The international community is generally quite bad in dealing with issues of war or mass slaughter. Whatever the utility of the UN on trade or health (and its successes there are decidedly mixed) it is very bad at dealing with the issues its charter makes preeminent. The international community is especially bad at responding to genocide for a number of reasons.
1. Often it is impossible to get the UN to denounce the right things–unless I have missed it, the Sudan cleansing is still not counted as genocide at the UN, Ethiopian genocide gets mentioned even less, and the democide in Zimbabwe is still treated as if the crop failures and lack of food distribution were due to a natural disaster. None of these gets nearly the attention of the ongoing low-level warfare between Israel and the Palestinians even though you are far safer as a Palestinian then you would be as a black Christian in the southern part of the Sudan. If I avoid being cynical about the process, this type of difference reveals a severe inattention to prioritization. If it is so horrifying that an Israeli bulldozer can knock down a few houses of those who are directly tied to terrorists attacking them that it requires UN Assembly attention, how does driving millions from their homes in the Sudan escape sanction?
2. The UN process leads to ‘treaties’ and ‘resolutions’ which do not particularly related to real-world action. I am often accused of having a dislike of treaties. That isn’t accurate. Treaties are agreements to do something. They often take the form of a contract with reciprocal rights. I love treaties when they are actual expressions of intent. When it comes to issues of war, treaties with UN involvement tend to be worthless or nearly worthless because very few of the countries involved bother to take the doing something part seriously.
3. The UN is too attentive to symbolism without bothering to back it up with useful substance. This leads to the dangerous error in believing that something is being done when in fact something is merely being talked about. The NPT is worse than worthless, going through its failed motions is now actively detrimental. It encourages countries like France and Germany to be intimately involved in helping countries gain all sorts of nuclear capabilities right up to the edge of weaponization capability. The The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was hailed as a great step forward in 1951, but countries routinely ignore their responsibility to prevent genocide. The convention is occasionaly used to punish high-level officials after the fact of a genocide, but it is rarely invoked while a genocide is ongoing–even if it goes on for many years. Form over substance in UN ‘action’ met its ultimate expression in Srebenica where a "safe area" was used to gather refugees by the UN, but then were abandoned to be slaughtered in exchange for the release of some captured UN peacekeepeers. Not only was Srebenica left undefended by the UN, but the UN had actively taken away the Muslim refugees arms and military vehicles (including tanks) which were left in a poorly defended depot to be seized by the Bosnian Serbs who would later kill the refugees. Not only did the UN forces leave Srebenica poorly defended on the ground, but UN Gen. Bernard Janvier actively bargained away air strikes in the area in order to arrange for the release of UN hotages. Furthermore UN Special Representative Yasushi Akashi repeatedly announced a strict adherence to principles of ‘peacekeeping’ which did not allow the use of force. In the middle of the massacre, Dutch peacekeepers returned 239 refugees to the Serbs, forcing them from the Dutch camps while also providing 30,000 liters of fuel to the genocidal army. Cite, cite. The safe areas were purely symbolic, and the lack of actual commitment to the symbolism allowed them to be turned into killing fields.
These failures are not a failure of power. They are failures of will. Too many in the international community are willing to accept symbols as if they were really action. They are willing to accept pieces of paper which say that genocide is illegal or post-facto investigations by the ICC rather than taking steps to make sure that malefactors in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, or the Sudan are actually opposed in their plans. This leads to
4. The UN cannot act as a moral arbiter because it is an institution which was designed to enforce stasis. The UN is an institution which was designed to be paralyzed. This makes it very ill suited to deal in large cases of war or genocide. Fighting genocide requires quick action. It is not a problem which is amenable to being solved through many years of talking at conferences. Fighting genocide requires decisive action. Multiple rounds of targetting authorization spanning many days only ensures that military action is highly ineffective. Most importantly stopping genocide will often require military action–a capability which UN countries other than the US have pointedly underfunded and which they lack the will to use even to the extent that they have it. Afghanistan is the perfect example of this. Theoretically Afghanistan represents a clear case–action was required, and now the country needs to be rebuilt. But when a dangerous election-time transition came along, it was very difficult to obtain security troops from NATO for a variety of reasons–none of them flattering.
The UN simply is not set up to be able to deal with things like genocide. It cannot be a moral arbiter on such issues becuase it cannot act morally with respect to them. The problem with this fact is that this either leaves the US to act independently (which it sometimes does not or cannot do) or it leaves the problem unaddressed.
