Discussing Afghanistan, UN over at Registan
I am continually amazed at the number of otherwise thoughtful and well-informed Americans who seem to have a deep blindspot when it comes to looking at the record of the UN. The most recent case in point is Joshua Foust over at Registan. I've been engaged in a discussion on this very point with him over there, since yesterday.
Let's focus on the present UN situation rather than on its record.
The UN Secretary-General advocates "A Stronger United Nations for a Better World" but unfortunately the over-riding conflicts of our time, Iraq and Afghanistan, don't show up on his "Priorities For Action" radar screen. Neither does Iran, the subject of repeated (illegal, US driven) UNSC dictates! Only Africa and I/P are covered under "Peace and security" on his website, and while the UN has been a presence in Africa it is AWOL on I/P.
http://www.un.org/sg/priority.shtml
Why is this? I'm sure that this is because of the deep US military commitment and involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuing animosity of the US toward Iran, and the unrestrained commitment of the US for Israel, all associated with the fact that Ban ki-Moon is deep in the US pocket. Obviously if the US has an interest the Secretary General doesn't.
The US control of the UNSC is obvious to the world which is why other large powers seek other fora to cooperate on significant issues. They even allow the US to have its UNSC rants against Iran knowing that real diplomacy and cooperation can go on via other non-UN channels. Even the US, knowing it could never get UNSC consensus on the military occupation of Afghanistan, uses NATO as its instrument of power, although even that seems to be coming to an inglorious close.
I tried to see if I could use "even" three times in one paragraph. I even succeeded.
And let's look at the ongoing human tragedy in Somalia, where even the neighboring oligarch hired by the US militarily to suppress Islamic nationalism is unhappy with "the international community".
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, in August: "We didn’t anticipate that the international community would be happy riding the Ethiopian horse and flogging it at the same time for so long. We had hoped and expected that the African Union would be able to intervene much quicker and that the international community would recognise that this is a unique opportunity for the stabilisation of Somalia and capitalise on it and act quickly. . .By providing financial assistance and providing peacekeepers and so on. That hasn’t happened. . .it doesn’t make sense for any government to say that we have an open ended commitment until the international community, in its own good time, decides to relieve us of that responsibility. . .our commitment to Somalia is not open-ended."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bec150c2-738d-11dd-8a66-0000779fd18c.html
Does the UNSC have a hands-off attitude in Somalia because of the US interest in continuing instability there? In other words, is Somalia like Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan?
It would have been nice to have had more introduction to this subject. Details...