First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Karens

Especially the Christian Karens. I anxiously await the world-wide outrage, wall-to-wall media coverage, and UN condemnation one would reasonably expect for such a blatant case of religious and ethnic cleansing.

Okay, I'm not all that anxious, but that's just because I'm left-brained. I'm sure the media will, logically, want to cover this just as seriously as they do the Middle East or Darfur or Castro's colon.

Kofi Annan Says UN Not Really All That Good at Peacekeeping

Okay, he didn't say that exactly. Here's what he did say:

"We must do better," Annan says. "We must develop the responsibility to protect into a powerful international norm that is not only quoted but put into practice, whenever and wherever it is needed."

Granted, I'm no ambassador, but I'm pretty sure that's Standard Diplomatic for "We suck at peacekeeping." Or maybe that's what this means:

"Above all we must not wait to take action until genocide is actually happening, by which time it is often too late to do anything effective about it."

Or maybe not. Perhaps I'm just confused by the seeming similarity between Standard Diplomatic and English, which everybody knows are not the same language at all.

Maybe this means "the UN sucks at peacekeeping."

The news comes just a day after the UN was forced to evacuate all non-essential staff from El-Fasher, a major town in north Darfur, amid soaring violence between Janjaweed militias and armed rebel units.

But that's not something Kofi said. It's something he did.

And, how come no one's asking where the Janjaweed got all those shiny new 4x4's?

Gen Dallaire Testifies

He was head of the UN Security forces in Rwanda at the time of the genocide.

The UN security council rejected Gen's Dallaire's repeated requests for extra troops. Though his presence during the genocide is now seen as having helped save thousands of lives, Gen Dallaire was initially made a scapegoat for the international community's failure.

Guess whose biography never mentions Rwanda, despite bragging about the growth in UN Security missions during his tenure as Under Secretary General.

Those Wacky UN Peacekeepers

All things considered, it's hard to believe the rest of the world ever, ever, criticizes the U.S. military. This article sites a report in Der Spiegel.

Spanish UNIFIL official Richard Ortax admitted to the paper that no patrols are carried out at night “because of the danger involved.”

...The report cites a long tradition of UNIFIL inaction, which it says allowed time for a Finnish contingent to construct a giant sauna and an Indian contingent to decorate its base with traditional Indian artwork.

The UNIFIL troops and the 14,000 Lebanese soldiers stationed in the region add up to a total of around 20,000 troops in the 18-by 31-mile region of southern Lebanon. Another 6,000 troops are still expected to arrive.

The United Nations itself has admitted that Syria was still successfully smuggling arms to the Hizbullah, which neither UNIFIL nor the Lebanese army plan to stop.

Israel has maintained overflights in the region in order to monitor and discourage the smuggling, yet UNIFIL officials condemn the continued Israeli maneuvers. The Lebanese army even attempted to shoot down Israeli fighter jets on Tuesday. France and the European Union have been accusing Israel of violating Resolution 1701 with its flights over Lebanon.

The noise from the Israeli jets must really spoil the serenity of the sauna.

Sheesh. Why do certain people in politics seem to think we need U.N. approval or advice for anything?

John Bolton Is, Like, Soooo Rude!

The Toronto Star has an article on U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton which barely alludes to any of the scandals which have recently plagued the no-longer-so-august institution.

In August 2005, before a historic summit aimed at eradicating dire poverty, a diminutive, mop-haired figure strode into the corridors of UN headquarters in New York and dropped a bombshell that blasted apart a year of diplomatic bridge-building.

John Bolton, Washington's newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations, had arrived on the scene, carrying a list of 750 amendments to the painstakingly negotiated summit document and changing its focus from poverty to administrative reform.

With less than a month to go until world leaders gathered for a widely anticipated endorsement of the paper, it was the diplomatic equivalent of "shock and awe."

"Bolton's views were well known, and there were expectations that he'd push hard on UN reform," says veteran Canadian diplomat Louise Fréchette, former deputy secretary general of the world body.

"But when he made such a huge case of it, people were taken by surprise."

Bolton's insistence on pushing Washington's reform agenda ahead of helping millions of poor people outraged developing countries, which had seen the summit as a boost for the UN Millennium Development Goals for wiping out the most extreme poverty by 2015. Some charged that the United States had "hijacked" the summit.

This sounds unreasonable unless you take Bolton's actions in light of the Oil For Food scandal. But, perhaps it's rude to mention that. So, the article didn't. It didn't mention the Congo sex scandal or the recent arrest of the head of the U.N.'s budget oversight committee on money-laundering charges, either. But fear not, they were very even-handed on the matter of Bolton's sartorial style.

So, our ettiquette lesson for the day, courtesy of the Toronto Star: One should never mention unpleasant things about major international institutions, but soliciting opinions on the personal grooming habits of one's ally's ambassador to said institution is perfectly acceptable. I mean, how else is he supposed to learn?

Now that I've made that perfectly clear, I'm off to watch some NASCAR.