IN THE CROSSHAIRS: To Paraphrase Gephardt: THE UN IS A MISERABLE FAILURE, in peacekeeping
On this United Nations Day, let us reflect on how the UN went from being a body filled with hope to hopeless failures in peacekeeping.
A brief history of UN "Peacekeeping" and Policy Failures
1. The first UN mission was in 1948, shortly after the UN voted to APPROVE the creation of the nation of Israel. The same day Israel's independence, created under UN resolutions, took place its Arab neighbors invaded. Israel won the war.
A UN peacekeeping mission was established. On July 26, 1956, President Nasser of Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal; five weeks after the British troops withdrew in hope of placating Nasser. Once Egypt had control of the canal, in violation of the 1951 UN agreement that the canal would be open to all nations, Egypt closed the canal to Israeli shipping, signed a tripartite military alliance with Syria and Jordan and permitted terrorist incursions into Israel from the Gaza Strip and Sinai. In late October and early November, Israel captures the Gaza Strip and the entire Sinai Peninsula, including the Suez Canal.
The United Nations convinces Israel to withdraw, unilaterally, from the occupied territory and allow a United Nations Emergency force to guarantee the free navigation in the Gulf of Eliat. Israel withdraws. In 1968, in violation of the agreement, Nasser demands that the United Nations forces withdraw and they withdraw. The 1967 war immediately broke out, which Israel won.
This led to UN Security Council Resolution 242, which called for "acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." The Arab nations continue to ignore UN Resolution 242. So much for the UN and its peacekeeping skills in the Middle East.
2. The UN's second major peacekeeping failure was in January 1949 when the United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan was deployed to supervise the ceasefire between the two nations behind the UN mandated “Line of Control� in Jammu and Kashmir. Fifty years later, in 1999, it was reported that there STILL were 300 people a MONTH being killed in the ongoing conflict in Kashmir. No one even bothers to report anymore how many people are killed every year in terrorist activities.
3. Let's look at UN work in Korea. In November 1947, The UN voted to remove troops from the divided Peninsula, where Russia/China controlled the North and the other Allies of WWII controlled the South. In 1950, the North Invades the South. What does the UN do? They demand that the North Withdraw and Cease hostilities....the north of course does not comply. Astonishingly, the US and UN used that time to act rapidly and resolutely. Driven by the energetic UN Secretary-General, Norwegian Trygve Lee, unopposed in the Security Council because of the absence of a petulant USSR, and supported by the belated awareness of the Truman administration of the true Soviet intentions, the UN authorized international use of force to drive the NK back to their borders. With this authorization, in spite of the government's near-emasculation of our Army and Marine Corps, General MacArthur used the time to assemble powerful infantry and armour forces, and move them into an area around the southern port of Pusan, to form a defensive perimeter. The NK used the time to consolidate their gains and stage to continue the attack. The War, as we know, ended in a stalemate, creating two countries, one of which threatens to bring us to Nuclear Nightmare again, that being North Korea. One complaint of veterans I know who fought in Korea is that Americans knew how to win the war, but higher ups in the UN command did not want to push. This is unacceptable, especially when the Secretary General of the Time said: This is a War against the United Nations. Tragically, it was mostly American soldiers and South Koreans who paid the price of UN idiocy in Korea.
4. Next, Let's look at Somalia in 1992. Not surprisingly, the UN wasted millions of dollars, and precious time and credibility, courting recalcitrant warlords to attend peace conferences which invariably failed. Those they had invited had no interest in an end to the conflict. A truly "realist" assessment would have concluded that peacebuilding requires working cooperatively with a peace constituency and in Somalia, that could be found not among the militia leaders but at the grass-roots level, amongs the thousands of average Somalis weary of war and wanting only a return to a normal life for themselves and their families. But over time they were increasingly ignored by the UN, and never found their collective voice to demand that their leaders reach a real and durable reconciliation.
The United Nations asked us to assist, but refused to give us the mandate to do what needed to be done, for fear of...what? warlords? That is who we were fighting. As a result of the UN's irresponsiblity and idiocy in Somalia, good US troops were killed, and their bodies dragged through the streets. The UN did nothing but make declarations, and our subservient President at the time immediately pulled out of Somalia with no reprisals to the criminals who desecrated our soldiers bodies. The US soldiers were there mostly for food drops and support, and they were allowed to be targeted by the UN and by our own President without fear or reprisal. The food program the UN started? Overrun by warlords who kept hte food to sell at inflated prices. Well, at least the UN taught the warlords the wonder of supply and demand. Somalia remains a powderkeg today.
