Third Party & Independents: Archives

Rhinehold -
One of the problems at work here is the idea of hate crimes. This insidious concept has been pushed by Democrats in the U.S. as a form of thought crime. Basically, the idea is that if you do something wrong, it can be judged to be worse because of a subjective judgment by a government body.

In this case, mass murder is the crime; genocide is the hate crime. The UN, and all governments, should absent themselves from trying to decipher criminals’ motivations. If the Sudanese are sponsoring mass murder of civilian, it doesn’t matter whether their motives are genocidal. This isn’t the World Wildlife Fund trying to protect a species - it’s about protecting human life regardless of its shape.

I am by no means defending genocide or ethnic cleansing - I’m a 3rd generation Holocaust survivor. But the murder of my Jewish great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother and many others would have been stopped just as much by defense of individual rights rather than group rights.

Trying to put groups ahead of individuals leads to subjective (and often despicable) government rulings like this one, where it was in the interests of the involved parties to define the groups in such a way that no violation occurred.

(note that I am not saying genocide is not qualitatively different than mass murder, only that government shouldn’t be the arbiter).

The UN report also states that what has happened in Darfur is no less heinous or deserving of being halted than genocide would have been. It is now up to the US and other UN nations to take action. What is the US’s ambassador’s desire on moving in to take action? What are the other nation’s positions? That is the real crux of the matter. The Report clearly indicates action is needed. Now it is up to the member states to decide to take that action.

The UN is only as powerful as the Permanent Five want it to be. Darfur could set a precedent they don’t want. The Powers don’t want the UN to interfere when THEY are the ones who commit mass murder aka Tianamen Square, US-Sponsored Death Squads, Chechnya, etc. Before you bash the UN, bash the US first…

Rhinehold, I’m not sure what your problem is. The report says that the government in Khartoum did not commit genocide, but that several militia and military commanders on the scene did.

Is it your contention that the Sudanese government did in fact commit genocide? That the commanders in the field got their killing orders from the Sudanese government? I’m sure the UN would be very interested in any evidence you have to that effect.

…and refusal to put any teeth behind their resolutions.

Ahh, I think I see what the problem is. You’d like to see the UN start raising its own troops and acting like the true world government you think it should be.

The United States now has a standing policy of not intervening in world conflicts unless these conflicts directly affect the United States. Now the question needs to be asked, how many other countries have similar policies, my guess would be most. Can you blame us or them for not wanting to get involved in someone else’s problem, especially if that problem does not immediately affect us or them. So with most countries of the world having no direct interest in Darfur, Sudan (or for that matter most of Africa) and maintaining policies that keep them from getting involved, how can the United Nations solve the Darfur crisis. When it comes to being united the nations of the world are united in the belief that it is not their problem. Sad but true.

Too often I hear criticisms of the United Nations without any solutions to or understanding of the problems it faces. Let’s hear more solutions to the issues the U.N. faces. The concept of the United Nations is not flawed, the people and our policies are.

Maybe what is missing is a great leader. Recently the U.N. named former President Clinton to head the tsunami reconstruction effort. I would love to see him take over the U.N. at some point. Hold on all you right wingers! Bill Clinton heads the United Nations while President Hillary Clinton runs the United States. They’re taking over the world, your worst nightmare and it could happen. Ha Ha Ha Haa…. (Evil laugh).

Rhinehold,

thanks for your interest in the situation in Darfur and for drawing attention to it on the web. I respect that a lot. i regret, as i feel quite a few other posts do, that you have been so critical of the UN, including in a title which is picked up by Google. The UN deserves critical comment, but such comment should really be reserved for times when criticism is deserved. The qualifcation of ‘genocide’ is a legal one. There is a legal distinction between the terms ‘genocide’ and ‘acts of genocide’ which is why the report also makes the distinction. In practice, and taking the report as a whole, use or not of the term ‘genocide’ is academic, given notably the report’s allegations that crimes against humanity have occurred.

I’m not sure exactly where the UN has rendered itself irrelevant in this particular situation. This UN commission was able to go into a country that was foreign in terms of geography, language, culture and history and in the short space of 3 months gather sufficient evidence to counsel the prosecution of 51 people for very serious crimes. Quite apart from anything else, simply finding transport to travel around a region in the midst of conflict in Darfur must be extremely complex, let along getting such transport in place in time to support a legal investigation requiring visits to hundreds of locations. Doing all this when the Government of the country itself is most probably very reluctant to allow easy access to people places and information must be extremely complex. Most criminal murder investigations of just one person conducted by police officers and lawyers in their own countries and in a city that they know very well, in which they have ready established information sources, in which they have the power of the Govt’s justice ministry behind them, in which they speak the language and in which they can travel freely without the pressures of a war around them, take much much more time. It seems to me that what the UN has done here is pretty impressive. As one of the other writers emphasised, what the UN has done is to prepare a very sound report and strong recommendations which if taken up would almost certainly end the current human rights violations in Darfur and provide a measure of justice for those victims of violations that have already taken place. Given that the UN remains (as it should do) answerable to States and has no army of its own nor power to act independently, this seems to me an example of the UN working extremely well, and hardly an example of irrelevance.

While i emphasise again that i do think it’s really good that you show interest in these issues and raise them on the web, it is difficult to see how the UN’s real weaknesses can be addressed when even the things the organisation does very well are the subject of such heavy criticism and are deemed irrelevant.

And so another poorly thought out, knee-jerk conservative attack on the UN fades sloooowly into obscurity. :)

Another sign pointing to the irrelivance of the UN was their inability to act during the tsunami. The United States and Austrailia had destroyers at the sites hit within hours. What did the UN do? They sent a few personnel two WEEKS after the tsunami hit.

Winston Churchill once said, “One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.” I don’t understand why the UN can’t realize there is a problem and take action. Instead, they hold an indeterminate number of meetings and discuss what they should call it. If they can’t get moving then there is no use for them.