Saturday 4 February 2012

U.N., try again?

There are five Permanent U.N. Security Council members, and any one of them (USA, UK, France, Russia, China) can veto a bill or resolution, no matter how ineffectual or watered-down it would have been. The effect is, nothing ever gets done. The murderous Assad in Syria is allowed to use his armed forces to knowingly kill his own citizens, but  Russia and China will veto any resolution (even if it is only a political condemnation, rather than military action) because they trade arms with Syria, arms which are then used to kill Syrian citizens. As a planet, we should all be ashamed of ourselves for this. When they finally get Assad, let's hope he gets ass-rammed worse than Gadaffi did.

Time and time again, the U.N. has failed to prevent genocide and other war crimes, in Rwanda, it was ineffectual because of lack of funding and lack of international care, in Cambodia, political reasons prevented intervention to a system which killed a third of the countries population in a matter of years. Even in Europe, there was no UN action in the the Former Yugoslavia, instead bombing had to be taken through NATO, which for once proved itself a viable source (although Far From Perfect).

My point is this, with those five permanent secretary members, there will always be one with a different view from the others, and a veto will only lead to gridlock. This is especially true with the emergence of China as a genuine superpower. As it is, the UN stands as a reminder of the failure of global international law,  it is definitely time to establish a more efficient global police system. How would this work? countries donate their own soldiers and money to a global police force? No, that won't happen, and if it did, it would be at the mercy of those who gave it the most money, rather than any moral or legal mandate. So in conclusion... we're all boned!

Anyway, I wish you all a happy weekend.

P.S. The U.N. General Assembly, which, can't make legally binding resolutions, but is still seen as a strong international opinion maker, voted in favour of condemning the Syrian government, and to think about ways in which to remove Assad. It was passed by a vote of 137 - 12 (with others abstaiming). Let's see who voted against it, in alphabetical order: [taken from this source]

Belarus, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe. Pretty much a roll call of shitbox countries with oppressive regimes. If Belarus and North Korea are on your side, you're pretty much in the wrong.

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