Monday, August 28, 2006

The Arab Dilemma

The muted responses of Sunni Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Libya to the Israeli attack make clear their fear of Hezbollah developing into a local Shi’ite proxy for Iran. It is a greater threat to their political existence and survival than Israel.

Israel, like its Sunni Arab neighbors, has been there before. International peacekeepers and Israel’s eventual withdrawal of troops from South Lebanon in 2000 did little to stem Hezbollah and their rocket attacks.

Sunni Arab governments and Israel do agree that the U.N. is ineffective. The U.N is viewed with suspicion and anger by the Arabs because of its inability to pressure Israel into complying with many resolutions. Israel on the other hand believes the U.N. is incapable of enforcing its will in a crisis. Foremost in Israelis minds is the U.N.’s role in the prelude to the 1967 Six-Day war. The U.N. deployed an emergency force in Egypt’s Sinai penninsula as part of the 1956 Sinai conflict ceasefire agreement, to serve as a buffer between Egyptian and Israeli forces. But in May 1967, then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, amid growing regional tensions, demanded that the force leave ─ and they did without even consulting the Security Council. Within days the Six-Day war erupted.

The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is perceived as pro-Arab and in kahoutz with Hezbollah by Israel. Hence the bombing of U.N. posts that were used as cover by Hezbollah which resulted in the death of four U.N. observers. The U.N.’s failure to remove Hezbollah as mandated by 1559 is widely believed will be perpetuated and repeated by the new expanded force. It is therefore no surprise that Israel will not accept soldiers from Muslim countries that do not recognize Israel.

To hear Kofi Annan beg for peacekeepers to supplement the “worse than useless” 2000-strong UNIFIL force that has been there for 20 years is a concern and dire warning. To supplement the force in place with soldiers that cannot engage or “wage war” to enforce the resolution and on condition that Israel not violate the ceasefire, even if Hezbollah does, is a one way non-starter, especially when Syria won’t support or recognize the U.N. resolution if U.N. forces are stationed along Lebanon’s border with Syria. To adopt rules of engagement that only allow soldiers to fire to protect civilians, or in self defense, and not to disarm is a mere temporary stop gap measure before the war resumes and reconfirms the U.N.’s uselessness. “There is no flexibility on arms smuggling,” Lebanese Defense Minister Elias al-Murr said. Something Syria refuses to acknowledge. Syria sees Hezbollah as its ace in the hole, something to be exploited to make Syria a factor in the region or to be traded in the right circumstances. “We should create a one-two punch with the French to make clear Syria has something significant to lose by not cutting off Hezbollah, and has something to gain from changing course,” said Dennis Ross, counselor of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I agree. How else do you stop wars? Getting the facilitators to sit down and negotiate is a pre-condition.

Syria’s alliance with Iran is “a marriage of convenience.” Syria is a secular country with a Sunni majority. It is not comfortable with Iran’s Shi’ite ayatollahs and can be approached with tempting offers such as the return of the Golan Heights.

The U.N.’s unrealistic expectations have to be acknowledged and challenged. It should therefore not be a surprise that the French refuse to lead the U.N. force if they have to disarm Hezbollah, and the Italians are taking hold of the reins, which in and of itself should set off alarm bells. The European Union member states remain wary of making firm commitments until the mandate for the new force is clarified, fearing their peacekeepers could be dragged into a conflict with Hezbollah or with Israel if the ceasefire collapses. “Nobody wants to be saddled with the task that the Israeli military failed to achieve in a month of intense combat,” said a European diplomat.

The Europeans do not want to risk the lives of their soldiers or their relationship with the Muslim world. The 3,500 vanguard troops that the U.N. wanted on the ground by August 28 with additional reinforcements of 3,500 joining by October 5 and an additional 3000 by early November leaves the ceasefire a leaky sieve that allows the Hezbollah to easily re-arm. “It’s not going to go in there and attempt large-scale disarmament,” said Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown. Why not? So what is it going to do? Why send troops to again just stand idly by as Hezbollah rearms? Any wonder Israel is doing what the U.N. repeatedly promises to?

