I'm Sorry

hehheh ... I had bad timing, cause the leaders of these countries came out in support for Bush just after I wrote my post ... ;-)



Well, for one, the populations of most every European country, not bothered as much by the pressures the US government is putting on.

Let me just quote you a recent Gallup poll here (published by a Dutch newspaper, btw, that is emphatically not joining the clamor for peace at all costs).

The first percentage I'm giving is that of those opposing an attack without a UN mandate - i.e. the position the French government is taking. The second percentage I'm giving is that of those polled who oppose any attack on Iraq at this time, period - like Germany's government does, too.

United Kingdom 68% / 15%
Denmark 79% / 26%
Portugal 72% / 36%
Netherlands 80% / 29%
Italy 79% / 33%
France 86% / 29%
Belgium 78% / 40%
Ireland 77% / 42%
Spain 77% / 43%
Sweden 81% / 53%
Germany 87% / 52%
Finland 78% / 66%
Greece 86% / 71%
Austria 85% / 73%

And even on governmental level, there's no need to go get Lybia and Cuba in the picture. Even after the "letter of the eight" (or were it nine?), Bush Jr. wouldn't 'carry' Europe:

Signed or supported the letter: UK, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia

Against: France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Greece (Ireland is on the fence I believe).

You don't have to be an unscrupulous dictator to think the war on Iraq is not a good idea, not now, not in this way. I'm not, and I think I do ... ;-)

"The second one is that of those any attack on Iraq at this time, period - Germany's position. "

Could you edit that? I really can tell which way you meant it to be.... thanks.

Oh I'm no idealist on the UN, definitely not the way it's basically governed by the Security Council caste with their vetoes. But if I have to choose between giving either the UN consensus or the US uniltaralists the power over war and peace, I don't have many doubts on whom to trust.



Yes, absolutely. But one of the reasons Putin can have his way in Chechnya is b/c the US insists on having theirs wherever they choose to define their strategic interests to be. A traditional exchange of authorities over zones of influence. To stop this horsetrading in the governmental right to do as one pleases, eventually you'll need to turn to a UN with increased authorities (and increased democratic influence over it, of course).



The UN is very simply and literally what it is: the United Nations - or states, to be precise. It is the collectivity of political representatives of each and every state in the world (barring some remote islands), and the degree to which it's made up of marxists or pinochetists is determined by whatever the latest elections and coup d'etats around the world have it to be. At the moment, more governments in the world have been democratically elected - and less are Marxist - than in many decades before.



Without the UN no peacetroops - anywhere. Without the UN no peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea. No peace and free elections in East-Timor or Kosovo. No end to further warfare in the Western Sahara or Cyprus. Without the UN no peace would have been established in Namibia, Mozambique or Cambodia.

Without the UN no Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the begin-all and end-all of the introduction of the notion of human rights as relevant element of foreign policy. Without the UN no International Court of Justice and no brand new International Criminal Court (ICC). No independent court to judge over Milosevic. No notion that state power itself is not enough to guarantee you non-persecution if you brutally violate human rights in your country.

Without the UN no UNICEF. No UNHCR to currently shelter and feed twenty million refugees around the world. No Refugee Convention that holds member states to the duty to accept political asylum-seekers, even if they are not from your current enemy's country.

'Nuff? ;-)

You can argue that the UN is better at quarantaining conflict and "freezing" cease-fires into eternity than in solving conflict and creating new starts for countries after the war - but again, comparing UN consensus and US unilateralism in this the latter hasn't done any better (Haiti, Afghanistan).

better now? ;-)
<waves hello>

<waves back>
thank-ee kindly.

Your examples are very right, and deserve much more attention than they get. They mostly witness - strongly - against the way the UN is currently governed, i.e. through the Security Council, as it makes the UN, if anything more (or less) than the community of world states, the domain of the great powers. That is something quite different from the image you sketched earlier, of the UN as an anti-first world tool in the hands of corrupt third world dictators, btw. The US can exercise a veto, too, and has done so, to block intervention in conflicts where it is a party or has interests.

