Devil Fire,
I implore you, if you have the time, and if it is possible, find FrontLine's Ghosts of Rwanda, use PBS online to finds out when and where it is showing in your market, find the time to sit through those two hours, and then think about what mistakes we have made in the past when confronted with megapolitical thugs.
A UN "peacekeeping" mission that provides the false hope of actual protection does more ultimate damage than no mission at all. You need to gaze at the bewilderment in the faces of the survivors, a sadness beyond shock, miles beyond loss of hope and faith in your fellow man and his basic concern for humanity--all of the things that in our best hopes, we'd wish the UN was all about--and then, try and find the upside of that UN "peacekeeping" mission.
By repeatedly acting as it always has, the UN is increasingly removing even hypothetical restraint. Instead of a world institution that intends to foster peace, through its actual instances of failing to enforce this peace, it is serving as an institution that is systematically surrendering the civilized world to thuggery.
It has become the civilized world's offical spokesman of surrender, by unilaterally trying to repeal the Paradox of Violence, and in so doing, in fact, surrendering the world to violence.
I wonder, is it just utopic optimism? Is it just puddingheaded wishful thinking?
Maybe, in some, or even most. But, for some, if one's goal is to actually topple the civilized world on its ear, to foment world chaos, to destroy all remnants of the current order, who knows, to ride the tiger and try and replace it with some alternate order which will supposedly self-evolve from the chaos, then the UN as in its present role is a Hell of a way way to go. It's like a fifth column action, at the heart of the civilized world, working 24/7 to destroy it. "Never mind us, we're here in the city working overtime, destroying civilization's credible means to inhibit thuggery, trust us, it's for your own good. Give Peace a chance, how can you argue with that? I mean, who doesn't want peace?."
Of course, it should go without saying that, if one regards the current order as inherently evil, then destroying it is not seen as a bad thing. And, there we are.
Cutting and running in Somalia was a mistake. If the folks who were actually there are bitter ove rthat experience, it is not over the loss and bloddy nose, but over the command from above to cut and run immediately as a response; they intuitively know what that cowardly action cost.
Cutting and running in Rwanda was a mistake. Never moind bneoing on the ground with actual force--as it turns out in that instance, even if unarmed westerners had simply held their ground, bore witness, and said "No, you cannot do this," that might well have been enough. Instead, the civilized world ran fleeing, and its 'armed' representatives of authority averted their eyes to the ground and did nothing.
As of late, the UN has been failing miserably, and not simply because the balance of the world has failed to simply hand over sovereignty to a bunch of clueless puddingheads, but because in those instances where it has--ask the Belgians--the UN has repeatedly come up short. The UN is institutionally opposed to ~any~ use of force--a monumental and fundamental ignorance of the Paradox of Violence and its role in defending civilization from chaos.