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Americas Kamikaze Embrace

America’s continued kamikaze embrace of Japan, including its suggestion that Japan’s last Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi succeed Kofi Annan as the next Secretary General of the U.N., is tantamount to bringing Japan to Pearl Harbor and asking it to start another war again. Why America insists on perpetuating and repeating its earlier Japanese foreign policy follies by continuing to embrace Japan and its culture of denial of World War II atrocities is not only bewildering to the people of the countries Japan invaded, but to many Japanese as well. Sixty percent of Japan’s 125 million people, including many in the governing coalition, opposition parties and civic groups disapprove of the Prime Ministers visits to the Yasukuni Shrine because of the hostile reactions it creates in China and Korea. The shrine visits betray the majority of Japanese who cannot live in peace with their neighbors or the rest of the world, politically or economically, unless the visits stop and Japan acknowledges its shamfull history.

The name Yasukuni comes from Chinese classical literature and means “to bring peace to the nation”. It was adopted in 1879 and is the spiritual pillar for nationalists deeply associated with Japan’s imperial past. Kamikaze pilots would embark on their suicide missions with the shrine’s amulets under their headbands and tell one another, “See you at Yasukuni.” The shrine symbolizes and glorifies Japan’s militaristic history.

Prime Minister Koizumi’s decision to make his last official visit to the shrine on August 15, 2006, the most politically sensitive and diplomatically explosive day ─ the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II, the day Japan surrendered ─ was a slap to all peace loving people in Japan and the rest of the world. He was not only honoring Japan’s aggressive militarist past, but confirming its future militaristic ambitions. Nationalism is on the rise in Japan. That really worries and pisses off the hood because of the painfull memories of how much people suffered and endured during Japan’s brutal aggression before and during World War II.

“August 15 should be a day when we share a pledge of no more war” said Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Social Democratic Party. Koizumi’s effort to change the nature of the anniversary into a day of justifying sacrifice to the state is unforgiveable. August 15 should be a day to remember the sorrows of war. The government’s revisionist efforts to re-write history with the Yasukuni visits and textbooks that glorify Japan’s militaristic past on the grounds that Japan was liberating Asia from Western imperialism, only inflames the region and paralyzes America’s foreign policy in Asia.

Koizumi’s successor Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, a grandson of World War II cabinet member and post-war prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, is a security hawk who has visited the Yasukunis Shrine on several occassions and has publicly questioned the legitimacy of the Allied tribunal that convicted as “Class A” war criminals ─ guilty of “crimes against peace” ─ the 14 leading figures who in 1978, the same year Japan and China established diplomatic relations, were added to Yasukuni’s rolls by the nationalistic Shinto priests who maintain and protect the shrine.

Abe is a fellow author and Samuri who is very proud of his archery skills who vocally supports and perpetuates the shrine visits that glorify Japan’s militaristic history. Any wonder people in Aisa are upset? Why isn’t America?

Monday, August 14, 2006

Human Rights

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights is another example of Charter language contradicting its mission from actual practice. It is made up of 53 governments. Dictatorships are as free to serve as democracies because there are no minimum criteria for membership. Members have included such paragons of human rights as Algeria, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Syria, Uganda, Sudan and Vietnam. Do they join to promote human rights or to protect themselves from criticism? They absolve Algeria, Congo, Sudan and Zimbabwe of human rights abuses while condemning America and Israel and absolving Hamas-Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorism. Any wonder the U.S. was voted off the commission it founded as human rights become a major issue in the 21st century? For the commission to be chaired at the dawn of the 21st century by Libya, while Iraq chaired the Commission on Disarmament is too ludicrous to believe.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch estimate that about half its members are abusers and their political bargaining undermines the commission to the extent that it fails to protect human rights.

The Human Rights commission undermines the credibility of the entire U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan admitted when he urged governments to support his plan to reform it. The commission has a “credibility deficit” he told the commission in 2005 when he proposed that a smaller Human Rights Council to replace the 53-member commission. The proposed council would operate year round rather than the current annual six-week session. Unfortunately, but not surprising, the proposal was rejected as the stalwarts of human rights abuses continue to focus on their own self-interest and provide only lip service to human rights.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Multilateral Preemptive Intervention

Article 2 (4) of the U.N. Charter forbids the international threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter. Article 51 also expressly preserves “the inherent right of individual and collective self defense.” These seemingly contradictory provisions created the debate about whether the U.S. needed the support of the U.N. to defend itself against terrorism and bring about regime change in Iraq. The U.N. Charter simply does not work in the New World Disorder. It is slow to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. “It is important that international lawyers seek to catch up and ensure that the world’s legal framework is relevant to its security challenges,” said Robert Hill, Australia’s defense minister in 2002.

