Iraq: No Winning Scenario in Sight

[kat]

Thanks Zlex, it's enough to make you sick...the other side of the coin, many prefer not to look at.

 

[Dayle Record]

Define the "Win".

 

[loseyourname]

Define the "Win".

Good point. It seems as if the US won't be able to achieve all of its objectives, but if it achieves most of them, is this considered victory? I think the biggest thing is to establish a stable democracy in Iraq that will be a long-term ally of the US and a bastion of republican government in a region not known for it. We won't know whether this happened for many years at the very least. Even if some of the shorter-term goals are not realized, as long as this one was, I'd feel as if the war was victorious. The only thing is: If it takes many years and ends up costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, was it worth it? I suppose that depends on how long the stable Iraq lasts and what other benefits it eventually yields.

 

[the number 42]

We cut and ran in Vietnam, left the Montagnards and others to the tender mercies of 'cultural leveling/cleansing,' ... We cut and ran in Lebanon. We left the Kurds hanging in Gulf War I, ran home to our parades, ... We cut and ran in Somalia. We pre-cut and ran in Rwanda. And, once again, we are making every sign of advocating cutting and running in Iraq. Is it no wonder that so much of the world hates us, so much of it despises us, and so much of it is in flames?

1/ For the US, the motivations for going into Rwanda are clearly different from those for going into Iraq i.e. Rwanda hadn't supposedly attacked the US, and had no resources that the US were interested in.

2/ Most people would agree that Rwanda was failed by a lack of intervention, and the opposite is true of Iraq II.

3/ The US government sent in the troops without a clear exit strategy, so after blasting the lid off Pandora's box 'cutting & running', though not at all satisfactory, becomes a real possibility.

4/ The US hasn't lost friends so much for the times it has pulled out, as for the times it has become involved without the support of other nations. Do you really think so many other countries are wrong or cowardly? I would have thought that at least respecting the view of the majority is part of the spirit of democracy.

 

[Zlex]

1/ For the US, the motivations for going into Rwanda are clearly different from those for going into Iraq i.e. Rwanda hadn't supposedly attacked the US, and had no resources that the US were interested in.

2/ Most people would agree that Rwanda was failed by a lack of intervention, and the opposite is true of Iraq II.

3/ The US government sent in the troops without a clear exit strategy, so after blasting the lid off Pandora's box 'cutting & running', though not at all satisfactory, becomes a real possibility.

4/ The US hasn't lost friends so much for the times it has pulled out, as for the times it has become involved without the support of other nations. Do you really think so many other countries are wrong or cowardly? I would have thought that at least respecting the view of the majority is part of the spirit of democracy.

That was the argument; that, the US had no interests in Rwanda. That, the world had no interests in Rwanda.

Nothing could be selfishly farther from the truth.

What is lost in that shabby calculus is the cost the world pays when there is no credible threat from over the horizon that is going to inhibit the worst examples of megapolitical acts. Rwanda would have been a very accomplishable demonstration of this credibility--the ethnic killings were carried about by teenagers with machetes, easily cowed by unarmed authority, much less, armed authority. The killings were not carried out by the main bodies of rebel and gov't forces.

When the world--not just the US, but the world--repeatedly announced that we live in a world community where rape and murder and genocide is OK, as long as you keep it inside your own home, we threw gasoline on a world smoldering with 2bit thugs hungry for power over the local household.

The UN, in its utopic experiment to unilaterally repeal the Paradox of Violence, is not acting as an instrument of peace, but as an encouragment to endless war and strife.

It is said, "Crime does not pay." That is incomplete; crime pays very well. It is only the balance of civil society, rushing to enforce the laws against crime, that make crime not pay. If society did not effectively make that effort, crime would pay very well.

A corrollary is the use of force/violence; megapolitics as a substitute for politics. Force/violence works very well, unless a price is exacted by the balance of civil society for the use of force/violence. Ultimately, and this much is true, as a last and not first resort, the use of force/violence is sometimes required to exact that price; that's the Paradox of Violence, and it has not been repealed. But, 'last resort' does not mean 'never, under any circumstances' and that is where the UN has been for decades, institutionally. A utopic experiment run off the rails, dangerously so.

Not even Ghandi held the 'never, under any circumstances' belief,' though he is often abused as having believed that.

