Little Green Footballs

All it takes is winning a thoroughly undeserved Nobel Peace Prize, and a whole world of opportunities opens up: All it takes is winning a thoroughly undeserved Nobel Peace Prize, and a whole world of opportunities opens up:

On how to start to solve the problem:

1. Increase the autonomy of the UN Office of Internal Oversight, and ensure funding to operate at full capacity. Set aside a percentage of all peacekeeping budgets for OIOS and prioritise their deployment in field operations (i.e. put them in first, not last as tends to happen). Expand UN investigative capacity in the field, and conclude agreements with contributing governments on their investigating commitment.
2. Promote a UN peacekeeper code of conduct throughout missions, and create units in all missions specifically to promote and investigate issues around personal misconduct (possibly with victim complaints and support mechanisms built in, and looking at appropriate compensation mechanisms).
3, Improve relations between DPKO and operational agencies such as UNICEF, in order to improve the awareness levels of peacekeeping troops in areas such as human rights. Training of this sort before and after deployment (carried out jointly by UN and national government) should be set up to ensure that all troops have a basic level of understanding.
4. Institute performance-related remuneration to countries contributing troops – apply penalties for countries that fail to prosecute offenders, and bonuses for countries that deal with the problem swiftly and effectively. (This needs to be accompanied by ensuring basic troop safety, support and living standards while on mission.)
5. Improve transparency of missions by exposing troop contributions to more public view: publish league tables showing total global contributions (acknowledging their good work) but also grading performance (including dealing with disciplinary issues).

So that’s a start. I’ll say it again: I’m interested in hearing your views on how to approach this issue, but based on your last response, I’m not sure you’ve got any. How’s that for thin-skinned?

A little thin-skinned are we, merkur? My reply was not snide but it was accurate. You intended no “example” – your comment was a deliberate misrepresentation of my previous remarks. It was not the first time you misrepresented my remarks. And your above reaction indicates my reply scored a bulls-eye. [cheese, this is BORING.]

“I am genuinely interested in knowing how you believe the UN member states should improve its operations.”

I have no idea what you are interested in.

I’ve said what I wish to say (as have others). You’ve ignored what you wish to ignore, misrepresented what you wish to misrepresent, and staked out virtually no opinions of your own. Instead you’ve mainly sniped at others, starting with the blogowner’s post.

If you have your own ideas how to solve this problem, why don’t you post them? Otherwise, please post whatever additional rebuke to me and the rest of us as will make you happy, and then let’s move on. Nothing more to see here.

I’ll repeat my original question: what are your thoughts on the best way to take that process forward? I am genuinely interested in knowing how you believe the UN member states should improve its operations.

Why no. No one has said that. Who would ever think that? Oh, yeah – you would.

Canya give us 1,000 more words on the subject?

Your comments merely underscore the fundamental, intractable defect of the UN: the UN is accountable to no democratically established rule of law, and in fact merely serves to grant legitimacy to the oppressive governments of the very same countries that sponsor these rapacious “peacekeepers.”

The countries that contribute militarily to UNMIS are: Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Fiji, Finland, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgystan, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe (http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unmis/facts.html).

Could you be more specific about which of these countries you believe have “oppressive governments” (you refer to them later as “lawless states, also) that sponsor “rapacious peacekeepers”? There are a few governments in there which are not especially pleasant, but I’m interested to know which you particularly object to.

You suggest that somebody should “propose measures that will actually have a positive impact on the lives of people in places like Sudan, rather than just more criticism that completely misses the point” but the only solution you seem to hint at is that somehow, somebody should “go after” the countries (such as Bangladesh) that should be held to account.

What I said was “Let’s try and propose measures that will actually have a positive impact”, by which I hoped that I might get intelligent responses suggesting how to deal with this critical issue. I can offer my ideas if you want, but I’m more interested in hearing what you have to say.

Since you admit that the UN has no mandate for accountability, it seems you must be advocating one of the following options:

Strawman argument. I have not specifically advocated either of the options that you outline, nor have I implied them.

Regarding the first option, I doubt that anyone who, like you, supports the basic premise of the UN’s existence, would approve what the U.S. would have to do to clean up the corruption, incompetence, and outright brutality that infects so much of what the UN does.

Tell me what the U.S. would have to do to clean up the U.N. and I’ll tell you if I approve of it or not. Until I hear specifically what you have to say, I can’t really comment on it.