I suspect if we want to really try to stop genocide as it occurs, we will have to both change the international community’s view on authorizing military action and work well outside the UN structure.
I’m not against treaties. I’m against treaties which are mere paper and do not reflect a commitment to action. I’m not against the UN, I’m against pretending that the UN is suited to deal with genocide and many facets of war and peace. I’m not against the international community. I’m against the pretense that it is particularly interested in sacrifices to stop genocide or to enforce peace.
I’m against the pretense that it is particularly interested in sacrifices to stop genocide or to enforce peace.
And one can, of course, say exactly the same about the US.
I suspect if we want to really try to stop genocide as it occurs….
Assuming “we” refers to any group which actually has the power to stop genocide, rather than the concerned blogosphere, what has to happen before you realise that “we” don’t really want to try?
Ah, and briefly before I have to run – nice to see you posting again!
Let’s see — Clinton got lambasted by the Republican party (a) for the Balkans air war; (b) for the loss of life in Somalia; (c) for launching cruise missiles at Saddam or (d) all of the above?
more bluntly, as Tonto’s famous response goes, “what do you mean ‘we’, white man?”
the only military force in the world with the military heavy lift capability and quick reaction forces to do something effective in Rwanda, Congo, Sudan and Zimbabwe is the US. Every other country in the world gets to say that something should be done. Americans get to decide whether or not to do it.
UN diplomacy on genocide goes through the Oval Office first. the failure to respond to Rwanda lies heavily on the democratic party. i’m still waiting for the republican party to admit any responsibility at all.
What Kevin and Jesurgislac said. The shortcomings of the UN are the product of the selfishness of its members. Without wanting to bash the current administration I think one can fairly say that it -like those before it- is interested in the UN in as much as it gets what it wants. The UN appeared useful for providing a justification for the Iraq war, but I fail to see any readiness to put a debate on international law in the age of terrorism on the table. I’m not aware of any non-nationalistic reasons for the stance on the ICC. And the guy about to be sent there is not the best man for the job by many measures. Arguably, if one were serious about the UN, UN reform etc. one would want to send the second most capable guy you can think of, in other words, vice president material.
On the particular question of dealing with genocide, you are IMHO not sufficiently taking into account two aspects, namely the country being invaded and the country/countries doing the invasion. The US is never going to be in the first camp, but other countries might or at least think they might. That colors their take on the matter. Imagine for instance, that lynchings and race riots or japanese internment actually had carried the risk that the UN decides its time to bring in the black helicopters. Imagine, that Bush actually were tried for the war crime of starting an unprovoked war. Sure, he probably would be found not guilty, I believe they covored their legal backs in this respect, but just imagine him being tried. You don’t want to tell me the American public, particularly the American right would stand that sort of thing, right? But you are asking that lots and lots of countries and leaders with far more to fear in this respect submit to such a scheme voluntarily?
On the side of those potential UN troops you are merely asking for a willingness to offer blood and treasure to stop genocide. Certainly not unreasonable. But the countries you and I envision doing those interventions are ones we regard as the good (and wealthy ones). Not everyone agrees. There are very obvious cases, such as countries were the US, France, Britain, Spain, Germany just don’t want to go armed, and were they wouldn’t be welcomed warmly. Most of these are former colonies, but some are not. And so, for certain places we end up with the usual suspects not being wanted, those able to do something not being willing and/or the usual suspects not wanting those who are liked to do something. An example of the difficulties here was the role of Turkey in the run-up to the Iraq war.
In summary, I share your goals fully, but believe your beef is not with the UN but with humans in general. And you’re making the perfect the enemy of the best we can do under the current circumstances IMO.
Sebastian, don’t you see that these posts just undercut the current GOP lie, that we’re in Iraq for Democracy and Human Rights?
People might wonder why these things only matter if there is oil underneath them.
Francis:”the only military force in the world with the military heavy lift capability and quick reaction forces to do something effective in Rwanda, Congo, Sudan and Zimbabwe is the US. Every other country in the world gets to say that something should be done. Americans get to decide whether or not to do it.”
If our Iraq misadventures proved anything, it’s the hubris of this statement…
I think markus is right: the the UN failings listed by Sebastian are human failings and will rear their ugly heads whenever humans gather into groups for a purpose. Faculty meetings are prone to empty, symbolic actions while members focus on protecting turf and avoid expending resources on what they perceive as “somebody else’s probelm”, especialy if the somebody else has no clout or if the problem looks difficult.
