In the wake of Oil-for-Food and myriad other scandals, the UN’s reputation is pretty tarnished these days. And it hasn’t done the greatest job of cleaning itself up. But here’s an idea – why not start suspending member states that mistreat other member states? Apparently Syria has a lot to answer for in the torching of the Danish and Norwegian embassies (not to mention the assassination of Hariri, etc.). Whether the Syrians instigated the burnings, looked the other way, or something in between, the response by the United Nations to Syria’s behavior should be simple – suspension. Syria should not be allowed to participate in any way in the United Nations until their government makes drastic alterations in their totalitarian behavior.
Of course, this would be a big change of behavior for the UN, which often puts places like Libya in charge of human rights, but if the organization is even remotely serious about reform, this is a good place to start.
Good idea in theory, but in practice the same members who vote Libya to chair the HRC would suspend the US every other week.
hey bro’ rog’;
i’d go a little further (natch):
let’s say that unless and until nations
1 – end forced marriage
2 – end polygamy
3 – end endogamous/consanguinous marriage
4 – end misogyny
that they are suspended NOT just from the UN,
but from ALL international insitutions:
the imf; the world bank; gatt/wto – and all trade groups; tsunami warning systems;
and ALL international organizations.
societies which systematically abuse their females are not compatible with modern civilization or modern nations.
we should no more deal with them than deal with nations that practice slavery.
the 4 cultural practices that i cited are DIRECTLY related to the core of our current global crisis: men raised to be capable of murdering their own sisters and daughters and female cousins – in the name of “honor killings” will always certainly be capable of lying to us “infidels” and would just as soon commit genocide against us, as lie to us and break armistices (like the 15 saddam broke) and treaties (like the NPT iran broke for 20 years), as torch our embassies, as take our journalists hostage, and behead charity-workers.
if we did this, they might start to change these practices.
until they do this they will not change.
this would be more humane than defeating them in war by using our military.
i have posted on this numerous times.
if you want to see the facts and figures of how&why these archaic and anti-humane/anti-woman practices destroy societies just google endogamy and polygamy (or endogamous and polygamous) at blogsearch at my blog.
the facts and figures will stagger you.
YUP: the correlation is that BLATANT.
Relia pundit, you are SO RIGHT!!! The way a country treats its women is an indicator of its ability to participate in modern civilization.
And this is what is so outrageous about the so-called ‘feminist movement’ in the West… aside from Jay Leno’s wife (who was right in there fighting for women in Taliban Afghanistan), you don’t hear any of them saying anything like this.
THEIR bottom line is “choice.”
Yet, in fact, the position of women is central to our War on Terror.
The minute we compare ourselves to them means defeat to what we are about….. stop it you blippppp……
We are at war! Yet we expect our enemy to give us points for equanimity? Are we fighting them to defeat them? OR TO BE LIKED BY THEM?
Are we supposed to take lessons on how to treat women from those would have the same sold as property?
Witch is it? You are either with us (the freedom to dissent) or you are with the terrorist! (dead DISENTERS)
I wish we stop giving the enemy points because they dare to confront us – THEY MEAN US HARM!
I’m sorry; I don’t mean to be harsh. But in a WAR context, I wish our home front troops (me, and every other self respecting American) would not to loose sight of the fact that there was a September 11 2001 worthy of WAR.
None of the things we may consider, within the context of our freedom is of consequence to those who would have us DEAD before hand.
Make believe this is our administration! – UNTIL QUEDA IS OUT OF BUSINESS,….(fill in the blank)
I know this is not my site to do or say any of this, but I wish to get us prepared for what is to come.
Of course, this would be a big change of behavior for the UN, which often puts places like Libya in charge of human rights, but if the organization is even remotely serious about reform, this is a good place to start.
Hmph.
You have heap big “if” there, white man.
How?
Suspend Syria? No. Invade Syria.
