Scapegoating the UN?

Paul Kennedy at the LATimes decrying the faulting of the UN for issues that they either cause or fail to do anything about. Scapegoating? I don't think so. If this organization is supposed to be the force to make the world play nicer together, it has completely failed.

So, is the U.N. good for anything? Could we, as U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton once claimed, lop off 12 stories of the U.N. headquarters building in New York (containing the offices of the secretary-general and his staff) and not notice the difference? What does the U.N. do that helps humankind?

Amid personnel scandals, the oil-for-food fiasco and a constant barrage of neoconservative attacks, that's a fair question. And anyone who holds a belief in the value of the international organization should be ready and willing to answer it. The easy way out would be to point to the many instances in which U.N. representatives have done well: negotiating the Central American peace accords of the early to mid-1990s; supervising elections in countries recovering from war; rebuilding infrastructure; advancing the international human rights agenda, establishing intellectual property rights, the law of the sea and climate accords; fostering cultural cooperation; gathering statistics and the like. But that would seem an evasion to the many observers who focus on the grinding struggles along Israel's borders or the war on terrorism. To them, the $64,000 question is: What can the U.N. do once and for all to settle the Lebanon crisis and assist the parallel Palestine-Israel peace process? And if the answer is "not much," then the critics will feel justified in their more general dismissal of the utility of international organizations.

Let's seek a balance here. Those "good things" that the UN is alledged to do are fairly vague. They are mediocre at recovery from disasters or wars, so that claim isn't really one of their claims to fame. Of course, if you hold them to the level that we have held our own politicians and responders too, they have done poorly. Human rights agenda? You mean screeching about US abuses while stocking the comittee with member states that are far worse abusers? Climate accords that are ineffective? Cultural cooperation? Don't make me laugh.

So, any defense of the U.N. has to be very careful in explaining what the organization can do, and what it cannot. It is, for example, useless (and ignorant) to blame the UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) observer force for not disarming Hezbollah when its Security Council mandate expressly forbade it from taking such military action. And it is silly to blame the secretary-general for failing to exert powers that he does not possess — he is, after all, the "servant" of those two difficult masters, the General Assembly and the Security Council. The U.N.'s performance can only be measured against its existing capacities and authority, not against some mythical, nonexistent strengths. So let us ponder two basic truisms concerning the world organization, the first becoming increasingly obvious to U.N. supporters and detractors alike, the second a far more subtle and cynical point.

Yep, can't blame UNIFIL for being a waste of time when the UNSC failed to give them clear direction to use force. So, how does this not make UNIFIL a waste of time and money and how does this not prove that the UN is a waste? In fact, I would conjecture that the UNIFIL force is like that guy in a bar fight that grabs someone from behind to stop the fight and just happens to allow the other combatant an oppurtunity for a free punch. In this case Israel is the one being restrained and UN is the idiot that is holding him back. Do you really think Hezbollah isn't using the UN presence to rearm?

I love that bit about mythical, nonexistent strengths. They have no strengths at all. I believe that is the whole point of those neocon attacks. The liberals and many countries in the UN love to yell that the US can't go about anything unilaterally and that the UN is the place to take greivances. But then you get there and everything is at a full stop. How many times can you go back to an agressor state with negotiations before the talking is deemed worthless. Apparently, in the UN, there is no limit. Look at North Korea and Iran, is there any glimpse of a resolution to their issues? Let's talk some more, that will make everyone "feel" better.

The first truism is that the United Nations is not, and never has been, a large and centralized actor in world affairs. Despite its charter being based loosely on parts of the U.S. Constitution, and despite all the founding rhetoric about "the Parliament of man," its creators insisted that it be nothing more than an assembly of sovereign nation states. It is, if you like, a sort of holding company, with governments as the shareholders, and with some of those shareholders — the five permanent, veto-wielding members of the Security Council — having much more voting power than others. True, all signatories to the U.N. Charter agree to surrender some sovereignty, but always with reservations. There is no U.N. army and no U.N. Treasury Department, both signs of statehood. And, for all the charter's proclaimed purposes to deter aggression and halt massive human rights abuses, the language about using force is very cautious and guarded. Very little about the U.N.'s peacekeeping powers is clear-cut. Everything depends on the circumstances.

Not sure why he goes for this argument. This pretty much stands up and supports the contention that the UN is a waste of time. With no central power the major powers can and will not come to any concensus on any issue. In fact, the major powers have incentives to not help each other. Conflict politics on the world stage are beneficial to states that can't compete on a fair level. The US does this as well, but there are other states, China and Russia, that clearly benefit from the status quo.

As to the language about using force, the complete lack of clear direction is what allows continued "massive human rights abuses" to continue. Or maybe Kennedy has missed the problems in Somalia and Sudan. The member states refuse to get involved because force denotes risk and there is very little benefit from sticking your hand into a hornets nest. Hell if it were a bees nest, then action probably would have occurred since there is at least the prospect of honey.

The United Nations is a scapegoat for the failures of the leading governments to agree or to act. After all, it was not the U.N. that failed the peoples of the Balkans in the early 1990s; it was the quarrels between the United States on the one hand, and Britain and France on the other, about bombing as an alternative to heavy troop commitments, as well as Russia's veto threats on Serbia's behalf. It was not the U.N. that bungled the "catch Gen. Aidid" operation in Mogadishu in 1993, but the U.S. Central Command, which went ahead with that ill-fated venture without even informing local U.N. authorities. It is not the U.N. that has stopped a peace-enforcement mission from being sent to Darfur, but the objections of African states and the possibility of a Chinese veto.

Love that one. The US was actually doing quite well in Mogadishu until the UN came in and took over. The action status had been constant presence in the city and heavy patrolling to ensure that the citizens new there was a force in place. Then the UN came in and decided that they would take control and sequester all of their forces in small isolated bases. Sounds kinda like UNIFIL doesn't it? Staying sequestered away from the problem ensured that nothing would be done. The US even tried to stop the real trouble makers, like Aidid. I'd like to know if Kennedy honestly thinks that if the US told the UN about trying to capture him that anthing would have been different. With the UN's record of military effectiveness being abominable, I'd think that keeping them out of the loop was probably a good idea.

But if radical Muslim splinter groups resume firing rockets and Israel responds (as it usually feels bound to) in a sledgehammer way; if the permanent veto members quarrel about who is to blame, then the many promising U.N. activities on the ground in Lebanon will end, international staff will be withdrawn and the downward spiral will resume.

What promising UN activities? Promising to whom? Hezbollah? What a complete and utter moron.

And as to Israel's "sledgehammer way" you don't stop a rabid dog by patting it or using a loud voice. You stop them by shooting them. But I suppose I'm on the wrong side of the appropriate or proportional use of force. But then, I won't be the one begging for my life on my knees.

No doubt Kennedy has a couple of points about the failures being related to the failure of the member states, but I don't see how that eliminates the fact that as a whole the UN is a waste of time. If the member parts of a machine don't work together the machinery doesn't function at all. That is the point of why the UN is a waste.