The problems listed in Sebastian’s post all seem to me to be indications of the need to revitalize the UN. I also think that we need to be leaders within the UN, not a country that gripes and complains from outside unless we need something.
lily,
“I also think that we need to be leaders within the UN, not a country that gripes and complains from outside unless we need something.”
Agreed. Further, we need to do our part to avoid making the problem worse by avoiding the frequently heard claim that any restrictions treaties place upon the US is the equivalent of losing our sovereignty. As Sebastian properly wrote, “Treaties are agreements to do something. They often take the form of a contract with reciprocal rights.” Unfortunately, the Bush Administration seems to view treaties as only worthwhile if they give other countries no rights to restrict our actions.
I agree with most of what you say here, Sebastian, but I am prepared to go further.
I dislike treaties precisely because most treaties are worthless paper. Treaties are broken all the time, and because there is no effective enforcement for a treaty beyond aggressive, the solution to a treaty violation is either “nothing”, “shooting war,” “trade war” or “another goddamn treaty.” None of these things gets the job done.
The UN’s primary failing is that it is a treaty organisation between sovereign nation states. The very principles on which it is constructed, despite their high-falootin’ talk, make explicit claim of the nearly irrevocable right of any given government, be it democratic, theocratic or dictatorial, to operate pretty much with impunity within its own borders. If you’re not actually slaughtering huge swathes of your own people, and even sometimes if you are, that’s fine because National Sovereignty simply translates as “can’t nobody tell me what to do!” It’s a hideously outdated concept that still tacitly accepts that people in a country are “subjects”, the property of the government rather than human beings who happen to be subject to administration by sheer geographic randomness of birth or transport.
Unfortunately, the solution is something that nobody is willing to countenance, because while we’d love to be able to tell those Dictators what to do in their countries, we hate admitting that to mess with the idea of national sovereignty might force us to put our own houses in order too.
But while we keep it, the UN cannot and will never work, and blaming it for “allowing genocide” is to miss the point entirely. The UN can no more prevent genocide than I can vote in the Virginia gubernatorial election.
On (1): Sudan, Ethiopia*, and Zimbabwe are nominally “internal” affairs, while Israel/Palestine regarded by many as a problem *between* two states. Morally, yes, the first three appear to be much worse, but isn’t the UN charged with acting on (solving if we’re lucky) problems of the second kind, and not problems of the first?
* Has Eritrea been recognized? I admit I’m not even sure if the current problems are at that end of the country or the opposite end…
I seem to be somewhere in between everyone. I think that the UN is an organization that’s very much worth keeping around, because it does do good things in, for instance, health, because it’s very much worth having some international organization not designed around a specific purpose where we can at least try to hash things out, and because I tend to think it’s a good idea to have structures around for us to grow into, even if we aren’t there yet.
My views on reform tend to echo Suzanne Nossel’s, as explained here (on Annan’s proposed reforms), and here (on further reforms.) But I also completely agree with another of her posts, here, on the extent to which the UN’s problems are not the result of structural deficiencies per se (not that these don’t exist, see the two earlier posts, but that they aren’t nearly the whole of the problem.) Nossel writes:
I think she’s absolutely right. But I also think she’s right when she adds:
This is not meant to be some sort of reflexive anti-US point, or anything, but a statement of the rather obvious fact that if we want UN reform, we should be willing to lead it, not only by advancing proposals, but by example.
And it leads into another point, which is that, as other people have said, a lot of the problems with e.g. the UN’s response to genocide are there by design. Most countries do not want to UN to have extensive powers to deal with problems within national borders. The US is no exception. We don’t really seem to want it to have extensive powers to deal with problems that transcend national borders, at least if this would involve e.g. the Security Council having the authority to accept or reject US plans to go to war. This is, as they say, a feature, not a bug, and it’s one we have never tried to eliminate. And I say this not to say “gotcha, we’re hypocrites!”, but to ask: how much power would we actually be willing to cede? And if the answer is, ‘not enough to deal with some of these problems’, should we complain about them?
I also think that the situations in Darfur, Rwanda, and Bosnia speak to the need for member states to step up to the plate, not so much to the need to reform the UN. The UN cannot act when its member states are not willing to. In all three of these cases, most of its member states, including the US, were not willing to act. This is something I think we should be ashamed of. But it is not clear to me that the fault here lies with the UN.
Seb, what is your take on “The Responsibility to Protect?”
Unless they’re in Central America or on an island off the coast of Venezuela or somewhere in Eastern Europe or just west of Pakistan…in short, somewhere the oil isn’t.