Embassies are sovereign territory and Denmark and Norway are NATO allies. Not only are we justified in invading Syria, we have a duty to do so. Jimmy Carter failed to respond decisively when the Mullahs attacked our embassies and we’ve been paying the price ever since. Let’s not repeat that mistake again.
ìSuspend Syria? No. Invade Syria.î
Amen. We should not hesitate to invade Syria. And yes, we are both morally and legally obligated to do so. The rioters would not dare defy the government of Bashar Al-Assad. He obviously has given them his tacit permission—if not even his active encouragement.
All those countries are encouraging this nonsense, for the same reason they always have: to point the finger of rage away from themselves.
Blogger “Anton Effendi” on his AcrosstheBay blogsite gives the “behind the scenes” on the embassy arson in Beirut — about 25 agent provacateurs involved carrying Syrian and Palestinian passports, with Syria’s game being to depict the Lebanese Sunnis as wackos needing to be kept under Syria’s restraints:
http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/
: Syria’s game being to depict the Lebanese Sunnis as wackos needing to be kept under Syria’s restraints
can even bashar al assad be so stupid as to believe that anybody will swallow that? i shouldn’t be surprised; this guy has probably the worst judgement in the whole of the middle eastern kleptocratic establishment.
ìSuspend Syria? No. Invade Syria.î
Sure, invade Syria. While we’re at it, invade Iran. We have enough troops to subdue a hostile population stretching from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush. We can send the Eighth Armored Unicorn Brigade.
beuatifulattrocities, however, says something entirely sensible, “All those countries are encouraging this nonsense, for the same reason they always have: to point the finger of rage away from themselves.”
Secular Arab nationalist dictatorship is passe. Islamism is in and the Syrian Ba’ath have to start trying to divert the religious nutterism outwards so as to retain control. It’s happening all over the region. Of course, we could do something utterly idiotic like invading Syria, which would increase the aforementioned religious nutterism and direct all resulting anger towards purselves.
Luckily we don’t have the troops to even contemplate making such a blunder.
Shochu John: “Luckily we don’t have the troops to even contemplate making such a blunder.”
Approximately 7% of our armed forces are on the ground in Iraq. Logistics train’s in place to go either way. Can be 10% plus in a matter of 3-4 weeks. I hope Syria and Iran share your view, S J.
Somehow I doubt they’re that stupid.
Sorry, S J, I really meant ignorant. You’re obviously not stupid, just misinformed. Please forgive me?
Mid-East stability at any risk has gotten us right where we are today. I worry about consequences of failing to defend invasion of our NATO allies’ (embassy) territories than about the consequences of acting. Sooner or later, it’s going to happen. Later, at cost of millions of lives? Or sooner at cost of tens of thousands?
Well Larry,
I’d like to pretend like your statistic means anything, but I cannot. We have over 25% of our active duty military deployed overseas, and over half of them deployed to combat zones. Now, you can spin that any way you want, but those are Vietnam-era stats. Trying to pretend we are not overstretched in the face of stop-loss orders and extensive reliance on National Guard and reserve units is a losing battle. This notion that you can explain youself up some spare soldiers with which to invade Syria is amusing, if unproductive. Also, the notion that we have to do it now for X amount of lives or do it later for 10X amount of lives presupposes we have to do it ever for any lives.
But, alas, I have interrupted a fine jingo session with a cold injection of realty. I fear it is I who need forgivness.
Shochu John,
Actually, we have plenty of troops of troops to overthrow the Syrian regime. Same goes for Iran. We beat Serbia with nobody on the ground, and we beat the Taliban with only a handful on the ground. Its the nation-building effort afterwards that takes the significant troop commitment.
Your comment is on the mark if we commit to nation-building, but not if our goal is limited to regime change only. The nation-building part is optional.
Our strategy should be to overthrow the current regimes and then leave. Let those who live in those countries fight it out over the nation-building phase. And if the bad guys win the fight, we invade again. And we repeat as necessary until we’ve sufficiently altered the gene pool, and the good guys win.