As it is being managed, the UN today is serving as the official institution of surrender of the civilized world to thugs, encouraging nothing but more of the same, inhibiting violence nowhere.

As the official representive of peacekeeping for the entire world, it is tragically, systematically, and fatally flawed. It is bereft of actually carrying out its stated mission, if that is peace.

Given our limited respurces, the world only gets up to bat in very limited situations, that is exactly right. So, when we finally do get the will to throw resources into a situation, when we finally do get the opportunity to demonstrate a credible deterrent to megapolitical action, what has the world been doing?

Setting up donuts and coffee and bandages, and weekly(and weakly) begging "please, don't, stop."

By Choice.
By Design.
As a plan of inaction.

In other words, demonstrating the impotence of the balance of the world to effectively do anything, even in the limited situations where it has decided to do something.

Because, these 'actions' are being abused as fig leafs, excuses to merely 'contain' the violence, to not actually have to do anything about them, because the holy polls, driven by people sipping our cappuccinos who won't get the full story of what is happening in Rwanda until 10 years after the fact, are saying, "Why go there?"

And, there is the failure of leadership, because there are folks in our leadership, in our government, and in our press who knew exactly and precisley what was going on in Rwanda. The RealPolitick of what they knew also included the poll driven reality that the voting folks did not know.

Maybe it shouldn't be called the Paradox of Violence. Maybe it should be called the Painful Hairshirt Reality of Violence.

I can't blame folks for railing at that reality. I can't blame folks for utopically wishing for a better way.

There is a door that shuts off in the mind, that just says no, I won't accept that reality. Instead, at all costs, the effort is made to deny that the current situation in Iraq has anything to do with the Paradox of Violence, that UN Peacekeeping has nothing to do with the Paradox of Violence, that the Paradox of Violence simply should not be, therefore... it does not exist.

That, paradoxically, what finally actually ended the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans was the violence projected by the Tutsi rebels. Nothing else. If they(or, a world authority)had projected superior violence more vigourously, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. If they by themselves had projected violence less vigorously, hundreds of thousands of lives more would have been lost.

A failure to recognize what Superior Violence is; here is a clear example. A Hutu majority, controlling government in Rwanda, uses the instrument of government to systematically murder and abuse a Tutsi minority. AKA, the unjust first use of violence. In response to that, the Tutsi minority projects Superior Violence; violence exerted in self defense, in response to the unjust first use of violence.

The UN only wanted Peace. The UN could not take 'sides.' THe UN could not recognize right from wrong, only that 'violence is never right, violence is never the answer' and thus placed an official world seal of moral equivalence between acts of murder and genocide and acts of self defense from same. The vast majority of the slaughter occurred by government deployed teams of teenagers with machetes in advance of the Tutsi rebel forces pushing the government troops back. The actual killing was not by either Tutsi or Hutu government forces in the conflict. And, our blind experiment in the unilateral repeal of the Paradox of Violence allowed us to run away from that, even when were there in force, and put the burden on the Tutsi rebel forces to actually end the wholesale slaughter, by force.

And to this, the response is, 'Never mind, old history, nothing to do with Iraq.'

That's it.


The bottom line of our cut and run in SE Asia was millions 'culturally leveled/cleansed,' and/or hurling themselves into the South China Sea to escape the unchecked excesses of the latest 'peoples republic.' None of that was close to a glorious victory for 'Peace.' It was a disgraceful, self-inflicted defeat, catastrophically brought about by our collective confusion and failure to recognize what we were about, or how to be about it, and waged incompetently from afar, target by micromanaged target.

Our cutting and running in SE Asia ended the conflict and killing, but permitted wholesale murder and genocide. Yes, I would say, systematically wiping out the Montagnard counts as a genocide, and it wasn't limited to them. We failed to stop the equphemisically described 'reunification' by force. We also failed to stop the excesses of the 'people' next door, the Khmer Rouge, the Bloods to the Vietnamese Cripps in their local turf war. Yes, we also once were allies with Stalin, too, in another local turf war between Cripps and Bloods, the Stalists and the agrarian Marxists, nor how it was our fault that they filled so many mass graves.

The situations are repetitive. A weak showing against thuggery, then cut and run, and a surrender of the issue at hand to raw brutal force.