“I’m against the pretense that it is particularly interested in sacrifices to stop genocide or to enforce peace.
And one can, of course, say exactly the same about the US.”
One can. But the difference, especially post Korean-war, is that when the US bothers to get interested in stopping genocide or enforcing the peace, things actually get done which is quite in contrast with the UN.
“the only military force in the world with the military heavy lift capability and quick reaction forces to do something effective in Rwanda, Congo, Sudan and Zimbabwe is the US”
I don’t think so. The genocides in the Sudan and Congo and the democide in Zimbabwe have been going on long enough that a quick reaction force is not necessary to deal with them any time in say the past year or so. As for heavy lift capability, even under Bush I can’t imagine that the US would fail to transport European troops if transport is the main thing they needed. Furthermore we would be willing to provide air support. So even if there were a physical law preventing France or Germany from having a large transport capability, and even if the US were not willing to directly invade a place like the Sudan while the rest of the world was desperately interested in doing so, the fact that only the US has the transport capability necessary would be unlikely to be a major problem.
One thing further, it is not “anti-UN” to point out that the UN is not systemically suited for certain things which are important. I am not systemically suited to bear children, but it isn’t anti-Sebastian to point that out even if you think child-bearing capacity is really important in the world. The UN isn’t institutionally designed to be able to tkae the decisive action necessary to stop genocide as it is occurring. Institutionally, the UN is even less suited to taking action than its member nations. It is less than the sum of its parts.
“I also think that the situations in Darfur, Rwanda, and Bosnia speak to the need for member states to step up to the plate, not so much to the need to reform the UN. The UN cannot act when its member states are not willing to. In all three of these cases, most of its member states, including the US, were not willing to act. This is something I think we should be ashamed of. But it is not clear to me that the fault here lies with the UN.”
I agree, which is precisely why it is silly to think of the UN as some sort of moral arbiter in cases of war. It isn’t institutionally suited to make those kind of decisions in a way that allows for intervention except in the very clearest of cases, and just barely there and even then rarely decisively enough to follow through.
We agree, Seb. The problem at the UN is made worse because of Annan’s awful leadership. Some of the proposed reforms will help things, but the larger problem will likely remain.
I would like to highly recommend this documentary if you want to understand the real obstacles to addressing the daunting obstacles the Congos of this world present.
Sebastian: is that when the US bothers to get interested in stopping genocide or enforcing the peace, things actually get done
The distinction between “Cannot act” (which is certainly true of the UN, much of the time) and “Could act but won’t” (which is certainly true of the US, much of the time) is one worth making.
There is also the factor that the US frequently bothers itself to intervene when it is neither stopping genocide nor enforcing the peace, but preventing democracy or supporting dictatorship, or – as most recently in Iraq – just for the hell of it. This means that the US can never be wholly trusted as a neutral, trusted broker, since it must always be assumed that the US is mixing in to suit itself.
And the US has frequently used its muscle, on the Security Council and elsewhere, to prevent the UN from acting – the long record of vetos against any action even upbraiding Israel for its human rights violations being a case in point.
If the UN were able to act and enforce international law, the US would be at war against the UN: simple as that. The US does not wish there to be an international body with the right to override the US’s will in any matter.
If the UN were able to say to the US – you must close down Guantanamo Bay, and the rest of your gulag, and either release your prisoners or give them fair trial in open court, then… well, among other things, we would see Charles Bird here railing against the UN for daring to show leadership and act against human rights violations.
And the US has frequently used its muscle, on the Security Council and elsewhere, to prevent the UN from acting – the long record of vetos against any action even upbraiding Israel for its human rights violations being a case in point.
Or, more pointedly, the way in which the US stymied the various motions of censure against Saddam in the late 1980s.
Yes…boo..hiss…to Kofi for listening to what Hans Blix had to say.
My, has history proven them wrong.
Charles:
The problem at the UN is made worse because of Annan’s awful leadership
I’m sorry, but how can the leader of something that is structurally unable to act, as a direct result of treaties signed four decades before he came into power, possibly be blamed for it being unable to act? Annan is a beaurocrat in a beaurocratic organisation.
Either you agree with Sebastian or you don’t. Taking a shot at Annan is just cheap.
Sebastian:
One of the problems with debates like this is that, while people like you and I may agree that the UN is fundamentally flawed, reading between the lines I get the feeling we would disagree on the solutions. It is worth remembering that, despite its flaws, the UN was designed to try and solve a problem — that of too much unilateral action in an anarchic and lawless world of sovereign nation states prone to going off half-cocked and taking others down with them.