5. How about those great successes in Bosnia? In Bosnia, the UN failed to prevent ethnic cleansing on both sides, and frequently played word games with Slovidan Milosevic, and frequently changed strategies and sides. Many good men were lost here under the UN banner, sent there by a President with ambitions of heading the UN, and wanting to be a UN toady. We went into the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia, with little understanding of the whole history of the conflict. The UN arbitrarily jumped in and declared who good guys and bad guys were. If you look at the history of the conflict, it is much sharper than that. Also, we thought the UN said we were there to prevent massacres and mass killings...Then why did this happen? The Dutch were patsies for the UN's unclear policies. The UN sends soldiers in with very unclear mandates, then allows govts. to blame their own men for not understanding the nature of the mandate. If you notice, a common theme is that the UN is very unclear and contradicts itself. The former Yugoslavia is kind of dormant right now, but no thanks to the UN, it was mostly through the US saying we have had enough that the UN had to do something, and it was dumb luck it has worked the way it has. The UN is responsible for thousands of Serbs, Bosnians, and UN soldiers who died needlessly because of unclear guidelines. Because the UN likes to play word games, people die. For an organization that is dedicated to peace, they like to play with others' soldiers, don't they?
6. Maybe Rwanda can show UN successes in peacekeeping and policy? Uh, no.
And it shows how ineffective a UN toady as President can be. President Clinton, of the so called Loving Left, allowed almost a million Tutsis in Rwanda to be slaughtered as UN peacekeepers, some Americans among them....basically watched. Koffi Annan, now head of the UN, then head of UN peacekeeping (don't laugh) did nothing until most of the slaughter was over. It was an egregious error that continues to haunt Kofi to this day. Read about the report here. It does not say alot for the legacy of the UN, Kofi, or Mr. Clinton as it relates to stopping genocide. And this guy has visions for running the UN, and the UN running the show? Boy, wouldn't want to be a minority group persecuted with these guys in charge. Remember, Libya, Syria, among others, are heads of the Human Rights Groups, even while they have some of the worst records of civil rights abuses on record. Hypocrisy, anyone? Well, maybe we can find a glimmer of hope somewhere, especially on UN Day.
7. Maybe Sierra Leone? Not a chance. UN soldiers were hunted and killed, taken hostage and tortured. What did Kofi do? Nothing, but beg others to intercede. Even while troops he had ordered sent in to keep a ambiguous peace accord were being slaughtered, the rules of engagement were so strict, many divisions were taken before they could muster a defense. Wow, great care for the soldiers you BORROW from other countries and send to die, so you can pretend you are making peace!!!!! To show you the height of UN Hubris, here is an excerpt from this report I found: Bernard Miyet (Me-yay), who recently returned
from Sierra Leone, says the position of U-N
peacekeepers is improving and that the situation there
was never as bad as some news reports indicated.
His comments follow the release of more than 150 U-N
peacekeepers who taken hostage by rebels in Sierra
Leone. More than 200 others are still being held.
Ok, let me get this straight...It is Ok and not severe if 200 peacekeepers are hostages? What?!? These soldiers are loaned to the UN and this is how they are treated? Well, they were probably mostly American anyway, so it does not matter to the UN. Read the rest of this report for more unholy spin from the UN. Maybe the mission in East Timor can give us a reason to celebrate UN day.
8. Surely in East Timor....Nope. In East Timor, more uncertainty about the clarity and vision of the UN was raised, as human rights abuses abounded. Terror activities and others abounded in East Timor.....Even amnesty international had to write about the UN's failures. Hundreds have been killed there, and it is still not a certain area, with still peacekeepers there, no independence.
Even the Greens don't like hte UN Read it here about East Timor
Another lambasting....
Surely the UN can do better elsewhere...
9. NOPE!!! Links to further UN failures
U.N. ignores more human rights abuses. This time in Iran.
The U.N. fails to protect those displaced by a civil war in Angola.
Remember those Buddist statues in Afghanistan that the Taliban destroyed? Well, you guessed it. The U.N. failed to save them.
