Originally Posted By: King Brown
...conditions are right for the UN to get down to real business, separate the warring factions in Iraq, find a practical solution to governance of the country (or new countries) and say to a chastened US, "We owe you---but no more going it alone."

If that's meant as a joke, it's a sad one.


When has the UN gotten down to 'real business'? When eight thousand civilians were slaughtered in the 'UN Safe Haven' at Srebrenica while blue-helmeted soldiers stood by without firing a shot? Or when they withheld authorization for UNAMIR's Canadian troops to intervene in Rwanda to stop the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands? Or when Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at 16 toothless Security Council resolutions? Or when a Canadian UN observer was killed in Lebanon because Hezbollah was using his UN post as a shield from IDF attacks? Or when the UN pulled out of Baghdad at the first sign of trouble? I've seen your blue-helmeted Canadian boys in Haiti, King, sitting cool but helpless in their white air-conditioned SUVs while the nation crumbles around them. Now deaths in Darfur are mounting at wholesale rates while the UN dithers with "diplomatic efforts."

How many tens of thousands more will die under the frozen gaze of blue-helmeted troops before the UN "gets down to real business"? Canada has contributed many good soldiers to UN 'peace-keeping' missions around the world, and they are not to blame for the UN's limp and pathetic performances. But sadly, the UN has never come close to the promise the world once hoped for. World consensus is a laudable dream, but the UN track record so far suggests that "going it alone" may be the only alternative to going nowhere.

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