Lissa has an imaginary conversation with her younger self about the feel-good collection of useless grandstanders that is the United Nations.
It was the "peace-keeping" missions that always got to me. I mean, sure, you may have some well-disciplined and good-intentioned Canucks or Danes along, trying to score points for their motherland in the International Miss Congeniality competition, but their efforts are for naught when the bulk of the "peace-keeping" force is made up of two battalions of the Absurdistani Light Rifles who treat the assignment as a sort of rape-and-petty-theft wanderjahr.
Any organization that would put Syria on a Human Rights Commission has, to put it mildly, a fundamental structural flaw.
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9 comments:
Right, as usual...and I'm a Canadian brought up on the glories and essential goodness of our boys in blue UN helmets.
Since Tam is having a Deutsch day, I'd observe that Realpolitik trumps blue helmets any time. Ya' feel a bit more secure too.
Yeah, "we will go medieval on your ass if you don't calm down" works a lot better than "we'll send some peacekeepers to keep an eye on you."
It's like the difference between parents who appeal to their kids' better natures and parents who take their kids behind the woodshed. You can always tell who's who just by watching how the litter behaves in the supermarket.
There's little doubt that the early years of UN-sponsored peacekeeping had some beneficial results. (I think of the Suez Canal, Cyprus, etc.) However, peacekeeping only works when BOTH sides are looking for some mechanism to halt hostilities. When this condition does not apply, peacekeeping is a waste. (I think of the former Yugoslavia.)
Canadians did have this 'feel good' delusion for far too many years. Now, at least, our infantry, artillery, combat engineers and armour can demonstrate their skills in a hostile environment rather than sheltering beneath a totally ineffectual and compromised blue flag.
As a Canuck, I'd rather have what we've got now ... than the dangerous misapprehension that we brought value to the world scene.
Regards.
Take up the White Man's burden --
The savage wars of peace --
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
-Kipling, 1899
Thanks, Tam! Makes me wish someone had handed me a "Save Darfur - Send Rifles" bumpersticker back then. My head explosion would have been quite a show.
For those who would like to keep a closer eye on that particularly nasty bunch of crooks and liars, Inner City Press does very well.
innercitypress.com
Stranger
George, as someone who had relatives in both the Princess Pats and the Canadian Seaforth Highlanders, I can only praise the great people still in Canadian uniform, and bemoan the almost total lack of future the dwindling and underfunded Canadian Forces have to adapt to.
A national disgrace. Soon, the only opponents Canada might hope to face and survive will be those same tin horn, pisspot 3rd world sewers now being abused by Tam's Absurdistanis. Sic Transit Nobilis.
I would point out that we've been kicking ass and taking names long before the bunny-huggers forced this limp-wristed peace-keeping foolishness upon us.
Jim
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