On the other hand this kind of horse-trading is, of course, in nothing specifically UN-ish. The US have granted petty dictators in and around the Middle East a free rein over their own populations ever since the war on terror started. Regimes like Uzbekistan's, for example, one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights - an absolute dictatorship where any opposition and free media is banned and oppositionists are arbitrarily imprisoned and tortured - has ever since September 11 been a US "ally in the war on terrorism", and can do pretty much what it likes without fearing any reprimand (or trade sanction) from "the West" - just as long as it offers the US some military facilities re: the war in Afghanistan and remains firm in its opposition to "islamists", the favorite epiteth for any oppsition in Central Asia and the US-loyal part of the Arab world now. Same goes for Tadzhikistan, Kyrgisztan, Egypt; even Syria - which differs in practically nothing from Iraq - has been let off the hook b/c of the all-overriding priority on Iraq and the resulting need for it to at least remain neutral.

To avoid this kind of opportunistic (and highly reckless) horse-trading of human rights and democracy in the face of fluctuating strategic interests, no single country's role can ever replace what the UN can do in creating some kind of consistent global criteria for action. The International Criminal Court - boycotted by the US because it wants international justice for the Milosevices of this world only when its own nationals are in advance guaranteed immunity from any future complaint ever - is the most promising beginning of that I can currently think of.

>But if I have to choose between giving either the UN consensus or the US uniltaralists the power over war and peace,

Another alternative for unilatarlism is the so-called multi-polar world. Once we had such world in 1939.

>Without the UN no peacetroops - anywhere. Without the UN no peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea...

This is a widely spread mistake and I'll explain why. The conflict in Eritrea finished only after Eritrean rebels managed to drive the Communists out. After Ethiopian forces were totally defeated their government immideately became so strong pacifists and humanists that "agreed to leave Eritrea" with the UN. What a great achievment of the UN - they "forced" the Commies to leave Eritrea when they had already none of soldiers there . Furthermore anti-Communist rebels were given some military support from the US and food aid. What if they had begun offensive to Addis-Abeba bringing liberation together with American canning food? How would they have been met by starving Ethiopian population? IMHO the ruling regime soon would have got very big problems. That was the only reason why Ethiopian dear comrades decided to stop the - they were worried about their own skins. So they were VERY interested to stop the war in the shortest way using all possibilities including the UN. But if there had not been such organization IMHO we would have seen a simple peace treaty between 2 sides.

Absolutely the same situation was in Bosnia. Dear Serbian comrades "agreed to withdraw their forces" when their Radko Mladic's corps had already been defeated by Bosnians (with American air support) and the most part of the territory of Serbska Kraina had been liberated. After the peace agreement there were Bosnians, not Serbs, who had to withdraw their soldiers. Lets keep silence about Kosovo. You can just remember Milosevic's behaviour before and after the American bombardment (thankfully conducted in contrary to the UN resolution).

The UN's so called peace-keeping mission in Bosnia will forever remain a indelible disgrace of the all humanity, one of the most shameful pages of the world history, which we will never be able to forgot and forgive ourselves for, even in the front of such missions in Ethiopia, Cambodia or Kosovo. I think it would be enough to mention the Serbians' massacres in Srebrennitsa where several thousands of innocent citizens were brutally killed in 500 meters from the positions of a Dutch infantry battalion. The Dutchs couldn't do anything because they hadn't been authorized by the UN. I don't want to say anything bad about Netherland here, furthermore I can really respect this nation. IIRC your government admitted it's part of responsibility for this crime and resigned. Don't hope that Coffy Annan or any other UN official will ever do it .

I think you're confusing episodes here.

You are obviously referring to when the communist Mengistu regime disintegrated, after which those who toppled him took over power in Ethiopia and their guerrilla allies in Eritrea were indeed granted independence.

