Third Party & Independents: Archives

Jean-Paul,

My recommendation is, “End it, don’t mend it.”

The UN, as it is, should be dissolved. If we must have an international organization, it should be one which favors democracies and discourages failed-states from getting on the Human Rights commission. The UN was created in the framework of WWII. Alot has changed since then.

UNfortunately the UN is more apt today to favor dictators and reward rogue states than bring world peace. The number one change is that it’s goal shouldn’t be to bring ‘world peace’. It should be something more realistic like, ‘to protect and serve’. As it is the UN is filled with elitist beauracrats and leftist-internationalists.

I kind of like the UN the way it is today: incapacitated, toothless, moronic, bureaucratic, void of ability to act, and so on. I like it that way because if a world body were otherwise, it could quickly sprout a global dictatorship, and then all the right-wing militia lunatics would be RIGHT for a change.

I say keep it just as it is, with hand-wringers like Kofi Anan, equivocating their way through life, and tentatively and gently placing unarmed and emasculated “peacekeepers” in places where they think fighting needs to stop. That becomes a good thing when it can be French blue-hatters getting vaporized by RPGs instead of our own troops. Capiche?

> Kerry’s atavistic proposal to return to the
> failed Clinton model of multilateralism and
> fighting terror as a “law enforcement
> operation” is a non-starter.

I’ve been wanted to address this accusation for a while now. Why do Bush supporters think that this “law enforcement” aspect of the war on terrorism is so misguided? Is it because the war in Iraq is the only really new idea they’ve thought of to help strengthen the American anti-terror strategy? Is it because they feel the need to invent something bad to say about the pre-Bush approach? Is it because they need some sort of fig leaf to cover up the fact that, before 9/11, John Ashcroft removed terrorism from his list of Justice Department responsibilities, and, in a break from his predecessor, not only stopped increasing counterterrorism spending but actually made cuts in it?

First of all, here’s what Kerry said in the link you quoted:

The war on terror is less — it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time. And we will need the best-trained and the most well-equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.

But it’s primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world — the very thing this administration is worst at. And most importantly, the war on terror is also an engagement in the Middle East economically, socially, culturally, in a way that we haven’t embraced, because otherwise we’re inviting a clash of civilizations.

Let’s be fair: Kerry didn’t exclusively cite “law enforcement” as the preferred method of fighting terrorism. But he did stress its importance.

So, what’s so wrong with seeing the war on terrorism as something that is, in large part, a law enforcement operation? Law enforcement professionals, both in the United States and in most other countries in the world, are the best qualified sorts of people to uncover and dismantle underground organizations which exist among the general populace, and to root out such terrorist plots and activities.

The intelligence community is also ideally suited to this sort of operation, and Kerry was clear in mentioning intelligence first as the greatest tool in fighting terrorism.

To view the military as the primary tool to fight terror is stupid: what are we going to do, invade half the countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa and establish police states in every one of them? How are the Marines supposed to stop terrorists hiding out in Brooklyn or Skokie from plotting to blow up American landmarks? How is the US Air Force going to stop the Russian mob from selling misplaced nuclear material to sleeper cells in Uzbekistan?

And what about the many Clinton-era counterterrorism successes (the Year 2000 plot, the WTC redux plot, the NYC bridges-and-tunnels plot, the Golden Gate plot, etc), produced almost exclusively through the efforts of law enforcement agencies? America’s greatest counterterrorism weapon, a Mr. John O’Neill, was a tragically underappreciated product of this maligned law enforcement community.

Clearly US law enforcment could and should have done a hell of a lot more, but does that make it so wrong to now reject their important skills so flippantly, as hawkish pundits are so fond of doing these days?

Isn’t there a risk of this anti-law enforcement rhetoric leading to a lack of focus on improving our law enforcement agencies’ ability to fight terror? Do you think the neocons in the Administration might actually be taking money away from the Justice Department and the FBI even to this day?

In the bigger picture, which Kerry addresses above so capably, how does invading a country based on flimsy or false pretenses make the overall sociological motivation for Islamic terrorism decrease? As we are learning so vividly in Iraq, we just can’t seem kill them fast enough.

It’s a nice sound bite, though. Methinks this accusation is empty rhetoric, designed to make Republicans look “tougher” than Democrats and to distract from their gross failures in the law enforcement area of counterterrorism.