Again, and again, and again. Whatever we do, we are going to do imperfectly, including, wage WWII; that is not the issue. The issue is, the most rational long term solution for civilization, in the face of thuggery, is not to face it with nothing stronger than 'expressions of condemnation,' then cut and run, and that has been the institutional bias of the UN on these issues, each and every time, since the end of WWII.

It is an institutional, systematic bias in the UN approach to holding the baton of 'world authority.' That is worse than no world authority at all. No lout in the backseat is worried when the UN threatens "Don't make me come back there!" because time and time and time again, it has proven, even when it does 'come back there' that, it will bend over backwards and turn itself blue in the face huffing and puffing and cajoling and imploring and expressing condemnation before ... cutting and running, fleeing headlong in a graceless panicked retreat, and doing nothing.

As in, umpteen defiant resolutions in Iraq.

As in, Rwanda.

As in, Somalia.

As in, the entire Middle East, in general. World authority? Where is the proof? It is a world committee, an elaborate agreement to do nothing but let the world burn.

As in, the Congo, the latest example of spreading chaos in the world via demonstrated, announced inaction.

 

[vanesch]

vanesch, I agree with most of what you said, but what happens when the process fails? And it does fail. Several examples:

I agree with you and with SA that the UN is not a panacea. The hope was that it would be an embryo to a more equal and more efficient world organisation. As I said, this might still take a few centuries. The decision making process (with 5 permanent members, and 15 council members) doesn't make sense anymore, and is the heritage of the winners of WWII, not taking into account the actual world's demography and economic muscle. There could be something like an "international parliament" with proportional representation of the world's population that replaces the UN council or whatever, I'm not going to reinvent the world here.
But the important part, to me, is the will to do something on world scale about armed conflicts and violence, and not leave it up to a few to act.
The 20th century, in the whole of human history, is unique in having tried to establish this. Of course, the first attempts are far from perfect.
Yes, it fails often, yes, you can criticise, yes, it is inefficient and so on.
But, if the 20th century will be special for a single reason, it will probably be this attempt. Probably the 20th century will be looked upon as the 5th century BC in Greece.
But going back to one, or a few nations, who decide, on their own, to "go and do the right thing", even with the best of intentions, brings us back to 99% of our history, when the powerful imposed, by swords and guns, what they had in mind, on the less powerful. No single individual problem, no matter how severe, is, in my opinion, worth sacrifying the fragile attempt at a world order, which was emerging, where inter-nation relations are not determined anymore by their relative gunpower.

As to your specific remarks:

-France is fighting a little war in the Ivory Coast right now, which has UN approval, but I'm pretty sure the troops went there before they got the approval.

There was a French presence, for 2 reasons: there was a rather important number of french citizens living there (an important part of the schooling system was French for instance), and it was a former colony. BTW, almost all of the french left now, and it completely kills the local economy.
But any military interaction was purely under UN charter, and more, by invitation of the Ivory Coast and the rebels themselves to oversee their agreements !
However, given the former relationship as a colony, I think the french would be wiser to just pull out and let them do with themselves whatever they want to do, and leave it to someone else to intervene: the relationship is too delicate.

-The UN has violently refused to address the situtation in the Sudan - attacking Colin Powell for using the "G" word instead of addressing the content of his statement.

-The UN refused to act on the Kosovo genocide and the US (along with most of the rest of Europe) went in under a NATO flag.

[/quote]

Yes, these are examples of the inefficiency of the UN. It doesn't work perfectly. But very rarely, it is too aggressive, which is, I think, THE big asset of an organisation such as the UN. So it could have been the building ground for a more efficient system.

 

[vanesch]

That was the argument; that, the US had no interests in Rwanda. That, the world had no interests in Rwanda.
[...]

Internal conflicts are yet to be solved. What an organisation such as the UN was made for, in the first place, is to avoid INTER - NATION conflicts. It's a first step, and much clearer and simpler than internal problems.
When the situation is crystal-clear, you can attempt to intervene in an internal conflict, but you're always the outsider, so chances are you're not welcome - except in the case of a world concensus.
The Rwanda internal genocide was maybe a sad thing, and there has been a missed oportunity to intervene, that's true. But all by itself, it wasn't at all a problem of world peace. It was not something that was going to set the planet on fire. The UN is not yet responsible for the application of human rights everywhere. We're far from that objective. So what the Rwandese did to themselves, is in a certain way, their own problem, and on the level of world politics, not even very important - cynical as this may sound. The only thing we can learn from it is: next time we'll try to do better. And when the French try to do so, in Ivory Coast, you're not satisfied!

