UNpacking the backing

I’ve always avoided writing about the United Nations, as writing about the complicated inner-workings of this mammoth organization usually puts readers to sleep faster than Ambien and red wine. But if you’ll bear with me I am convinced you will see why, in this case, the UN represents an important political issue that could affect how you’ll vote in 2008.\nThe Economist and YouGov recently conducted a poll in which more than 80 percent of Democrats agreed, “It is important for America to have UN backing prior to taking foreign military action.” This poll should come as no surprise to most, as the Bush Administration’s clear inability to get UN support for the Iraq war has – to put it mildly– left the U.S. to conduct much of the Iraq war on its own. \nBut the poll brings up an interesting question: is it wise for any country to always have UN backing prior to taking foreign military action?\nOne needs only to look at the history of the UN and its positions on the humanitarian crises to perhaps say a clear and resounding “no.” When it comes to protecting people from certain genocide, the UN has a very regrettable – if not embarrassing – history, and Democrats may want to rethink the importance of the UN when dealing with potential military action to prevent genocide. \nAfter the Holocaust , the international community was faced with a daunting challenge to never let genocide happen again. The phrase “never again” and “not on our watch” started to appear and has since been taken up by human rights groups, among others, to simply and eloquently describe that the international community will not stand idly by while large groups of defenseless people are hideously murdered. \nThe Genocide Convention, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, was meant as a pledge to ensure the horrors of the Holocaust would never be repeated. But the UN has done little to actually prevent genocide. Look no farther than Rwanda and Darfur to see the painful lack of political will by the member countries to stop the mass killings that have left hundreds of thousands dead. These two examples are in Africa, but there are many others all over the world. In Kosovo, it was NATO, not the UN, which eventually prevented the furthering of genocide by using force. NATO’s use of force was never authorized by the UN, and there is little doubt that many more people would have been killed if NATO had waited for the UN approval. \nAfter the first Gulf War, the United States, Great Britain and France established “no fly zones” in northern and southern Iraq to provide the persecuted Kurdish and Shia populations humanitarian aide and protection from Saddam Hussein’s air force. This was not authorized by the UN and was even called “illegal” by the secretary general at the time . I once heard a UN diplomat say that the UN is only as good as the member states that constitute it. For every UN failure to act to prevent genocide, it is not just the organization’s fault but instead all our faults because we did not act. But if America and its future leaders want to prevent genocide the unfortunate idea of bypassing the UN needs to be considered. This may be the only way we can say, “Never Again.”