"Like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security".
Yesterday it was exactly 53 years ago since President Truman ordered his troops to fight in the Korean War. A few excerpts you could read in the New York Times that day:
Then acting independently of the United Nations, in a move to assure this country's security, the Chief Executive ordered Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble to form a protective cordon around Formosa to prevent its invasion by Communist Chinese forces.
And:
The decisions amounted to a showdown in the "cold war" with Russia, in which this country has at last decided to begin shooting in a limited area. Yet all the decisions followed a carefully worked out formula of action within the framework of the United Nations, as well as unilateral moves that avoided any direct provocation of the Soviet Union.
[Underlining
is mine] See some similarities? Seems like the UN knows how to play the
game ... or not?
Back to the present, but staying in the Communist atmosphere, here's
how the UN is playing the game today:
UN rights envoy
appeals to Fidel Castro to pardon jailed Cubans
27 June – The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’
personal representative for Cuba has appealed to President Fidel Castro
to pardon 50 Cubans sentenced to long prison terms recently on charges
of treason.
The representative, Christine Chanet, launched her appeal after the
Cuban Supreme Court upheld the sentences earlier this week.
On 21 April the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution
urging Cuba to allow a visit by Ms. Chanet, who is charged with
investigating questions related to the exercise of civil liberties on
the island.
Earlier that month, High Commissioner Sergio Vieira de Mello said he
would request Cuba to provide detailed information on the trial process
of the accused.
No harm in asking something politely is there? But then again, more strange things are happening in this world. As Ari Fleischer said it, it's "like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security", referring to the re-election of Cuba to the United Nations' Commission on Human Rights (I'm gonna miss that man!):
Mr Fleischer said the commission "cannot expect to have Libya be its chair, to re-elect Cuba, and not to have people wonder if they really do stand for human rights or not".
I
think it's fairly obvious by now that some serious rethinking is needed
concerning the UN. Of course, at this moment, this is the only
International Peacekeeping Organisation the world posesses, but you
can't say they ought to be proud at what they have accomplished in the
latest years (decades?).
Maybe this
could be the solution:
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is discussing the possibility of the United States organizing a standing international peacekeeping force that could be dispatched to trouble spots around the globe.
...
With more than half the Army's deployable troops now engaged in peacekeeping and stabilization operations around the world, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and especially Iraq, the Pentagon says its purely military capabilities are stretched thin — a problem that is widely acknowledged.
...
Maybe the French could start to chip in? No? Fromage Libérien? Personne?
Saturday 11:21 28/06/2003 (CET)