-Cf

I kind of like the UN the way it is today: incapacitated, toothless, moronic, bureaucratic, void of ability to act, and so on.

Ciggy, you’re right on, although that statement is only true when the US isn’t guiding UN policy as it has in Korea, the first Gulf War, and the Balkans among others.

Maybe our next president will be smart enough to realize that the UN is a US foreign policy tool, and be able to wield it as well as all our previous presidents have.

Lee, if I were a non-American and saw the US leading the UN as its “tool”, then I would definitely see the US as a megalomaniacal country bent on world domination. It would sorely tempt me to see any anti-American factions at all, as the good guys.

The UN is supposed to be concerned for what’s best for humanity on earth in general, not in one particular country. It would be wrong to expect the UN to have a specifically pro-US or anti-US agenda, per se. Just let it be as weak as it wants to be, in its masochistic glory. Actually there are times when the UN tries to get tough, and when it does it always amounts to failure, like in Somalia: the US just wanted to distribute food and then get the hell out of there (no oil to capture apparently), but it was the UN that insisted that the US also try to dismantle the Habr-Gidr tribe of Mohammed Farah Aidid (as payback for what that tribe did to UN envoys sent there to negotiate). We’d have had another “Sand Dune Vietnam” there if Clinton hadn’t seen it coming and pulled us out while the pulling out was good. (As a cerebral hawk and an advocate of picking SMART battles to fight, I have to give Clinton credit where credit is due there!)

The main difference that I see now between Iraq and Somalia is that Iraq has oil, and rather than the UN pushing us to be “tough” with the local thugs, it’s PNAC. The same disasters are bound to happen. It needs to stop, and it needs to stop NOW.

it was the UN that insisted that the US also try to dismantle the Habr-Gidr tribe of Mohammed Farah Aidid

Sorry, Ciggy. I just don’t see it that way. If Clinton hadn’t thought it was a good idea (for whatever reason) it never would have happened. There’s no way the UN forced him to do it.

It’s a fact that without US troops, the UN has no teeth. The only time the UN has ever been militarily effective is when the US contributes the majority of troops and leads it.

I call the UN a tool of US foreign policy. That’s a simplistic model, but it’s applicable in most cases. Obviously if it was regarded that way by other countries, the UN would cease to be effective, which is why it’s so important to work with the UN; to understand and respect the positions of delegates from relevant member nations; and to work with them to overcome any problems they have with the US policy in question.

That’s why it’s usually an effective institution when well led by a US president; a broad consensus is built up for action. As we’ve seen, it also discourages (to an extent) bad US foreign policy.

You’re right that the UN should be a weak organization, and it is, when it isn’t behind US foreign policy (having been accepted as a good policy by the member nations). But that’s also why it’s wrong to see the UN as an organization that does significant things without the wholehearted consent and assistance of the US.

There wasn’t any UN interference in Rwanda because Clinton didn’t want to (or couldn’t, for domestic political reasons) interfere in Rwanda. There was UN involvement in Somalia, because GHW Bush felt it was necessary to get involved in Somalia.

Ciggy, what makes you think the U.S. is not a meglomaniacal country bent on world domination?

“Sorry, Ciggy. I just don’t see it that way. If Clinton hadn’t thought it was a good idea (for whatever reason) it never would have happened.”

Lee, as an historical reminder (which you bring up yourself later in your post), the Somalia operation was initiated by Bush Sr., as an humanitarian operation, and Clinton inherited the mess. He had less time to untangle Somalia (and Waco for that matter) than Bush Jr. did to untangle antiterrorist plans before 9/11/2001. If you read the BOOK for “Blackhawk Down” rather than just watch the movie, you will see that the events leading up to the raid on the Black Sea Market were unfolding at U.N. request, because Aidid’s tribe was seen as responsible for the murders of several U.N. envoys. Another particularity about Somalia which is probably too complicated for the average American to understand is, that while the POTUS denied the Rangers’ request for armor, it was later admitted by local commanders that armor wouldn’t have helped in the Black Sea Market situation. Also, the Pentagon DID offer to send AC-130 gunships, which local commanders turned down as “unnecessary” (but which, if employed, would definitely have saved the lives of most of the rangers involved, and Mike Durant would not have been captured—a gunship could have kept the militia gunmen at bay until rescue operations could focus on his recovery).