It hasn’t solved that problem. It was the wrong answer to that problem, and it has been a band-aid at best and completely ineffective at worst, but that doesn’t mean that we should ignore the fact that the initial problem to which we are still seeking a workable solution is too much unilateralism.
One can say that a “Bush doctrine” of unilateral action/ad-hoc coalitions could respond better militarily to the varying needs of Zimbabwe or Rwanda than the UN’s bloated system, but seriously: how many Iraqs can your country afford? I know that the EU, even were it ever to create a unified military RRF, would never embark on something as ambitious as the US invasion of Iraq simply because we watched you guys do it already and, y’know, we think we’ll pass on that.
There simply is not the physical military capacity in the world for anyone to solve even a tenth of the problems the UN is ostensibly charged with fixing, even as its hands are tied. The fact that the UN is an ineffective solution does not mean we can solve a problem of too much unilateralism with more unilateralism.
Me: “People might wonder why these things only matter if there is oil underneath them.”
Slartibartfast: “Unless they’re in Central America or on an island off the coast of Venezuela or somewhere in Eastern Europe or just west of Pakistan…in short, somewhere the oil isn’t.”
Let’s see – Central/South America – BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That is funny!
Who has had three coup attempts in the past couple of years? Chavez. Why? Oil.
Eastern Europe – not too many military interventions there, although Reagan did like the polish unions, which was out of character for him.
Afghanistan – oh, yea, that place which had to be taken care of, gotten out of the way, to clear the decks for Iraq. Not enough to actually bag Osama, or a large chunk of Al Qaida leadership, but enough that the amdministration’s actual reaction to 9/11 (goody! let’s hit Iraq, and roll up the Middle East) were plausibly deniable.
I’m a bit confused. Sebastian has complained that surrendering sovereignty (for example, using foreign law as precedent) is wrong. But it seems that if sovereignty is not weakened in some way, the UN or the democracy caucus or any other international organization is going to have the same problems that Seb identifies. To complain that this is the case without reconsidering one’s stance on the former point is really meaningless.
This is a flawed analysis for reasons we have discussed before.
What the UN is unable to deal with is conflict within nations that are nominally “civil wars” or some other form of internal strife or oppression. There is nothing in the UN charter to deal with this meaningfully, and politically it is a very hot potato since most of the member nations have some degree of internal repression or lack of freedoms. So a majority do not want the UN intervening in internal affairs, even though they often ratchet up to the level of horrible as in Sudan or elsewhere.
This is at the heart of all of the “failings” you describe, but your analysis as to the reason for this problem is off-base. Frankly, the UN was never set up to deal with internal strife, period, so bad mouthing it about this failing is simply garbage.
The UN has helped mitigate the primary problem it was intended to address — inhibiting warfare between nations.
The UN cannot act as a moral arbiter because it is an institution which was designed to enforce stasis. The UN is an institution which was designed to be paralyzed.
This in particular is flat wrong. The UN operates to enforce consensus, and is paralyzed when there is no consensus. It has no power to enforce its mandates unless there is a broad consensus. By analogy, it is a lot like the original Articles of Confederation that predated the US Constitution, and it has all of the same problems.
And there currently is no consensus as to how the UN should intervene in countries even when they devolve to the level of Sudan or Zimbabwe (or when Bosnia actually required armed conflict with Serbian proxies).
Also, it is tough to develop consensus given the moral failings of so many members of the UN.
Finally, I note that most conservatives are 100% opposed to the types of changes that would be necessary to give the UN teeth; i.e., the international criminal court or similar international enforcement mechanisms that are specifically designed to enforce the UN will and punish member nations. In other words, while you whine about the UN, I am sure you are opposed to what would give it real teeth. I admit to being troubled about giving it those kinds of powers — too much of the world is governed by the corrupt and the venal, and they would end up having way too much influence on those organizations to the detriment of our own sovereignty. But the real source of the problem that you complain about is the lack of mechanisms for the UN to enforce its majority decisions even when many members disagree.
Put me down in agreement with McDuff and LJ. The UN’s problem is institutional and cannot be solved by changes in leadership or strengthening of will. The problem, plain and simple, is that it, as an institution, is tasked with protecting the rights of people (in the instances in question) but it is also carefully constructed in such a way as to preserve individual national sovereignty. It fails whenever there is a situation in which these two things come into conflict.
The UN also fails whenever it, as a body, wishes to do anything which a country on the Security Council opposes for reasons of sovereignty or self-interest.
