On UN Reform Or NOT

[Annie]

Links at site, something new? I'll be nice, just give me a few... http://newsisyphus.blogspot.com/2005/03/un-reform-we-are-all-terrorists-now.html

Friday, March 25, 2005

U.N. Reform: We Are All Terrorists Now
Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has released a report entitled “In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights For All” that is both a progress report on the 2000 United Nations Millennium Declaration and a blueprint for moving the U.N. towards the goals adopted by the Declaration unanimously in 2000. News reports regarding this report have highlighted proposals to change both the Security Council and how it considers and approves the use of military force.

While those topics are interesting, they are not the most significant part of the report. On the contrary, what the report really highlights is how thoroughly the U.N. is stuck in an outdated and counter-productive ideology. Call it “transnational internationalism,” “international law,” or even just “human rights,” but, however it is named, it all comes down to the same thing: the dangerous fantasy that there is a collective will which has approved legislation that has become law and now must be enforced. A close look at each concept reveals how dangerously delusional such a stance is.

The United Nations: A Collection of States or an Independent Body?

Since its founding in 1945 (and dating from earlier in WWII when the term “United Nations” was used interchangeably with the term “The Allies”), the U.N. has suffered from a dual identity. On the one hand, the U.N. certainly exists outside the will of the various member states. It has numerous offices, bureaucracies and responsibilities around the world that are uniquely its. When it is told “go keep the peace in Haiti,” it is acting as an independent trans-national body with the authority to use force

On the other hand, however, it clearly acts within guidelines adopted and authorized by the member states, who are more than happy to withdraw their support from this or that U.N. project on purely national considerations. And it is wholly dependent on financing and military strength from contributions.

today read the US.

This dual identity really is the root of the problem. To modern left/liberals, the answer is obvious: transfer some real state power to the U.N. and let it function as it was designed to do. Give it its own military, with dedicated and well-trained units and, even more importantly, give it some revenue-raising authority.

Something the US has been arguing for.

The result would be a true independent trans-national body, a world government in embryo, that could use the resulting independence from member states to dispassionately enforce the U.N Charter.

Modern right/conservatives can’t even get half-way through such a line of reasoning before becoming almost physically ill. On philosophical grounds alone, such an option is simply unthinkable for a good part of Western conservatism, whether of the European or American variety. The member states that make up the General Assembly are, by and large, illiberal regimes with no real legitimacy; any independent government deriving from such a source would mean, in the end, rule by dictators. There is no democratic oversight of the body, no electorate and no accountability, as the Oil For Food Scandal most recently illustrated starkly. And, most importantly, there exists no ability or right to petition the U.N., lobby it or otherwise engage in the normal democratic process. That’s why for most conservatives’ line of thinking, the U.N. is simply a permanent meeting ground committee for collective action whenever the member states decide such action is necessary.

Given the two views, it’s only natural that the U.N. as an institution would gravitate towards the liberal/left view. It’s simply asking too much of people to work for an institution and believe at the same time that the institution should be more or less powerless and dependent on others.

Therein lies the danger of the U.N., of course. Once created, it took on a life of its own and, like institutions everywhere, it has sought ever since to expand its power as widely as possible. For reasons we have discussed earlier, the U.N. currently finds itself at a crosswords with one of its founding members and largest financial contributors. The simple plain fact is that a huge majority of Americans have no confidence in the U.N and view it as nothing more than an anti-American talking shop. What Annan’s report aims to accomplish is enough reform to reconcile American decision-makers to the institution while, at the same time, strengthening its independence as an autonomous body.

That is a tall order, and one that the Secretary General fails miserably at.

no shit.

In fact, as we will see below, the report is nothing more than yet another attempt to frame “international law” in such a way as to make American action in the world “illegal.” Finally, and most ominously, it also contains a mechanism to lower the U.S.’ power in the Security Council and a legal code that would brand most of America’s military actions of the past forty years nothing more than “terrorism.”

and why it will fail.

Freedom From Want

You can tell the report is pitched to an American audience (not a mass audience, mind you, but to that layer of American political civil society that influences opinion and makes decisions) by the titles of the sections. Using terms like “Freedom From Fear” and “Freedom From Want,” the chapters of the report are designed to appeal to the American elite’s institutional Rooseveltism.

One cannot help but notice, however, that this not-too-subtle invocation is itself ruined by prose that sounds like it has leapt from the pen of a university freshman who just heard his first lecture on socialism. Poverty won’t be a problem in the future, because:

In an era of global abundance, our world has the resources to reduce dramatically the massive divides that persist between rich and poor, if only those resources can be unleashed in the service of all peoples.

It’s hard to believe that people in the year 2005 still believe that the answer to poverty is simply to use state (or in this case, international) power to redistribute wealth, but there you have it. Of course, the phrase “if only those resources can be unleashed in the service of all peoples,” is open to a bit of interpretation, but what is clear from this passage is that, yet again, poor countries are poor because rich countries are rich.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As De Soto has convincingly demonstrated, even the poorest countries teem with capital, but it is capital that is tied down by bad government, backwards thinking and weak financial institutions. What needs to be “unleashed” is not some sort of redistribution regime but, instead, the human and real capital that are smothered by a lack of political and economic liberty across wide swaths of this poor world.