Every country has the duty to intervene in cases of extreme human rights violations. It is a duty that overrides and supercedes respect for national sovereignty. Failed abusive regimes are bad news for their citizens, country, region and the world as a whole. Millennium examples of what can and must be done are the Australian-led multinational intervention force that stopped the lawlessness in the Solomon Islands, and the U.N. deployment of troops to bring about law and order in Liberia. Oppressive failed states, monarchies and dictators who lack popular support and jeopardize regional or global security should be removed by the GSC. How much longer can the world look on at the death and despair in North Korea, Mozambique and its numerous neighbors?

EU troops should be sent to their former colonies in Africa to work with the Africa Union force. After all, it was the European colonizers who created the ethnic conflicts by drawing borders that forced different ethnic and religious groupings together – knowing full well that conflicts would erupt.

The Arab League’s example of bringing peace and an end to the civil war in Lebanon in 1989, should be replicated and copied in Africa and other regions with repeated or continuing conflicts.

The regimes in Congo, Liberia, Sudan and Zimbabwe cannot be allowed to perpetuate mass slaughter through self-imposed starvation or forced labor while the world community’s impotence magnifies annually. Ethnic minorities in these countries are subjected to humanitarian catastrophes that are merely acknowledged and allowed to self-perpetuate until millions die before a regime change takes place. Regimes that embark on national plunders at the expense and lives of their people must be removed by preemptive intervention.

Military interventions that turn into long-term occupations rarely succeed. To succeed, the intervening force must be well prepared. It must have people trained in military administration, language and cultural knowledge of the countries in which the force will work to restore order. During World War II, the U.S. established civil affairs schools that provided the necessary training, hence the success in Germany and Japan.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Bureaucratic Criminals

There are so many layers of U.N. bureaucracy that it is easy for deadbeat bureaucrats, even criminals to hide. Scandal after U.N. criminal scandal gets quietly quashed by sending the accused home.

The U.N. police force’s direct involvement in the enslavement of East European women in Bosnian whorehouses is a prime example. David Lamb, a former Philadelphia police officer who served as a U.N. human rights investigator in Bosnia, said that he investigated allegations against Romanian, Fijian and Pakistani U.N. officers who recruited women, purchased false documents and then sold the women to Bosnian brothel owners. However Lamb said his investigating colleagues faced physical threats and were repeatedly stymied by their superiors at the U.N. The U.N.’s response was that the responsibility for prosecuting U.N. police officers belongs to their home countries, not the U.N. Really now? Why not send them to the International Criminal Court?

Before sending a mission abroad, the U.N. negotiates a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that, in almost all instances, deprives local authorities of criminal jurisdiction over peacekeepers. If there is no host-country government to negotiate with, as in East Timor or Kosovo, the countries providing peacekeepers and the U.N. determine the terms of the SOFA.

A “wall of silence” keeps sexual abuse cases from being investigated. Rapes are usually belittled as simple acts of prostitution. Sarah Martin, the author of the Haiti and Liberia report said: “They’d say, ‘Why should we ruin someone’s otherwise illustrious career over an act with a prostitute?’” She said Liberians had complained to her about some peacekeepers’ conduct with the comment, “This behavior would not be accepted in the home country of these soldiers; why are these soldiers playing around with our children?’

The very public charges of rape, pedophilia and prostitution involving U.N. peacekeepers in Burundi, Bosnia, Cambodia, Haiti, East Timor, Ethiopia, Liberia, Kosovo and Sierra Leone pale in comparison to those made in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that highlighted the arrogance of U.N. criminal bureaucrats. The 41-page report detailed 150 allegations of sexual misconduct by peacekeepers against women and girls, some as young as 12. That did not include the Congolese women working for the U.N. who were afraid to report supervisors’ demands for sex for fear of losing their jobs. More than a year after the shocking disclosures, nothing was done to end the culture of impunity, exploitation and sexual chauvinism. When U.N. peacekeepers who are sent to help restore stability, guarantee public security and instill the rule of law in countries ravaged by war rape the people they were sent to protect and coerce women and girls to trade sex for food, they defeat the purpose of their mission and exploit some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

It gets worse. The United Nations and Britain-based Save the Children charity said an investigation uncovered allegations of widespread sexual abuse of children by both agencies relief workers sent to West Africa to help young people buffeted by years of war. Investigations in refugee camps in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone in 2001 turned up accusations against 67 workers. It gives a whole new meaning to “relief workers.”
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