iran or Syria? No problem. Those aren't the real bad guys. The real bad guys are the USA, Israel, or any other country who might occasionally have the guts to stand up for actual peace and human rights, instead of offering (heh) mere rhetoric.
The Christian view is that the world, considered as a religio-political "system" of interacting powers, is not good, but, in fact, is evil, and is dominated by evil. It's hard, when considering situations like the one described above, not to see that representation as essentially correct.
Many "secular humanists" say the same thing, but believe that God (should God exist) would be morally responsible for all human choices. Which is odd, given that the same people also tend to hold that humans are good, meaning they blame God for the chaos in the world, but would not hold humans, as a whole, similarly morally responsible. Which is odder still, because we're the ones actually enacting and advocating these harmful behaviors.
1. Were Sudanese refuge camps a legitimate, positive use of the UN?
Yes. The UN does *some* small amounts of good, but we have to consider that in balance. The very existence of the UN legitimizes the argument that no (law-abiding) nations should be involved unless the UN moves and approves.
In this case, the UN certainly took its sweet time doing anything. And whereas Bush (to his credit) used the G-word ("genocide", which, if agreed upon the UN, would legally bind it to act) the rest of the UN has done everything in it's power to prevent such.
2000: "The United Nations has suspended humanitarian relief flights into Sudan amid reports that Sudan is using a Chinese-supplied radar to track and bomb the U.N. humanitarian missions." WND
2001: "They are getting some relief aid through some agencies but not through the United Nations. While they seem to have the most money for it and claim to be doing the most, most of the United Nations relief aid is going to the very government causing the suffering. The United Nations, through Operation Lifeline Sudan, is literally fueling and prolonging the war." WND
2002: "President George W. Bush on Monday signed legislation aimed at pressing the government of Sudan to settle a civil war that has claimed 2 million lives over the past two decades." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
(The bill reads, in part "The President should seek to end Sudan veto power over and manipulation of United Nations humanitarian relief efforts carried out through Operation Lifeline Sudan" and "The President should increase the use of agencies other than Operation Lifeline Sudan for humanitarian relief efforts in southern Sudan.")
2003: "The United Nations Commission on Human Rights today condemned some of the world's worst human rights violators, but let others off the hook, Human Rights Watch said. Resolutions were rejected on the situation in Chechnya (15 yes, 21 no, 17 abstentions) and Sudan (24 yes, 26 no, 3 abstentions). The defeat of the Sudan resolution ends U.N. human rights monitoring there despite the ongoing conflict." Human Rights Watch
2004: UN Commission on Human Rights Shamefully Fails the People of Darfur, Even as UN Human Rights Report Catalogs “Crimes Against Humanity,” - April 23, 2004 (Eric Reeves)
And:
That the first response of the UN was one of shameful expediency---a withholding of the report of its own human rights investigative team as part of some under-the-table deal with Khartoum---is already deeply dismaying and profoundly undermines the credibility of the UN generally, but particularly in its response to the Darfur catastrophe. This expediency also calls into question the integrity of UN responses going forward in responding to “crimes against humanity” in Darfur, indeed genocide.
2005: "The United States is officially disputing the claim by a special U.N. panel that the crisis in Darfur does not amount to 'genocide.' The 177-page report from a five-member U.N. commission charged with investigating allegations of genocide in Sudan made these conclusions: There was a massacre of as many as 400,000 mostly Christian southern Sudanese people.... This cannot be considered 'genocide.'" (WND)
2006: "On Thursday, August 31, 2006, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1706, “inviting” the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum to allow a large and robust UN to enter Darfur with the primary goal of protecting acutely vulnerable civilians and humanitarians.... The same day that Egeland issued his terrifying warning---and while US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer continued her humiliating two-day wait to meet with National Islamic Front President Omar el-Bashir---Khartoum launched its long-anticipated military offensive in North Darfur. Early reports from the ground suggest that the offensive is massive... and already there is clear evidence that the offensive entails serious violations of international law and war crimes." (Eric Reeves)
2007: "On August 31, 2006, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1706, authorizing a peace support operation for Darfur consisting of 22,500 UN troops, civilian police, and Formed Police Units. The force was to deploy “rapidly” under Chapter VII of the UN Charter... Instead, in mid-May 2007---eight and a half months after passage of Resolution 1706---fewer than 200 UN technical personnel have deployed to assist the African Union force, the only international military presence currently tasked with protecting some 4.5 million conflict-affected civilians... Nor is there is any prospect of significant additional UN deployment for months." (Eric Reeves)
"As many as 2.5 million are thought to have been displaced as of October 2006." Wikipedia
So, yeah, after approximately 400,000 or more are killed, and 2.5 million are driven away (sometimes into other conflicts, including the horrifying LRA) the UN finally ceases it's obstructionism and helps some of the survivors.
Would the world, and the people of Sudan, have been better without these actions, and others taken the UN, good and bad? That's the question. Looks like a "yes" to me (and like most the actions have been harmful).
Bush has displayed considerable spine on this issue, going before the Security Counsel a number of times, and being probably the main political forcing pushing for action.
On other issues, (Iran, Iraq) he's certainly worked with the UN (not to an unlimited extent, but always went to them first, for many months or even years) -- so there's no reason to think that without a UN he would have found a different outlet for that concern, including working with the African Union, who is already involved militarily.
But I don't necessarily disrespect everyone who might draw a different conclusion.
Remember, the desire to do good wouldn't go away. The UN didn't create that. It simply channels it into what is often ineffective, or even counter-effective actions.
I strongly suspect that in a world without the UN, nations would be more used to stepping in to fill that role, and that the US would therefore have been more likely to have been more effective in doing so, just as we did in the case of the Tsunami. (Another disaster where the UN's contribution ranged from useless to a hinderance.)
And keep in mind that a few well-placed missile strikes could do quite a lot to save lives, and prevent the need for tens of thousands of tons of food aid, and dozens of refugee camps. But some people would call that "war", thus implying 400,000 dead people should be thought of, in contrast, as "peace."
2. Are you saying that America would have had the political will to be involved in Rwanda if the UN didn't exist?
No. If I say Bob has hurt efforts, I'm not necessarily saying that Linda was a good influence. Clinton clearly had no spine on this issue, and wouldn't have in any other alternate UN-free universe either.
I'm only saying the world would probably be better without the UN, not that the world would be utterly genocide-free. (I'm a conservative, not a utopian.)
Rwanda could have easily been stopped (a single radio station was apparently instigating and controlling the massacre) but at the time, no political will existed to stop it. Certainly not here in the US.
Two quick questions;
1. Were Sudanese refuge camps a legitimate, positive use of the UN? (as an aside, if you're looking for an interesting movie, check out "God Grew Tired of Us" which is about Sudanese refugees and covers the UN camps and their activities a bit.)
2. Are you saying that America would have had the political will to be involved in Rwanda if the UN didn't exist?
Posted by: Ryan W. on October 26, 2007 08:25 PM