This is not to say, however, that the United States cannot get behind aspects of the poverty-reduction programme put forward by the Secretary General. His main points—reducing extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, and promoting gender equality—are all worthy goals that fit the foreign policy objectives of the United States. As usual, the fight will be not over lofty goals but substantive details outlining the tactics to be used to reach them. Amb. Bolton will have to fight 90% of the world on each of these goals—while being portrayed as standing against them, no doubt—because the Europeans and Latin Americans will stand by their 1930’s ideology that all we have to do is purchase these things and they will magically happen.

Instead, what has to be done is more of the hard work our agencies like USAID do everyday: micro-enterprise, modern farming techniques, marketing for export surveys, technical training, the kind of hard work in-the-trenches slogging that an idiot like Bono could never do nor understand. It’s all so much easier just to write a check, isn’t it?

Despite some poor rhetoric, though, it is clear that our ideas are having an impact. In his conclusion to the “Freedom From Want” section, the Secretary General advises:

Each developing country has primary responsibility for its own development — strengthening governance, combating corruption and putting in place the policies and investments to drive private-sector-led growth and maximize domestic resources available to fund national development strategies.

The emphasis on good government and private-sector-led growth is encouraging as is the putting of responsibility where it properly lay: with each developing country. Getting that insight implemented while maintaining popular support will be a central challenge of our mission to the U.N.

Freedom From Fear

This section was obviously designed to appeal to Americans, but has the same tone-deafness we have now long associated with Europeans and the international bureaucracy. We have two main objections to this passage of the report. First, we are not fearful. Angry, determined, disgusted by those who prey on innocents and vengeful, yes; fearful, no. Second, this portion of the report is nothing less than a sugar-coated poison pill designed to get us to swallow it, and it isn’t going to work, not by a long shot.

This section begins with high sounding words about the scourge of terrorism:

Terrorism is a threat to all that the United Nations stands for: respect for human rights, the rule of law, the protection of civilians, tolerance among peoples and nations, and the peaceful resolution of conflict. It is a threat that has grown more urgent in the last five years. Transnational networks of terrorist groups have global reach and make common cause to pose a universal threat. Such groups profess a desire to acquire nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and to inflict mass casualties. Even one such attack and the chain of events it might set off could change our world forever.

Our strategy against terrorism must be comprehensive and should be based on five pillars: it must aim at dissuading people from resorting to terrorism or supporting it; it must deny terrorists access to funds and materials; it must deter States from sponsoring terrorism; it must develop State capacity to defeat terrorism; and it must defend human rights. I urge Member States and civil society organizations everywhere to join in that strategy.

Substitute the word “rape” for “terrorism” and even liberals can see the flabby morals on display here. The best part, of course, is the “dissuading” people from “resorting” to terrorism. Even better is how it is to be achieved:

We must convince all those who may be tempted to support terrorism that it is neither an acceptable nor an effective way to advance their cause. But the moral authority of the United Nations and its strength in condemning terrorism have been hampered by the inability of Member States to agree on a comprehensive convention that includes a definition.

We’re sure that once the U.N. has a good definition of terrorism its vaunted moral authority will convince supporters of terrorism to change their ways. This is the worst kind of moral preening, one that reaches the level of the unbelievably absurd. And, of course, the Member States cannot agree on a definition because a good number of Member States are themselves terror-sponsoring or terror-supporting.

Nevertheless, the Secretary General proposes we set aside our bickering and agree to agree on his definition of “terrorism.” And what a definition it is:

I endorse fully the High-level Panel’s call for a definition of terrorism, which would make it clear that, in addition to actions already proscribed by existing conventions, any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act. (Emphasis added).

Under this definition, U.S. actions in Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq are all acts of international terrorism. In Somalia the U.S. engaged in offensive operations in a civilian area to force the de facto government to allow U.N. forces to distribute food aid. In Kosovo, the U.S. bombed a major European capital to force the Yugoslav/Serbian government to “abstain from” the act of ethnic cleansing. In Bosnia, the U.S. similarly used force in civilian areas to stop a self-declared government from committing further acts of genocide. And in Iraq, we bombed civilian centers to deny its forces command and control, power and transportation.

The key here of course is intent. The U.S. would argue that in each of these instances there was no intent “to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants.” However, history has shown that a wide sweep of global opinion would not accept American assurances on this front. It would be enough for most people that the U.S. intentionally dropped bombs or fired guns in a civilian area.

If the U.S. signed on to this definition, it would be giving comfort to the “human rights” and “international law” organizations that have been itching to declare the U.S. a terrorist state. The fact that the Secretary General can propose a definition that would catch the U.S. in its net is more than evidence of bad faith, it speaks to a willful hatred of the United States and its military actions over the past years.

And that’s just the good news. Part II will examine in depth the proposed changes to the Security Council and other major U.N. bodies, tomorrow.

# posted by NewSisyphus

I wouldn't even both to try and fisk the end, the blog did enough. The UN is doomed for want of thought.

 

[musicman]

So, it would appear that the U.N. is largely made up of nations which either, A) have existed by the good graces of American defense for the last sixty years, thus affording them the luxury of a life of unreality, and leading them - as a consequence of that fairy-tale existence - to hold America in contempt, or B) nations which outright hate us.

Yeah - I have high hopes.

 

[Annie]

So, it would appear that the U.N. is largely made up of nations which either, A) have existed by the good graces of American defense for the last sixty years, thus affording them the luxury of a life of unreality, and leading them - as a consequence of that fairy-tale existence - to hold America in contempt, or B) nations which outright hate us.

Yeah - I have high hopes.

That seems to have summed it up!