The only way that they gain any ability as an institution to deal with any of these difficulties is to give them some measure of power and give up some measure of national sovereignty to them. And I don’t see that happening any time soon. See the US on the ICC for one prime example.
Fiat lessitalicus!
::sigh::
Actually, I had Panama in mind, which is why I said Central America. But thanks for the noncorrective correction.
Surely you meant to say Iran, which actually shares a border with Afghanistan. If not, I have no idea what your thought process is, here.
Why, you’re right. That whole Kosovo thing must have just been a bad dream. Ditto Rwanda, of course.
“The Responsibility to Protect” proposes to change the concept of sovereignity so that the UN is more effective at dealing with human rights issues. DMBeaster is absolutely correct in that the UN wasn’t designed to prevent genocide, it was designed to prevent global nuclear war. Obviously, many are seeing a need for an international standard of human rights, and a way to intervene to protect those rights. This requires modification of the UN, obviously, as any single nation or group of nations invading other countries willy-nilly just ain’t gonna cut it. As Iraq, I think, proves.
I’m sorry, but how can the leader of something that is structurally unable to act, as a direct result of treaties signed four decades before he came into power, possibly be blamed for it being unable to act?
Annan has the bully pulpit, McDuff. Leaders set the tone for an organization. Otherwise, why have a general secretary at all? Note also that one of the recommendations from a recent US study was that the UN needs a leader with day-to-day management skills. Personally, I don’t think that goes far enough.
Slart, I am suddenly curious about your choice of Panama, and would like to hear exactly why the US invaded Panama. I would be delighted to discover that it was a humanitarian intervention.
Charles—Leaders set the tone for an organization.
Yes, but the institutional rules constrain the types of leaders that institutions get. So if Annan steps down, what are the chances that anyone one single bit more dynamic or effective gets put in his place?
The UN has Annan because the institutional rules favor people like him in figurehead positions. Everyone not on the Security Council wants someone up front who will stick it to the people on the Security Council because the SC ignore the rest of them except when they want to meddle in internal affairs (at least from the have-nots’ perspective). Institutional rules shape institutions more than any leader that comes to prominence through those rules ever can. If you want more from the UN, you have to give the UN more power, and give the rank-and-file nations within the UN more power (not that I’m necessarily endorsing this).
It’s the institutionalist reality, proven in everyday action. Taking away all other minority privileges in the Senate has led to obstructionism and filibuster. This is not a course shaped by either the Dem’s or the Repub’s leadership. It is a response to a rules change. The same is true, of course, of the US’ treatment of detainees. If the rules allow a space in which detainees can be mistreated, then detainees will be mistreated.
Institutional rules shape institutional actions and policies.
I’ll do that, radish, after you point out where I referred to it as such. If you can show that Panama is awash in oil, on the other hand, I’ll have a great helping of crow to feast on. Should I break out the Texas Pete?
“Ditto Rwanda, of course.”
I missed the details of the US intervening in Rwanda. Could you remind us, please?
“I’m against treaties which are mere paper. . .”
I’d be curious to know how many treaties have mechanisms to force the breaching party to come into compliance, and the effectiveness of those mechanisms.
Since there is no global policeman, aren’t all treaties mere paper at the end of the day?
Well, I swear I was thinking of Somalia when I typed “Rwanda”.
Did I say somewhere that you referred to the invasion of Panama as humanitarian? It doesn’t look that way to me. Read more carefully please, and if you disagree please cite. I didn’t say anything about oil either, though I might, soon 😉
I’m just curious about what you consider the casus belli for that action, and whether you feel that it coincides with the strategic reasoning.
If it wasn’t your intention to frame my initial comment as a claim for a humanitarian mission, my apologies. It just seemed so non sequitur without that as a connection.
P.S. I like corvids in general, and I disapprove of eating them, so please feel free to substitute chicken should the need arise.
No connection — just snark related to my recollection of somewhat, uh, murkier motivations…
BTW I can’t really tell if you’re off the hook for poultry. add’l research suggests that volume of oil per se isn’t a major factor in Panama’s strategic importance (though heaven knows control of the canal is a big deal both economically and militarily). Most credible estimate so far is very little import crude, and only 3% of US imports of refined products. That’s 2003 numbers.
Alaskan exports through a pipeline would apparently have been at issue around the time of transfer, but it’s hard to say how that might have figured into Poppy’s thinking in ’89 (details do sometimes paint a different picture and I haven’t got any of those). That’s why I’m hoping that you’re about to explain it to me…
As I said, unless Panama’s turned out to be a nation sitting on significant oil reserves, speculations as to our motivation in our B&E activities there are, although interesting, completely beside the point.