10. Maybe they did something right in Iraq....NOT A CHANCE....12 YEARS, 17 Resolutions, THOUSANDS DEAD, RAPED, TORTURED.....What's more, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan opposed regime change in Iraq. Were he put in charge of the reconstruction effort, what guarantee is there that he would not call for "reconciliation"-- a "broad coalition government"? that would include both the dictators and the dictatees? Those who love Americans for helping them, and those who love to kill Americans? Wow, that would be effective, wouldn't it Kofi? It has worked so well before. I would hate to see this insanity happen to the already tortured people of Iraq.
American and British troops are finding new mass graves just about every day. In them are the remains of tens of thousands of Iraqi dissidents, bullet holes through their skulls. 200 thousand Muslims who disagreed with him, from one sect. Add in almost a quarter of a million Kurds, and you are talking genocide on a massive scale. Where was the UN during this time? Why did they turn a blind eye to these atrocities? Where were the French, those lovers of everything, especially Iraqi oil money garnered from brokering illegal arms and tech agreements? Where was the outrage? Could they be the ones more concerned with oil money, and actually taking oil money as bribes from Saddam? Hmmmm.......
The UN did nothing to prevent these atrocities, hardly ever spoke out about them, and doesn't speak about them now. But what can be expected of an organization with a Commission on Human Rights now chaired by Libya, the regime responsible for the terrorist attack on Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland?
The Europeans have made attempts to build nations from their former colonies in Africa without success. France probably tried hardest, especially in the Ivory Coast in West Africa. After granting independence to Ivory Coast in the 1960s, they quietly helped manage both government ministries and private industries, built electric power plants and other infrastructure, established a sound monetary system and provided direct aid. But they failed to build the institutional framework of a democratic society an independent judiciary and press, political parties, the rule of law and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. And so today there are French troops keeping a fragile peace in Ivory Coast, just as there are British troops trying to put the lid back on in battered Sierra Leone.
Let the UN, and especially FRANCE, and Kofi Annan solve those crises, or even just admit they messed up in the past, or even just prove they can get one mission right- before they demand for full authority in Iraq. I do not think the Iraqis would like to end up like the Somalis, the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Timors, the Angolans, the Rwandans, or the other host of people who have had to suffer under the idiocy of the UN's incompetence in peacekeeping.
The UN peacekeeping way is: come in, confuse your soldiers, many die, then eke out a way to claim a narrow victory or accord, and allow other countries to clean up the mess you made. Do we really want repeats of the above in Iraq?
Let's contrast this with the rebuilding efforts and peacekeeping of the United States. Germany and Japan chief among them. Germany was decimated after WWII. It eventually became split into two nations, West and East. The US played a key role in rebuilding West Germany, and took the forefront. The Soviets took East Germany. Under our guidance, Germany has become again an industrial powerhouse, and its tech has grown substantially. Yet, how do the Germans, who experienced the skill of US peacekeeping and reconstruction repay us, by denying the opportunity they had to Iraq!!! By castigating us for daring to help another country the way we carried them.
Look to Japan. We had a provisional govt. in Japan for a few years after the War, under the Direction of Gen. MacArthur. A very well written constitution was created, as was a parliament called the Diet, which continues to be a model today. Their economy soared with US instruction and guidance, and now they are a world leader in their own right. Not a bad record, especially when compared to the UN.
However, who is portrayed as the unskilled? The US! Why is that? I think we have proven we know how to rebuild, with the successes in Germany and Japan, and the successes of rebuilding most of Western Europe under the Marshall Plan. The UN has had history of failure after failure, yet they still consider themselves the experts in peacekeeping. The North Korean situation is still dangerous, as is most of the other areas they have touched. Their food programs are corrupt, with much of intended aid going to warlords. They continue to delegitimatize themselves by placing dictatorial countries like Cuba, Libya, and Syria atop Human rights commissions, when these nations are some of the most notorious violators. Yet, they have the gall to castigate us? They have the gall to do this as we pay for over 1/4 of the UN, and have forgiven their massive debt to keep it solvent. I say it is time we call for payment of their back rent, and we call to boot em. They have done little but become a rubber stamp of inefficiency, callousness, and uncertainty. That is the legacy of the UN....It had great potential, but it is now little more than an I Hate America club that wants to redistribute everything, to take take take, but has no clear plan on how to bring peace and justice, other than borrowing troops and sending them into the line of fire without clear mandates, which lead to confusion and more death and destruction.
So, who would you rather have rebuilding your nation? To me, it seems obvious who should be leading, and who should get the heck out of the way.