I think of this as the Neptune strategy. The rogue regimes are the sand-castles, and we’re Neptune. When Neptune makes waves, he destroys sand-castles. He doesn’t re-build them.
SJ: “We have over 25% of our active duty military deployed overseas, and over half of them deployed to combat zones.”
How does the 25% compare with, say, the last 50 years? Assuming your 25% is correct I’m guessing it’s marginally higher than the average over 50 years.
I’d need a cite on the over half of them part. 140,000 (probably fewer right this minute) in Iraq /2,000,000=.07 (7%). 12.5(1/2 of 25)-7=5.5. .055 x2,000,000=110,000. Are you saying there are 110,000 in Afghanistan? If not, to what combat zone are the Afghan excess deployed?
If this or the next or the next administration decides regime change in Syria or Iran needs to be effected by force, it’ll happen. Half of Iran’s military has the express purpose of keeping an eye on the other half. How’d they do in the near-endless war with Iraq? Syria? They probably have some WMD (wink), but my guess is epidemic boxer (or brief) staining. Our current all-volunteer force, with all its warts, is the best the world has ever seen. I’m not saying it won’t be messy or casualty-free. There’ll be real bullets and bombs and stuff. But, if we send them to kick ass and collect dog tags, that’s what they’ll do.
Once again, I sincerely apologize for the snark above. The CW pessimism drives me crazy sometimes.
Oops, I meant I’m not saying it will be casualty-free.
@~)%$#@~+_)@E*)()&* TypeKey really, really sucks!!!
larry,
My source for my info: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_army_102004,00.html
I don’t know where your 7% figure comes from, but who each stat includes could be different in these two cases, making a comparison not necessarily meaningful. This is a large reason why such statistics are really not worth much unless you compare them with the way the military generally operates or is intended to operate. You mention as much, yourself. As the article above-linked notes, the stats of last year were on par with the Vietnam era, so if you are going to make an argument that the military is not spread a bit thin currently, you would have to make the same argument about the Vietnam era. In addition, you would have to figure out why the National Guard and reserves are being deployed overseas and stop loss orders are being used if not needed. I doubt it’s just for fun.
HA,
Interesting idea, but I can guaruntee you right now that it would not have a desirable result. If you look at Iranian behavior during the Iran-Iraq war, it is apparent to all that when threatened as a nation, they will simply not surrender. You would literally have to kill every last one of them to subdue them.
As for Syria, if one were to topple the Ba’ath government and fail to replace it, you would basically have reverse Iraq, in which the disenfranchised Sunni majority will attempt to take their rightful place as ruling the country. In all liklihood, they will ally with the Sunnis next door in Western Iraq, turning both countries into an immense cesspool of violence. I suppose your idea makes sense if your goal is to destabilize the entire region and kill a lot of people.
Rough numbers, S J. I did the figures up there. i.e., 140,000=7% of 2,000,000. Through the elections, it was about 160,000 (8%).
United Press International
October 20, 2004
“WASHINGTON – More than 27 percent of the military’s active duty troops are overseas, and more than half of them are in combat zones, numbers not seen since the Vietnam War, a new study shows.
The study from a consortium of security policy think tanks and advocacy groups…
A much greater percentage of the force is deployed overseas than it was for the last decade, from 1992 to 2002, the study shows.”
No ready cite for 2,000,000 active duty, so I may be wrong, but not by much. More than half of 27% would be maybe 14% or 280,000? I can’t recall a time since, say mid-’03 when we had more than 160,000 in Iraq, leaving 120,000 in other combat zones? My IBSM (Infallible Bull Shit Meter) calls BS on the consortium. At best, October, 2004 is out of date. For them to say we had more in’04 than the previous decade indicates a flair for the obvious, us having a shoot ‘em up going on.
WARNING, pure, unadulterated speculation follows, somewhat informed by 26 years active duty: All that aside, generals are seldom heard griping about having too many troops. They poor-mouth, just like canny football coaches. I really strongly suspect that a deliberate misinformation campaign is underway, leading our enemies to stick their necks out so we can chop them off.