Ah. Interesting but not interesting enough to discuss. Duly noted, as with M. Scott.
For the record, I’ve exhausted my own interest in the subject of oil transit through Panama without being able to build a strong case that Poppy’s intervention had as much or more to do with that than with the canal’s broader strategic importance. Suffice to say that the timing and circumstances of the invasion throw doubt on its real purposes in about the same way that the suspiciously large turnout in the Iranian elections throws doubt on the theory that W’s comments caused an enormous upwelling of participatory sentiment among otherwise ambivalent Iranian voters.
Hey, I’d be glad to kick open an open thread on the topic, if you’d like. For me, though, it’d be interesting more from an observer’s point of view than as a participant.
I do apologize for the snark, however. There are never any good reasons for it, so I won’t bore you.
(re: US interventions)
Me: “Eastern Europe – not too many military interventions there ”
Slartibartfast: “Why, you’re right. That whole Kosovo thing must have just been a bad dream. Ditto Rwanda, of course.”
I was thinking of the Cold War, but you’re right – Clinton intervened in Kosovo. I say ‘Clinton’ rather than ‘The USA’ becauase the GOP made it quite clear that they didn’t want the intervention; at least one Congressman (DeLay) committed high treason (the criticism of a US president during time of war, or armed action, or something like that). And Clinton was only able to do it after the Balkan war festered for years, and started to spread.
Rwanda (during the genocide), of course, was striking for it’s absence of US troops. Somalia is a good example – how many US KIA did it take to force a withdrawal? One good hard skirmish did that effort in; it was an intervention which lasted until it became clear that it’d have to be an actual military intervention.
As for Panama, that happened after Noriega showed signs of being unreliable, and the US suddenly discovered drugs and dirty money and human rights abuses and such.
Most of Central/South America: with the exception of Cuba, good jobs managing torturers in most countries *required* a diploma from the School of the Americas.
All of that was mighty instructive, Barry, but unfortunately not supportive of the war-for-oil comment.
“Well, I swear I was thinking of Somalia when I typed ‘Rwanda’.”
Okey-doke, then. The culpable entity is probably the same one that frequently seizes control of my typing fingers. I blame George W. Bush.
The culpable entity is probably the same one that frequently seizes control of my typing fingers
VALIS, no doubt…
“All of that was mighty instructive, Barry, but unfortunately not supportive of the war-for-oil comment.”
Posted by: Slartibartfast
However, it does support that idea that the US generally does not intervene on behalf of human rights. As in Iraq, where it was 9/11, Al Qaida and smoking-gun-mushroom clouds in the headlines. After those fell through, the fine print was brought up, and the fact that the GOP does not put 100K troops into a war just to topple an evil dictator was denied.
“All of that was mighty instructive, Barry, but unfortunately not supportive of the war-for-oil comment.”
Posted by: Slartibartfast
However, it does support that idea that the US generally does not intervene on behalf of human rights. As in Iraq, where it was 9/11, Al Qaida and smoking-gun-mushroom clouds in the headlines. After those fell through, the fine print was brought up, and the fact that the GOP does not put 100K troops into a war just to topple an evil dictator was denied.
No argument there, Barry. If we did, we’d probably have invaded half the sovereign states of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
Srebrenica is a complicated case. In the end there were 400 Dutchbatters with light caliber guns, 16% of the necessary ammunition and no proper food for weeks who had no proper intelligence about what was going on, had strict orders to “protect by presence only”, and who were promised air support that they never got. That was not much to stop the Serbian army with – there was a reason no other country wanted to do it.
There has been an extensive report that leaves most of the Dutch people with an ambiguous feeling. We feel that the soldiers should have let themself be killed out of principle whilst feeling that they were so betrayed that they could only try to get as much out of it as possible (safety for the women and children).
Our government felt that they were ultimately responsible for putting the soldiers in this situation and decided to resign. And there currently *is* another trial going on against some Dutch militairs.
Bosnia made me an even more fervent supporter of a rapid reaction force of European countries – something the US via Nato has tried to stop from happening for decades.
About Dafur: in addition to the above mentioned problems with the UN charter I’d like to add that the African countries do not want European or American peacekeepers there. The African Union actually wants to provide soldiers, but does not have the budget to pay them. The UN might pay, but that is very hard if most of their peacekeepers budget is an IOU of the USofA.