It is true that the U.N. is ineffective militarily, and that was my original point of why I liked them. A weak U.N. is more diplomatically effective than a strong one would be, and less of a danger regarding who might be controlling it.

Greg: every country always wants to have a strong and dominant world standing. If an opportunity for such status were offered to France or Germany or Russia, none of those governments would refuse it. In fact, I’d say that the romantic and poetic notion of America being some sort of a libertarian paradise, or a utopia of non-aggression and enlightenment experimentation in political policy, ended about midway in the debate over how the Constitution would be framed—beginning with failure to abolish slavery, and it was all downhill from there. The assassination of JFK just made it fairly obvious to anyone who wasn’t slurping apple pie-flavored Kool-Aide.

We are no better than any other country in the world, but there can be cold comfort in the thought that we are also no WORSE.

It is true that the U.N. is ineffective militarily, and that was my original point of why I liked them. A weak U.N. is more diplomatically effective than a strong one would be, and less of a danger regarding who might be controlling it.

Got it. Concur. My point was that when the UN does do something, it’s invariably because the US wants it done.

I read the BOOK. All good points. I think your use of the word “request” when talking about the raid is right on. Sounds like we’re on the same page. :)

“My point was that when the UN does do something, it’s invariably because the US wants it done.”

I’m sure the U.S. would have preferred the U.N. hadn’t passed resolutions against Israel, forcing the U.S. to be hypocritical about how it enforces resolutions. This is a major sticking point in relations with the Arab and Muslim world, and it’s been brewing for decades now.

Sure, Ciggy. But was anything ever actually done to enforce the resolutions against Israel? Did Germany or China or Brazil take up arms to enforce them?

That’s what I mean.

Lee, to my knowlege, only the U.S. has ever stepped in and said “hey let’s enforce this resolution here”. The bad thing about that is that once there’s any resolution that isn’t complied with peacefully by the target of said resolution, it makes the U.S. look hypocritical in its selective enforcement approach—like a CORRUPT cop of world affairs.

If the U.S. took the contrary approach and didn’t leap into the breach to enforce any of them, the U.S. would be seen as no different from the other Security Council members who would similarly sit silent when the question of enforcement is raised. At this particular juncture, a little of that sort of quasi-anonymity would be a good thing—like Woodie Allen going reclusive after his diddling of Sun Yi.

Haha! I agree. Mostly. But sometimes a resolution needs to be enforced to further US interests.

If we can bring along a relevant internatinal body like the UN, or (Euro-centric) NATO in the case of (European) Kosovo, then it’s a bonus.

If Bush Jr. had been able to convince the Arab League to join the effort in Iraq, like Bush Sr. did, we’d be looking at a totally different situation right now.

Unfortunately, blinded by a narrow military focus, the Bush administration saw allied military contributions as more trouble than they were worth - true in a tactical military sense, but very wrong when looked at from a broader perspective.

Gen. Clark gives a really good example of the usefulness of NATO in Kosovo in the introduction of his book, “Waging Modern War”.

Clark is told by a “senior administration official” (usually a euphemism for Cheney) that Bush isn’t going to make the same mistake Clinton made in Kosovo by letting allies screen targets in Afghanistan.

Clark writes that if that’s the lesson the administration drew from Kosovo, it was the wrong one. He argues that the multinational bombing in Kosovo and Serbia, though it made little difference militarily, was effective because each bomb had the moral force of the citizens of nineteen democratic nations behind it.

Lee, if we enforce ANY of them, we have to enforce ALL of them. Diplomatically speaking, there is no other option that can lead to successful world leadership.

If we enforce all resolutions, Israel’s going to have to be in the hot seat to comply or get bombed. If that enforcement is coupled with a withdrawal from Iraq, that would drop us several notches down on the radical Islamic terrorist attack priority list, if we even remain on the list at all. After all, Bin Laden fought the Russians and yet now that there’s no longer an active war going on, and Russia is anti-Israel, Al Qaeda isn’t exactly peppering Moscow with car bombs.

In fact, if we nurture a PERCEPTION that the U.S. is a “tool of the U.N.”, it would gain the psyop strength that any opposition to the U.S. is opposition to the U.N., hence, “the world community”. Rather than “weaken” us, marching in lock-step with the U.N. (on high-visibility issues that aren’t extremely detrimental to our own interests) would grant us a gigantic license to flex power. It’s an investment of some power in order to gain a great deal of greater power later.