The first step is to avoid that nations set up huge armies in order to protect themselves from other nations, or to impose their views on other nations. Once such a thing is realized, you can start arguing for human rights, self-gouvernance, and whatever you want. But we're not there yet. The Rwandese self-extermination was no threat to any other nation. Of course, you're right, it would have been better to intervene. But the failure to intervene is just an inefficiency of the system, and not it's fault.

I think that the real authority of the UN is not its failure to solve all problems, it is that in those few cases where it acts, its acts ARE always justified.
What do you prefer: a justice that is very inefficient, but those that ARE condemned always deserve it, or a justice that is over-efficient in that half of the death penalties were for innocents ?? Should you, in case of inefficient law enforcement system, declare that everybody can now apply its own justice, the gun in his hand, or should you try to improve upon the system ?

I opt for the second possibility. Even if that will still cost a few billions of unavoided deaths. Because in the end, the world will be much better.

 

[Zlex]

Internal conflicts are yet to be solved. What an organisation such as the UN was made for, in the first place, is to avoid INTER - NATION conflicts. It's a first step, and much clearer and simpler than internal problems.
When the situation is crystal-clear, you can attempt to intervene in an internal conflict, but you're always the outsider, so chances are you're not welcome - except in the case of a world concensus.
The Rwanda internal genocide was maybe a sad thing, and there has been a missed oportunity to intervene, that's true. But all by itself, it wasn't at all a problem of world peace. It was not something that was going to set the planet on fire. The UN is not yet responsible for the application of human rights everywhere. We're far from that objective. So what the Rwandese did to themselves, is in a certain way, their own problem, and on the level of world politics, not even very important - cynical as this may sound. The only thing we can learn from it is: next time we'll try to do better. And when the French try to do so, in Ivory Coast, you're not satisfied!

The first step is to avoid that nations set up huge armies in order to protect themselves from other nations, or to impose their views on other nations. Once such a thing is realized, you can start arguing for human rights, self-gouvernance, and whatever you want. But we're not there yet. The Rwandese self-extermination was no threat to any other nation. Of course, you're right, it would have been better to intervene. But the failure to intervene is just an inefficiency of the system, and not it's fault.

I think that the real authority of the UN is not its failure to solve all problems, it is that in those few cases where it acts, its acts ARE always justified.
What do you prefer: a justice that is very inefficient, but those that ARE condemned always deserve it, or a justice that is over-efficient in that half of the death penalties were for innocents ?? Should you, in case of inefficient law enforcement system, declare that everybody can now apply its own justice, the gun in his hand, or should you try to improve upon the system ?

I opt for the second possibility. Even if that will still cost a few billions of unavoided deaths. Because in the end, the world will be much better.

I implore you, if you have the time, and if it is possible, find FrontLine's Ghosts of Rwanda, use PBS online to finds out when and where it is showing in your market, find the time to sit through those two hours, and then re-evaluate your statement above.

It is crucially applicable to the situation in Iraq, in more ways than one.

A UN "peacekeeping" mission that provides the false hope of actual protection does more ultimate damage than no mission at all. You need to gaze at the bewilderment in the faces of the survivors, a sadness beyond shock, miles beyond loss of hope and faith in your fellow man and his basic concern for humanity--all of the things that in our best hopes, we'd wish the UN was all about--and then, try and find the upside of that UN "peacekeeping" mission.

There were levels of effort that collapsed; the UN effort sprinted past them, in purposeful retreat.

1] The UN "peacekeeping" effort entered into a situation where a civil war had nominally ended, where a nominal truce had been declared, to act as a "buffer" between two forces and to provde a local neutral authority--an enforcer of order and "peace", which is what a "peacekeeper" should be doing. But, this was an uneasy truce; the forces in conflict recognized that the rest of the world had taken notice to the ****fight, and was threatening to show up in force to quell it. So, an uneasy truce was declared, and various factions on both sides waited to see how the balance of the civilized world would actually respond to the local ****fight.

