Should Iraq Be Sentenced To UN Peacekeeping For Its Sins?

Toogood Reports ^ | Weekender, September 07 | Mary Mostert

[F_Cohen]

Should Iraq Be Sentenced To UN Peacekeeping For Its Sins?

By Mary Mostert

Weekender, September 07

ToogoodReports.com/

Reuters News Service, which seems to seldom find anything actually good that President Bush or the United States is doing, reported yesterday that "President Bush may have a hard time negotiating an expanded U.N. participation in Iraq due to his previous unwillingness to share authority after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Sen. Joseph Biden said, "This is kind of like the last chance to get it right, and to end this situation of the United States being the one to bear the coast and bear the burden ... the question now is, is the administration really serious about making this correction?"

Reuters' Randall Mikkelsen ended the article with a quote from University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami who said, "There is certainly a sense of 'I told you so,"' among nations that opposed the Iraq war and were now being approached by the United States for help. Washington missed its opportunity to get the best terms for foreign participation, he said.

Such countries, including France, also worried, however, that a U.S. failure in Iraq could further destabilize the region and fuel Islamic militancy. Such concerns would bolster the U.S. case at the United Nations, Telhami said.

Note there is no mention, much less criticism, in the article that the United Nations, after twelve years of hand wringing and sanctions to try to get Saddam Hussein to behave, and after a unanimous vote CONDEMING Saddam Hussein for his naughty behavior, there was no majority at the U.N. to actually DO anything about Saddam Hussein.

The notion that somehow bringing the United Nations into the situation in Iraq will actually help Iraq, considering the United Nations track record in past "peace keeping" operations requires unwarranted optimism, considering its track record.

Here we are a matter of months away from the fall of Baghdad and we have those who opposed the U.N. doing anything about Saddam Hussein complaining that perfect peace has not settled on Baghdad because the United States wouldn't let the United Nations take control of Iraq, after it did nothing to help solve the problem?

Out of curiosity, just WHERE in the world has the United Nations ever actually brought about peace by their "peacekeeping" forays into nations? How about Kashmir?

For those of you who were not around then, the first "Peacekeeping" mission undertaken by the United Nations was in 1948, shortly after it voted to create the nation of Israel. The same day Israel's independence, created under UN resolutions, took place its Arab neighbors invaded. Israel won the war. A UN peacekeeping mission was established.

On July 26, 1956, President Nasser of Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal; five weeks after the British troops withdrew in hope of placating Nasser. Once Egypt had control of the canal, in violation of the 1951 UN agreement that the canal would be open to all nations, Egypt closed the canal to Israeli shipping, signed a tripartite military alliance with Syria and Jordan and permitted terrorist incursions into Israel from the Gaza Strip and Sinai. In late October and early November, Israel captures the Gaza Strip and the entire Sinai Peninsula, including the Suez Canal.

The United Nations convinces Israel to withdraw, unilaterally, from the occupied territory and allow a United Nations Emergency force to guarantee the free navigation in the Gulf of Eliat. Israel withdraws. In 1968, in violation of the agreement, Nasser demands that the United Nations forces withdraw and they withdraw. The 1967 war immediately broke out, which Israel won.

This led to UN Security Council Resolution 242, which called for "acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." The Arab nations continue to ignore UN Resolution 242. So much for the UN and its peacekeeping skills in the Middle East. The UN's second major peacekeeping attempt was in January 1949 when the United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan was deployed to supervise the ceasefire between the two nations behind the UN mandated "Line of Control" in Jammu and Kashmir. Fifty years later, in 1999, it was reported that there STILL were 300 people a MONTH being killed in the ongoing conflict in Kashmir. No one even bothers to report anymore how many people are killed every year in terrorist activities.

In more recent times, in 1992 there was the United Nations Peacekeeping gambit in Somalia. As the BBC described it, "when peacekeepers arrived in Mogadishu in 1992, they found they were not wanted.

"The Somali warlords had little respect for the blue helmets of the UN, or for the US soldiers who were bolstering the UN force.

"Some peacekeepers were killed, and the bodies of dead US soldiers were paraded through the streets of Mogadishu. When a US helicopter was shot down in 1994, President Clinton withdrew U.S. Troops.

"A year later, in 1995, the UN also withdrew, confessing failure."

Those failures of UN peace keeping were followed by UN failures to prevent massive killings in Bosnia, Rwanda, where genocide took place as UN Peacekeepers stood by, Sierra Leone, and East Timor.

These UN Peacekeeping failures are not exactly ancient history. What nation, under UN peacekeepers, has EVER become a strong, untied, peaceful nation with a growing economy?

On the other hand, nations that have been reorganized under United States military control include Germany and Japan, much of Western Europe and Kuwait.

The real question the world should be asking is whether Iraq should be sentenced to suffer the torture other nations have endured while under the control of United Nations "Peace" keepers.