But you seem to have missed that the war between the two countries started up all over again later - a war between former allies in the fight against the Commies, thus - this time, it was all about national honor. Eritrea occupied a bit of uninhabited Ethiopian land along the border, Ethiopia struck back (or vice versa, let's leave that for now , and a very bloody war ensued. The UN negotiated a peace, in the end, and UN peacekeepers are still stationed along the border, I believe.

Serbska Krajina is in Croatia, and was liberated (or "liberated", according to your point of view) by the Croatian army. In Bosnia, on the other hand, the Muslims were not doing well at all by the end of the war - after earlier on they had rebounded to regain much of Eastern Bosnia, they had then been driven back again.

If you look at the "end result" of the war in terms of division of territory, the Muslim Bosniaks would probably wish they'd have agreed to the earlier Vance/Owen plan for partitioning (in Serb, Croat and Muslim districts within an only formally unified country), which reflected the state of war at the time it was proposed, and which they rejected because of their opposition to partitioning per se. It would have granted the Serbs both a smaller part of Bosnia than the present Republika Srpska and one that would have been divided in different parts.

The main last-minute territorial gains the later Muslim-Croat federation would profit from were the huge inroads the Croats had made in Herzegovina, with Croatian army support. This of course still does the main victim of the war - the Muslim Bosniaks - little good, as within the Bosnian Federation, too, refugees have hardly been able to return home between the Croat and Muslim parts.

But - of course - you are absolutely right, however, that it was the US bombs that forced through the eventual cease-fire and Dayton peace agreement. That was, in fact, why I didn't actually mention Bosnia in my list of UN successes :wink:



Yes, again, without the US bombs, Kosovo would never have been freed. Without the UN de facto taking over the day-to-day government and administration of Kosovo after the US were finished bombing, however, conflict would quickly have flared up again.

That has basically been the pattern - the US make war, and leave it up to the UN to build peace when they've achieved military victory and gone home. (I'm overstating it, of course, I know there are US soldiers still in the former Yugoslavia, even if Bush has been trying to pull them out). That makes UN support all the more important. US plans for post-war Iraq are alarmingly sketchy. The example of the current state of Afghanistan, where the international community basically controls Kabul and suburbs and the old warlords have the rest - with Karzai pleading to the US and other Western donors to please start giving at least part of the money they promised, to create a proper police force and national army, for example - is no less alarming.

If the US are going to call in the allies and UN to do the little glamorous work of peacebuilding and -keeping after the war again, then they should at least be allowed a say in the when and how the war will start, too. Basically, the NATO allies, the UN, and most of the neighbouring countries are saying that this is not the time nor the way to do it, and the way the US are going about it, they are only making things worse.

<hrumph>. (That <hrumph> is not at you, btw, but at my own government .

Don't worry about saying anything bad about the Netherlands here, I'll do it for you. Srebrenica was a black page in our history. I am not convinced at all by the Dutch army's attempt to pass the buck to UN command. The Dutch showed an astounding cowardice, naivity and even lack of mercy - when they allowed Mladic and his soldiers to separate men and women and take away all the men - claiming, later, that they believed these would be treated as POWs and not be harmed otherwise - and toasted with Mladic himself, live on TV, on the good ending. When they refused desperate attempts of the local population to come hide in their compound when the Serbs marched into town - refused even, for example, the family of an interpreter that had worked for them during their whole mission to join him inside. Their only concern was for their own soldiers' safety, and when these had arrived safely, a nice big party was held with politicians celebrating the 'good end' with the soldiers while thousands of Bosniaks were that very time being slaughtered. And a majority of public opinion (though not an overwhelming one) was with them. The government eventually 'bravely' resigned over it, yes, after years of wrangling - two months or so before its time would have been up anyway.

>You are obviously referring to when the communist Mengistu regime disintegrated, after which those who toppled him took over power in Ethiopia and their guerrilla allies in Eritrea were indeed granted independence.