Afghanistan: at first there was a lot of international cooperation, including offers for more troops, but the US stopped ISAF expensian because it was afraid it would make their own militairy operations more complicated. Later the US pressed for troops support in Iraq and had allready made clear it felt Afghanistan was a low priority. Which actually made me quite angry at the time, since I clearly remember Bush stating that the would rebuild Afghanistan and not desert them again after bombing the country even further into the Middle Ages.
The UN needs reform, but there should be a lot of discussion about what it’s role is and how it will have the means to fulfill that role. Are you sure you are in favor of giving the UN the independent means to act?
It’s a tool. The UN that is. It can only work when used by one “person.” It can only be effectively led by the US (or with strong US support). When it fails to act, that failure is because we do not make it act.
It’s not the only tool in the box, and it’s not the right tool for every job. It is, nonetheless, for some jobs a reasonably (although never perfectly) effective tool.
People should stop pretending though that it has a mind or a will or moral culpability. It’s a tool. It’s our tool. How are we doing at using it?
[b]Charles[/b], I’m still not following your objections. We all know that the conservative wing of the USA doesn’t like Annan, but the rest of the world either has no opinion of him and is unaware of his existence, or thinks of him in broadly favourable terms. I’m not suprised that studies out of the USA (which think tank, exactly, were these studies from?) recommend someone, anyone, who isn’t Kofi Annan.
The fact is that for all the particular objections of the USA, Annan could do everything entirely differently and sing all the songs according to the NeoCon hymnbook, but it still wouldn’t change a damn thing. France, Russia and China still sit on the Security Council, and it’s they who stop you doing whatever the hell you feel like doing today, not Annan.
Annan’s job is to talk. He stands up there at every opportunity and says “genocide is bad, the UN disapproves of genocide.” He often says it all real forceful like and wags his finger, but that belies the fact that he can’t do anything about it without the security council big-dicks getting all riled up about it and being willing to do something.
Annan doesn’t “set the tone”: George Bush, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Vladmir Putin set the freakin’ tone. Annan just tries to work around that. God damn if the whole thing wouldn’t be a lot prettier if someone in the UN could set the tone and get everyone all fired up to go violate some sovereignty in the name of human rights, but he can’t, and so he doesn’t.
Replace him with Dick Cheney or Jeff Gannon if you want, Charles, it won’t make a whit of difference. They’ll “set the tone” in this totally pro-US way, and Russia and France will shut the whole thing down and veto their way through the next decade. The key to diplomacy is understanding that everybody is just a big freakin’ baby. The Security Council is full of whinging, self-important Jessies, and Annan is their bitch. At least dislike him for something logical and sensible, like the fact that he called you all a bunch of crazy people. That, I can understand, but not this whining that the manager of the UN can’t crap gold out of his office’s ass.
“There has been an extensive report that leaves most of the Dutch people with an ambiguous feeling. We feel that the soldiers should have let themself be killed out of principle whilst feeling that they were so betrayed that they could only try to get as much out of it as possible (safety for the women and children).
Our government felt that they were ultimately responsible for putting the soldiers in this situation and decided to resign. And there currently *is* another trial going on against some Dutch militairs.”
I don’t blame the Dutch soldiers on the ground for not protecting the people when dramatically outmatched, I blame the General who bargained away the air support which allowed them to become dramatically outmatched.
I don’t blame the Dutch soldiers on the ground for not protecting the people when dramatically outmatched, I blame the General who bargained away the air support which allowed them to become dramatically outmatched.
There is much more blame to be handed out to be honest. Ultimately it was our government that was responsible for putting the troops in that position. Too hasty because they wanted to act as they spoke, without enough garanties from other parties involved, without the offered intelligence “because it was against the rules” (we are sticklers for rules I’m afraid), etc.
Our government resigned, even though many members were not in the government at the time of the tragedy, and I think that was a good decision. The buck has to stop somewhere and with a position of power comes accountability (cynics might remark about the fact that elections were only months away, but I still think the gesture was the proper one).
It made me a more fervent supporter of a European Defense force, but that is another discussion. I don’t blame the UN, because the UN (Kofi Annan) wanted a lot more troops. The security council stopped that, they approved “peacekeeping light”. Combined with the enormous debts because the US does not pay their contributions it is very hard for the UN to act on anything. If you feel they do not do enough, why don’t you promote the idea of the US actually paying the money they owe the UN so the UN can pay for peacekeeping? AFAIK the US is still overdue on 80% of the peacekeeping budget so the UN only has 20% of their budget to actually DO any peacekeeping with.