Regarding the second option, the one sensible thing you have said on this thread is that “none of us will accept a US soldier being tried by (for example) the government of Iraq.” Indeed – the U.S. should never allow its constitutional principles to be superseded by the powers of a body that plays host to Assad, Ahmedinejad, Kim, and other such parasitic vermin.

Another strawman argument. I was not referring to US soldiers being tried by the UN, but to US soldiers being tried by the government of the country that they might commit offences in. (Incidentally, I don’t think they should be tried by the UN either.)
I went on to say that “I assume you would want the same approach for any soldier, no matter which country they came from.” Are you arguing that there is one rule for the US and another rule for everybody else when it comes to soldiers’ rights?

No amount of “reform” will change this, since the collective, Utopian principle on which the UN is founded is hopelessly flawed.

So really this isn’t about peacekeepers at all, but about the basic principle of collective action on which the UN is founded. I don’t really know where we can go with that argument, since I believe that principle is an admirable one. However I will ask again: please let us know what you think the alternative is.

Seems to me that the answers are clear. UN has shown neither interest nor willingness to disclose these abuses or make demands of member states in ANY forum. So it falls to investigative reporting to disclose the abuses to the public, and to bring public opinion to bear on offending member states to discipline their own soldiers.

So the way to get Bangladesh to (for example) to take action is to publish poorly thought out arguments with no substantial recommendations on English-language blogs that are read primarily by US citizens who are not working in politics?

The issue I raised was where should these demands be raised, and who should raise them. In this instance, the Telegraph has done an excellent job of reporting on these issues, and it looks like both DPKO and the government of Bangladesh have now responded (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/05/wsudan05.xml).

However, things don’t magically get better when newspapers publish a leaked report – it’s the beginning of a long and difficult process. I guess my broader question to you is, what are your thoughts on the best way to take that process forward?

If that embarrasses the member states involved, que sera.

As I pointed out, it becomes self-defeating if those governments then begin to think twice about contributing in future. These country forces are the backbone of UN peace operations, since western nations generally don’t contribute substantial troop numbers to places like Liberia.

There is a remedy that would minimize these embarrassments in the future – it’s called good management. However the odds are that Godot will show up at UN before good management will.

Sadly, this is true.

Your comments merely underscore the fundamental, intractable defect of the UN: the UN is accountable to no democratically established rule of law, and in fact merely serves to grant legitimacy to the oppressive governments of the very same countries that sponsor these rapacious “peacekeepers.” You suggest that somebody should

“propose measures that will actually have a positive impact on the lives of people in places like Sudan, rather than just more criticism that completely misses the point”

but the only solution you seem to hint at is that somehow, somebody should “go after” the countries (such as Bangladesh) that should be held to account.

Since you admit that the UN has no mandate for accountability, it seems you must be advocating one of the following options:

1. For the purpose of bringing rapacious “peacekeepers” to justice, democratic countries such as the U.S. should take unilateral action (presumably something more forceful than “writing to the government of Bangladesh”) against the lawless UN member states whose citizens commit rape under UN command.
2. Democratic countries should cede sovereignty to the UN to prosecute crimes committed by UN peacekeepers.

Regarding the first option, I doubt that anyone who, like you, supports the basic premise of the UN’s existence, would approve what the U.S. would have to do to clean up the corruption, incompetence, and outright brutality that infects so much of what the UN does. If it is the job of sovereign nations to correct other nations’ misdeeds, then why does the UN exist at all? It acts as an obstacle to that process rather than as a vehicle.

Regarding the second option, the one sensible thing you have said on this thread is that “none of us will accept a US soldier being tried by (for example) the government of Iraq.” Indeed – the U.S. should never allow its constitutional principles to be superseded by the powers of a body that plays host to Assad, Ahmedinejad, Kim, and other such parasitic vermin.

So, while you criticize those who “persistently blame the United Nations” for failing to correct crimes it is not authorized to prosecute (though you later admit that “the UN has not addressed [peacekeeper rape] sufficiently”), it is in fact you who are missing the much, much larger point: this problem is endemic to the whole concept of the United Nations. The UN is a sham body with enough political power to send armed men to the Sudan and direct their actions, but without any responsibility for what those armed men actually do when they get there. No amount of “reform” will change this, since the collective, Utopian principle on which the UN is founded is hopelessly flawed. At first blush, the notion of all people joining together for a great group hug of mutual understanding and security seems warm and fuzzy. But unless you want to end up robbed and blind, it’s best, in the first place, never to lie down with thieves and whores.