Yes I discussed the war for the independence of Eritrea there. In 1998-2000 the situation was opposite - Eritrea "agreed to leave" the debatable border region after it had been already occupied by the Ethiopians. It would have happened anyway without the UN's intervention.

>Without the UN no Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the begin-all and end-all of the introduction of the notion of human rights as relevant element of foreign policy.

Generally that could be a good thing but not in the present UN organization. The only countries where the UN Human Rights Commission (under the genius Qaddafi's guidance) can see violations of human rights are the USA and Israel. As about Russia or China - these one are the best example of the human right's protection (can you expect any other opinion from Muamar Qaddafi, undoubtly a big specialist of the human right's violation?). But it isn't the worst thing yet. Really the UN not only don't prevent anti-human crimes but furthermore this declaration actually FAVOURS TOTALITARIAN REGIMES TO VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS. For example recently a group of ethnic Chechens - refugees from Chechnya - were arrested in Germany as illegal emigrants. They asked a political assylum but were refused because Russia once joined this declaration and since that Russian (as well as Soviet did) delegations regularly arrive to different the UN assemblies where they report about their new successes in the protection of human rights. In other words there must be no human rights violations in Russia. All these unhappy people were deported back.

Someone may say now that Chechens are international terrorists and this is the war on terror. But it would be wrong. The same things happen to ethnic Russian defectors as well. For example last year two Russian border guards escaped to Finland being unable to suffer tortures in their units. After being captured by the police both were returned to Russia where they got 5 years in military jail. If someone doesn't know, military jails and camps (so called punitive battalions) can't be even compared with a usual Russian prison (that hasn't rather changed since the age of GULAG), the worst usual prison is a resort as against the best military one.

So my conclusion - at 1st this declaration allows democratic countries to violate the rights of some categories of foreign citizens without big problems. In other side it allows for the most powerfull totalitarian regimes like Russian or Chinesse to deal with any of it's enemy everywhere in the world that had been remaining the sweatest dream of every dictator beginning from Thirty Tyrants in Greece and that eventually was realised in 1970s when the Soviet Union and China joined this damned declaration. I'd rather prefer to have no declaration at all than a declaration working in such way.

>The US can exercise a veto, too, and has done so repeatedly to block intervention in conflicts where it is a party or has interests.

The problem is that Serbian fascists didn't seek for a UN's approval before the massacres in Srebrenitsa as well as Russia doesn't need a UN resolution to eliminate Chechnya or China didn't ask anyone's allowance to invade Tibet. If we want to give the US and China equal possibilities we must allow the US to defend their interests without the UN's permissions.

>A traditional exchange of authorities over zones of influence. To stop this horsetrading in the governmental right to do as one pleases, eventually you'll need to turn to a UN with increased authorities (and increased democratic influence over it, of course)....
>Regimes like Uzbekistan's, for example, one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights - an absolute dictatorship where any opposition and free media is banned and oppositionists are arbitrarily imprisoned and tortured - has ever since September 11 been a US "ally in the war on terrorism",

Here we shouldn't confuse the reason and result. Of course from a moral view it would have been the best if the Americans had appointed their Uzbek "Khamid Karzai", dropped to him several containeers of rifles and food and then asked him to liberate enough space for an airbase. But what is a problem - Uzbekistan ruler Islam Karimov is a big friend of Puty-Put. And Puty-Put has the right of veto in the Security Council of the UN. And American voters wouldn't like to see any action without the UN's approval. In other words Mr. Bush, the leader of the most powerful forces in the world is under a big pressure from his native people.

Most of them (here you haven't posted the percentage of American UN-lovers but IMHO it must be close to that ones of Europeans) would like to see Russia and China as fast developing democracies (now I remember a good story: when Vice-President Albert Gore received a detailed CIA report that all American financial aid to Russia had been stolen he wrote on this report only one word - "dogsh*t" and sent it to the archive), Putin as a great democrat and friend of America (like our Mr. Steissd or Ciceron Imposter) and the UN as a real saviour of the total world, unviversal peace-keeper, liberator, human rights' defender and so on. I understand their optimistism pretty well. If they tried to believe to opposite things what a horrible life they would see around.

