|
Volume CXXXIII, Number 17 |
 |
Legitimacy and the U.N.
PAT ROCKEFELLER
COLUMNIST
After more than a year of politicking by Monsieur Kerry, we can conclude a few things. He is against the war in Iraq and his vote in favor of it just goes to show that. But he fully supports the troops, as his vote against the funding of the war demonstrates. And in regards to military action in general, President Bush "makes decisions late after things have happened that could have been different had the President, made a different decision earlier."
Reread that last sentence and see if it makes sense concerning the President and war. The president waits until it's too late? Wasn't much of the anger directed at Bush based on the premise that he acted too quickly? Kerry made this statement concerning Haiti, though it seems to fall in direct contrast with more or less everything he has ever said about Iraq. But Haiti isn't the same as Iraq, you say. Indeed it isn't.
Any action in Haiti would be a simply humanitarian intervention-peacekeeping, if you prefer that euphemism. Furthermore, it would be significantly more unilateral than Iraq. Yes, more unilateral-oh, the French back the effort this time, and there is a UN mandate, but only a few countries are sending troops. Why did the French join? They still feel an obligation-nobless oblige, or perhaps the White Man's Burden for the well-being of their old colony. This also explains their unilateral, non-U.N. sanctioned quagmire in the Ivory Coast.
What seems so bizarre about using the UN as the ultimate tool of legitimacy is that it is merely a procedural argument, rather than one founded on reason. The war was wrong because we took the wrong steps, or skipped a step. Somehow the moral calculus of war with Iraq would change if only 60 years ago the United States had the foresight not to give France a veto-wielding seat on the Security Council.
This line of reasonings seems flawed. Either it was right to invade Iraq, or it was wrong. Reasonable people can differ on this, and both of those arguments have a host of good points. But none of those points really change with U.N. endorsement.
What the U.N. and its supporters claim to offer are two things: legitimacy and assistance. As for assistance, the UN may in fact be able to provide this in Haiti, which requires many fewer troops and much less equipment. In Iraq, however, Britain, our strongest ally is pushing the limits of its forces by providing upwards of 25,000 troops to the United States' 130,000.
No other country has the technological capabilities to keep up with the overall U.S. strategy and their involvement would only hamper the war-making effort, endangering more lives-both coalition soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike.
Soldiers to help "keep the peace" after the war itself would be nice-and this is a role that troops from other countries could, and do play (see Poland, Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc.), but it was pretty clear from the onset that Germans would not be helping to remake Baghdad because they opposed the overthrow of Saddam to begin with. As for monetary assistance, most other countries are limited to forgiving Iraqi debt. The combined GDPs of France, Germany, and Britain amount to less than half that of the U.S.
Coalition partners are great, so long as there is a general agreement on goals and methods. If there isn't, then there is no real benefit to including nominal allies. One of the many reasons Hussein stayed in power in 1991 was because Elder Bush preferred the maintenance of his coalition and the New World Order to removing a clear problem when the opportunity was ripe.
The second promise of the U.N. is legitimacy. The logic behind this is that if lots of countries-many being dictatorships worthy of an Iraq-style regime change in their own right-say that action is permissible, then the war is okay. But it's not even that egalitarian. Those who support the U.N. really don't care about Eritrea, Mongolia, Rwanda, Kuwait, or Azerbaijan (all supporters), but rather France and Germany and maybe Russia if they're feeling multicultural. The list wouldn't even cover Bowdoin's non-eurocentric requirement.
Those who wanted a UN sanction before the war could start fell into three categories. One group was those who didn't want the war at all and were counting on the UN to put a stop to it. The second group-the slightly scarier group in some respects-contained those who believed that the UN should have veto power over the national security prerogatives of member states. The final group is the group that believes there is real legitimacy to be gained from an organization that allows Libya to head its Human Rights council and Iran to sit on its council on WMD proliferation.
There is a role for the United Nations. Providing medical supplies, food relief, educational facilities and clean water, supervising trade agreements, the IMF, and human rights abuses are all important goals that the United Nations can manage and attract international support for. Even a Haiti peacekeeping mission could fall within its scope. But the claim that legitimacy lies in not upsetting one of six countries enough to veto a resolution is ridiculous.
For information on sending a letter to the editor, please click here.
|
FastCounter by bCentral |