Like a lot of you, I was once a waffling, quivering, jello-spined liberal (speak for yourself I hear you shouting). I used to think that with the might of the USA, used in conjunction with the moral authority of the United Nations, the world would be a beautiful place.
Hey, I take no pride in admitting that, but admission is the first step toward recovery.
I think we might have a new convert. Everyone, say “Hi Fred!”
At a summit celebrating the organization’s 60th birthday, 171 nations agreed that they would intervene, forcefully if necessary, if a state failed to protect its own people. The action was seen as both a sign of remorse for the failure to stop genocide in Rwanda and a rebuke to the United States and its unilateral ways.
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Since then the United Nations has averted its gaze as Sudan’s government continues to ravage the people of Darfur. It has turned away as Zimbabwe’s rulers terrorize their own people. Now it is bowing to Burma’s sovereignty as that nation’s junta allows more than a million victims of Cyclone Nargis to face starvation, dehydration, cholera and other miseries rather than allow outsiders to offer aid on the scale that’s needed.
In light of America’s troubles in Iraq, the pendulum in the United States has swung toward multilateral solutions and international law. All three candidates to replace President Bush have promised to restore alliances and put more faith in allies.
But the stalemate in Burma, also known as Myanmar, shows how difficult it is to translate “responsibility to protect” into action. It’s hard to imagine a government more deserving of losing the national equivalent of its parental rights; yet it seems more likely that hundreds of thousands of people will die needlessly than that the United Nations will act.
Kinda looks that way, doesn’t it?
I note with wry amusement (about all I can manage in discussing hundreds of thousands of deaths) that only initiative that accomplished anything was the coalition in Iraq led by America. It is dishonest to imply that we were unilateral, by the way, just as it is foolish to think that an occupying coalition led by the UN would have had an easier time, or that the UN’s accommodation of Saddam would have ended well for anyone either.
But enough of that: how does our sobered-up realist see things now?
[W]hen France reminded the United Nations of its “responsibility to protect,” China, Russia and their ever-reliable voting partner, Thabo Mbeki’s South Africa, slammed the door. So tons of aid float just offshore as Burma’s generals sleep comfortably in their remote jungle capital and China’s rulers can proudly, once again, take credit for defending the principle of national sovereignty.
Yes, yes, we know. And?
And nothing. Just some embarrassingly lame pap about the indomitable spirit of the Burmese people, which I’ll do the author and my reader the favor of not repeating.
If all we intend to do is show our concern and do nothing, then I’d rather not bother with the concern and go straight to the nothing.
But if we ever intend to do something, it will have to be without the United Nations, which is constitutionally incapable of doing anything.
And if Fred Hiatt wants to get right, he’ll have to do a hell of a lot better than this.
UPDATE
Moved by the specters of hundreds of thousands dead Burmese, the United Nations is moved to UNprecedented words, if not deeds:
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has expressed his “immense frustration” at Burma’s slow response to the cyclone that hit the country nine days ago.
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“I therefore call in the most strenuous terms on the government of Myanmar to put its people’s lives first.”
At this rate, an “acute crisis” can’t be far away.
By the way, if you want to know “immense frustration”, try getting into a staring contest with Jessica Alba.