Sunday, February 11, 2007

Peacekeeping Missions

The United Nations reports that there is a short of peacekeepers for all of the peacekeeping missions on their plate.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan have high unemployment rates at the moment. Many of these disenfranchised youth are drawn into militias.

I have wondered if it would be advantageous to draw recruits from these nations to be trained as international peacekeepers. UN.org lists peacekeeping forces by nation. There is a strong correlation between unemployment in the nation and the number of peacekeepers. The CS Monitor has an article on refuges from Iraq. While we struggle with the security issue in Iraq, it would be worthwhile to find productive things for the refuges to do.


Hmm, maybe we could give them computers and teach them to blog ... no, that's not constructive.

5 comments:

Charles D said...

If by this, you mean to say that you support an independent UN force rather than the peacekeeping that is totally dependent on member nations, then I would agree. Unfortunately there is no such thing at present, largely because the US opposes it.

y-intercept said...

I agree that it would be interesting to have some forces under the direct control of the UN. Unfortunately, the way that the UN works right now, it would be too dangerous.

The reason that the UN doesn't have its own standing peacekeeping force at the moment is because it is an extremely dangerous idea (at least at this moment) and not simply because the US is evil

I actually recall that the US was once interested in having forces under the direct control of the UN. That idea kind of fell apart when the UN's idea was to put the armed forces from unpopular nations, like the US, in harms way without adequate protection.

Unfortunately, any Iraq or Afghan peacekeeping force would have to be set up like other nations where they were still part of the Afghan and Iraq armies on assignment to peacekeeping missions.

The US relation with the UN is quite strange. The pattern that typifies the UN is odd. The US had traditionally been a leader in proposing ideas. Obstructionists at the UN would the morph the idea into something that was extremely self destructive.

For example, the US was a leader in establishing the ICC. However, between drafing and ratification, bureaucrats at the ICC snuck lines into the charter that allows the court to expand its jurisdiction at will. The ICC gave itself authority to try anyone that they found politically unpopular for any reason. There is even an effort to try the president for every bad thing that happened to American indians.

The same happened with the landmine ban. The landmine ban put an absurd timetable for removing the landmines between North and South Korea. Signing the accord would have destabilized the Korean penninsula without really boosting the effort to remove the landmines that are killing people around the world.

The UN follows your same tact. You said in a recent post that every article about Iraq has to include something negative about Bush. The UN use the same technique, obstructionists believe that resolutions from the UN have to jab at the United States at Isreal at every chance possible.

BTW, DL, have you ever counted how many times you've dissed the United States, Bush or your other hated enemies in posts?

I was actually trained in the same techniques. I don't like the technique ... but I like to diss progressives just to throw the method back in their faces.

Charles D said...

Gee, we sure can't have anyone putting our troops in harm's way without adequate protection! (Does the name Rumsfeld mean anything to you?)

The US stop supporting the UN when it became apparent that a majority of the member nations did not support key US policies (unquestioned support for Israel, for example). To describe their position as obstructionist or destructive means nothing other than they sought to obstruct US policy.

The ICC failed because the UN was not about to create a rule of law for which there was a permanent exception made for the US. If there is to be international law, it must apply to all states.

I do not "diss" the United States. I disagree vehemently with our political leaders at times, I am honest about our history and our role in the world. I did not "train in these techniques" at my local communist academy, I read widely, tried to determine which ideas made sense and were consistently ethical and took positions based on that.

I cannot support a code that condemns one nation for doing something that we have done over and over again, nor do I see any moral construct under which the US should be exempt from international law or not bound by the treaties it has signed and ratified. You apparently take the position that if the US does it, it must be right.

Scott Hinrichs said...

I take the position that each nation must primarily concern itself with its own needs. It would be nice if it could be popular with other nations while doing that, but that is not the prime directive.

Since most of the nations represented in the U.N. have despotic governments, I cannot see how we can simply surrender to any "international law" that a majority of them come up with. The level of legitimacy of these "international laws" is very low indeed.

The U.N. is not a democratic body. It does not fairly represent any nation that belongs to it. Universal unfairness does not necessarily translate to overall fairness.

The U.N. serves a purpose, to be sure. But it is mainly designed for discourse. That is, it is designed for talking. It is ill designed for legislation or enforcement.

y-intercept said...

Clinton was ready to sign the ICC except that the ICC had given itself the power to unitlaterally expand its jurisdiction. That is bad news not just for the United States. It is bad news for all involved. A court that decides that it can try and put anyone they dislike to task is to supporting the rule of law.

The ICC was eseentially trying to give itself the same unilateral power that Bush claimed the US had. That is the ICC was trying to grab the power unilaterally exercise its sense of justice.

A person (either the ICC or George W. Bush) exercising their sense of justice is not the rule of law.

I supported the ICC up to the day that the wanks incharge of the ICC changed the wording of their charter between drafting and ratification.

DL, you are so overcome with hatred of the United States that you fail to see that other groups are guilty of the same sins at GW Bush.