Of course I can't blame anyone for such delusions - our life is already sh*t without any additional horrors. But now we have a case when this optimism not only doesn't help but make the situation rather worse. This internal pressure and necessity to defend national interests force Bush to trade horses because Uzbekistan for example has no other tools to suppress the US but using American voters' feelings (as well as Vietnamese Commies couldn't have won the Vietnam War if there hadn't been a lot of "pacifists" wearing Comrades Che and Ho's portraits on their stomaches in America).

If the Americans wish to avoid this horsetrading they should leave the UN at all or at least ignore them. Thankfully now even Bush understand it. Seemly he is going to attack Iraq without his usual horsestrading. I hope it will be the first step to the unilateralism which will save America and American democracy! Furhtermore Bush's position now is shared by opposite American Democrat leaders - so we can't say evermore that a probable war on Iraq is a personal Bush's ambition (revenge for his father ).

>The Dutch showed an astounding cowardice, naivity and even lack of mercy...

Particularly you are right. But undoubtly the main responsibility must be taken by the UN. This organisation determined the mandate for the peace-keepers, they planned and organised deployment of every unit (that was why the Dutch battalion had no heavy armament and was divided on little groups unable to do anything). They didn't react after even the Serbs began massacres (they really could for example call American airforces up to support the blocked Dutchs) as well as have put on no reaction excepting an idea to justice Miloshevic (if I understood you correctly).

Really the UN worked in similar way in almost every other confict but it's latest actions in Yugoslavia (here you are very right again) grow out of even it's typical behaviour. I can post not one example more (including actions in Kosovo as well) but IMHO the mentioned event is more than enough. Now a question: what should the UN do to discredit itself more? Can any sensible person believe now that the UN defend Saddam only because of their worries about "poor starving Iraqy children"? If not what reasons do they have else? And what hell do the US have to be subordinated to the organisation that became a laughing-stock of the whole world long ago (BTW Saddam himself is the world recordsman of defecating on the UN resolutions)?

Absolutely agree. The very presence of Libyan representative in Human Rights

I just saw a story about an Iraqi family. A man with a wife and 4 children trying to decide how to protect them if the bombs start falling.

This man belongs to 100 percent of Iraqis that voted Saddam during the recent election. Did not he know whom did he support and what are the possible consequences? I feel pity only about kids: they are not guilty in their parents stupidity...
BTW, it is not very likely that the American bombs will fall on the residential neighborhoods: U.S. did not practice carpet bombing since WWII, and she possesses precise warfare that can hit the objective causing minimum collateral damage.

Steissd - With all due respect - this is claptrap! There is always collateral damage - and seldom is it minimal. Try telling that to the Canadian troops the Amnericans bombed in Afghanistan. It's one of the costs of war. One of the reasons we should avoid it as far as possible.

That's like saying the suicide bombers in Israel are only trying to kill themselves - and the other people they take out are simply collateral damage.

The suicidal bombers have an objective to kill as much civilians as possible, therefore their victims do not suit the definition of the collateral damage. Their own death is rather a collateral damage in their opinion.
I have never stated that it is possible to wage war without any collateral damage at all: there always is possibility of error in any human activities, both civil and military. But the "smart" weapons may minimize undesirable casualties to low numbers. By the way, in the quote of mine that you have publicized the minimum collateral damage is mentioned, and not its complete absence.

smart bombs are the ones that don't kill anyone

Then these are sci-fi bombs. Smart bombs are much more precise than the regular ones, but these are people that operate them, and they may err in definition of the target. In the best case, the mistargeted bomb will have no effect at all (for example, it will explode in the empty area), in the worst case it will cause undesirable collateral damage. But it is a war, and it is impossible to completely exclude civilian casualties.