I was a basic pilot training instructor stateside ’65-’67 during major build up of forces to S E A. Same time frame, we switched from T-33′s to T-38′s. Between shipping a lot of instructors to S E A, losing more than usual to airlines and cross-training to new airplanes (further complicating matters: once qualified in T-38, we had to fly it enough to maintain currency before we started training students in it.), we were manned as low as 40%, max about 70%, in the instructor pilot force. Somewhere along in there, my 16 instructor-authorized flight had the Maj flight commander, the Capt element leader and a 1st Loouie instructor, me, for a month or so. (Guess who got to do all the “extra duties”?) We got the job done by working time and a half to double time, 7 days a week for about 15 months, after which we got a day off once a month. Most every month, we had to get waivers for exceeding max ( Don’t quote me, but I think it was 185 hours/month for high-performance type flying. BTW, flight physiology said 1 hour hi-perf=3 hours hard labor.) individual flying hours. You’d think after not too much of this we’d all be bitching, at each others’ throats and bailing out of the USAF in record numbers. There was some of each, but the prevailing attitude was “git ‘er done” and we got ‘er done. We had an incredibly high esprit and cameraderie that I’ll never forget. And as manning improved, a pride of accomplishment in a job well done in arduous circumstances. What’s my point in all this digression? I’ve been to stretched thin, still have the T-shirt. NEVER, EVER UNDERESTIMATE THE WILL AND ABILITY OF THE AMERICAN G I TO GIT ‘ER DONE! These young warriors today are even better. Whatever they are tasked to do, they’ll do it.
Shochu John,
Interesting idea, but I can guaruntee you right now that it would not have a desirable result.
What we have now is not a desirable result. The current situation with Syria and Iran is as bad as it gets for US. If we topple these regimes, it may get worse for THEM if they descend into a bloodbath. But I really don’t care if they CHOOSE to kill themselves.
And given that I find the status quo unacceptable, yes destablizing the region is the goal. Do you prefer the “stablility” of overtly-genocidal, terror-sponsoring fundamentalist and/or fascist regimes in pursuit of nuclear weapons?
I guarantee you that the status quo will not have a desirable result.
Ha writes, “And given that I find the status quo unacceptable, yes destablizing the region is the goal. Do you prefer the “stablility” of overtly-genocidal, terror-sponsoring fundamentalist and/or fascist regimes in pursuit of nuclear weapons?”
Ahh, the overblown hyperbole. It works great at getting us into wars. Worked like a charm in Iraq, Vietnam, the Spanish-American war. I could go on and on. Yes, I vastly prefer both the Iranian and Syrain governments to a vaccuum of violence. And no, that won’t be just them killing each other, that will be promoting terrorism worldwide. It’s amazing, even after 9.11 some people STILL don’t understand that it isn’t all about states anymore.
Shochu John,
Given the choice between terrorists armed with bombs or home-cooked ricin, and states armed with nukes and lead by man who openly wishes for Armageddon and the arrival of the 12th imam, I’ll take the former. Only one of these two threats is existential.
So, yes, this still is about states. There is no realistic scenerio about non-state terrorists acquiring and delivering a nuke into the United States without the assistance of a terrorist sponsoring state. Assertions that this isn’t about states are just like those about the new economy at the height of the tech bubble.
If you think this is overblow hyperbole, you’re crazy. A smuggled nuke is the greatest threat we face. This cannot be done without state sponsorship. Period.
As the number of states armed with nuclear weapons increases, the effectiveness of the MAD principle decreases. Consider if Tehran went nuclear, and in response, Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey joined them. Let’s throw in Cuba and Venezuala while we’re at it. And then somebody detonates a nuke in NYC. Who do you strike back against? Everybody? Nobody? What if China smuggled it in? Plausible deniability increaes as nukes proliferate.