Darth Rotor
Salted Sith Cynic
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2006
- Messages
- 38,527
Yes, I recall it well, but wasn't it a Danish National (local) decision to do that, and not a UN decision? IIRC, air support was requested and denied. In any case, those lads did well. Hooah!
It was good if the Peace Dividend and the end of the Cold War meant that the US did not have to shoulder the burden of global security.
"We are not the world's policemen" is a very old American political meme, as old as Washington's caution against foreign entanglements. The Weinberger Doctrine was the best codification of why and when US blood and treasure should be used to advance US policy aims. Bush 41 violated it in Somalia, as did Clinton in half a dozen places. Secretary Generals of the UN like to, when they can get the participation from donor nations, do things. It makes sense, from their perspective, to try and stop, or mitigate, wars. Using peacekeepers, however, is fraught with political traps due to the problem of people dying, spilling blood, or withdrawing their forces if the blood price For Someone Else's Problem gets too high. I recall the reserved response to Rwanda.
With the Cold War being over, the opportunity to address some of the festering international sores, and failed nationstates, that the Cold War tensions had not permitted addressing was seen by Boutros as open invitation to "do good" with bayonets. Somalia was one such case. Boutros tried, and IMO failed despite the best intentions, to expand the prestige and power of the UN while Secretary General. With other people's soldiers.
Yes, and the issue at hand has become "why is credit of cost not given" in the funding debate. There is also, and has been for decades, a strenuous internal debate in the US over when to expend our national blood and treasure. The Wilsonian style internationalist approach is not the sole faction in our government, though it was Clinton's position.
Not economic problems per se, but cutting the fat out of the budget. This is a matter of what to do with revenue. The question asked during the time was "what are we getting for our money" on a host of domestic problems, so the question was also asked "what are we getting for our money at the UN?" The answer the auditors came up with was "a rip off."
The apportionment regime is based on old performance. Some US funded operations in support of the UN are, on the balance sheet, not credited. That is what the Congress was so hot about, and the sample (there was a lot more rhetoric than Congressman Paul's) is indicative of the problem of "credit earned for services provided."
The US Congress chose to make a stand: if you won't give us credit for funds spent for UN operations, specifically peacekeeping, we will stop paying anything over the 25% share for peacekeeping, consistent with our general share, until we get credit on the books for assets expended for UN operations. It was a matter of credits and debits, on the face of it.
Under the face, it was an effort by Congress to teach Bill Clinton a lesson: Congress pays the bills, and he was not going to be allowed to just do "whatever" to make friends at the UN while gutting the Defense Budget.
Specifically the peacekeeping budget, but at this point, with the GDP shift over the past 10 years, too much in a general sense as well. A modest correction would go a long way toward restoring good will, IMO. There will still be a small faction who see the UN as a prospective one World Government aka New World Order aka Black Helicopters aka The Tool Of The Evil Internationalist Jews and Financiers and so on. You won't ever completely get rid of those folks, but one can mitigate the valid complaints over cost versus benifit.
BushCo's job was to sell their programme to the UNSC, as his father had done over the Kuwait 1990 issue. For a variety of reasons, BushCo were not up to the task. Diplomatic failure.
Because, it was as obvious then as now, that the Russians and French had a financial interest in Iraqi oil development that they were afraid they'd lose (Elf/Fina up to $14 billion IIRC). The details revealed about payoffs via Saddam's folks to various Russian and French parties (the smoking guns on oil for food) was no surprise to me, just confirmation. (I wrote a paper on the ineffectiveness of sanctions and embargoes in the 20th century when despots didn't care if their subjects bled for defiance of sanctions. Some interesting stuff found in the research. Recently dug it up and laughed a bit at the poor quality of my writing. ) In any case, the sanctions were leaking in a lot of directions by the mid 1990's.
The sanctions we were paying for (with our deployments, troops, ships and planes) were being undermined by alleged allies and SC members. UNSC not backing up the resolutions to resolve the matter. This allowed Saddam to get by and evade their full effects. Embargoes only work if there are no leaks. The Iraq sanctions leaked, due to lack of cohesive political will among a critical coalition: the SC members.
It is a factor, but not the sole factor. A lot of Americans hate and distrust American government, local, state, and federal, for the same reason.
Unsure, but your question was on how Americans see it, and that is a source of immense frustration with the fundamental lie of the UN as it is, rather than as it should be: the inclusion of governments that are blatantly not complying with much of any elements of civilize norms. The country club lets anyone in, not just nations (like Denmark, Singapore, or Brazil) whose internal processes withstand some scrutiny. Saudi Arabia is a member.
It is a point of contention, as well as an easy card to play to internal political audiences who don't much care for excessive entanglements into foreign problems.
Yeah, it's a doozy.
Yes, the other core point is the UN as a forum for anti-US rants, but that is as old as the Cold War. The USSR and various Third World whinger groups had been whinging about Americans in the Gneral Assembly, the same tired old socialist, anti imperialist, revolutionary tripe we've heard for decades. Chavez was just one more in a long list.
It's sort of like an open wound. It is also politics as usual, from where I sit.
Indeed. I find the expectation that the UN can be all things to all nations, or should usurp sovereign prerogatives of nation states, a core structural problem that will never be totally resolved. But better to have set it up, for all of its plusses and minuses, than to not have it.
DR
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Hell, America are rookies. Unlike many other nations, it is against US law to accept of offer bribes to get business done internationally. That is another topic for another time. 