2] So, when the UN troops arrived, and this authority was tested, the UN commander on the ground(a Canadian, Dellaire, there primarily with staff officers, Belgian armed troops, and some Senagalese troops) immediately recognized that this was not going to be a "peaceful" peacekeeping mission, and judged that, in order to fulfill the mission, additional actual force on the ground would be required. So far, so good, this was a reasonable assessment, and he made it before any Belgian troops had been kidnapped and murdered as part of this test of authority.

3] Level 1 failure: the request for additional force was denied.

4] Level 2 failure: not only that, but the instructions from Kofi safely back in NY were to not, under any circumstances, introduce any use of force by the UN with what forces were there. They were to negotiate, cajole, coax, ask only. Give peace a mother****ing chance.

5] That is not the way to "pass" a test of authority. That is the way to "fail" a test of authority, and invite chaos. If there is a definition of "chaos," then what unfolded in Rwanda as the locals realized that the big, bad rest of the world was officially going to do nothing but weakly plead to play nice --in the face of murder and thuggery--is "chaos." And this, remarkably, in a local culture with an odd bias towards submitting peacefully to 'authority.' Though in this instance, the only 'authority' was the local authority, the Hutu majority in control of government , and they were sending out teams of animals with machetes to slaughter the Tutsi, and some armed Tutsi 'rebels' were fighting back. The failure of the UN to exert and enforce its authority gave carte blanche to the chaos.

So, instead of the hypothetical threat from the horizon of distant forces that might come into the country and exact some price for violent excesses, instead, the hypothetical was demonstrated, and proven to be less than nothing. The threat from the horizon was proven to be so much posing, hot air, a weak show of non force pretending to authority. A joke.

In other words, by acting as it did, the UN removed even the hypothetical restraint from those about to unleash chaos.

By repeatedly acting as it always has, the UN is increasingly removing even this hypothetical restraint. Instead of a world institution that intends to foster peace, through its actual instances of failing to enforce this peace, it is serving as an institution that is systematically surrendering the civilized world to thuggery.

It has become the civilized world's offical spokesman of surrender, by unilaterally trying to repeal the Paradox of Violence, and in so doing, in fact, surrendering the world to violence.

I wonder, is it just utopic optimism? Is it just puddingheaded wishful thinking?

Maybe, in some, or even most. But, for some, if one's goal is to actually topple the civilized world on its ear, to foment world chaos, to destroy all remnants of the current order, who knows, to ride the tiger and try and replace it with some alternate order which will supposedly self-evolve from the chaos, then the UN as in its present role is a Hell of a way way to go. It's like a fifth column action, at the heart of the civilized world, working 24/7 to destroy it. "Never mind us, we're here in the city working overtime, destroying civilization's credible means to inhibit thuggery, trust us, it's for your own good. Give Peace a chance, how can you argue with that? I mean, who doesn't want peace?."

Of course, it should go without saying that, if one regards the current order as inherently evil, then destroying it is not seen as a bad thing. And, there we are.


Cutting and running in Somalia was a mistake. If the folks who were actually there are bitter ove rthat experience, it is not over the loss and bloddy nose, but over the command from above to cut and run immediately as a response; they intuitively know what that cowardly action cost.


Cutting and running in Rwanda was a mistake. Never moind bneoing on the ground with actual force--as it turns out in that instance, even if unarmed westerners had simply held their ground, bore witness, and said "No, you cannot do this," that might well have been enough. Instead, the civilized world ran fleeing, and its 'armed' representatives of authority averted their eyes to the ground and did nothing.


Cutting and running in Iraq would be a huge mistake, maybe the last. Iraq is a final test, we won't get another chance. We fail there, and the world is in chaos for generations. OBL et al recognize this. Iraq could be a tipping point, one way or the other.

Now, we can all blame GWB for 'creating' this tipping point, but that assumes that, had we done nothing in Iraq, this tipping point wouldn't have come to call us out, cowering from the safety of our shores, to prove the point. That, I think, is to seriously underestimate the motives of OBL et al.

This is about credibility, and not just of the US, but of the entire civilized world.. As of late, that civilized world has been failing miserably. As of late, the UN has been failing miserably, and not simply because the balance of the world has failed to simply hand over sovereignty to a bunch of clueless puddingheads, but because in those instances where it has--ask the Belgians--the UN has repeatedly come up short. The UN is institutionally opposed to ~any~ use of force--a monumental and fundamental ignorance of the Paradox of Violence and its role in defending civilization from chaos, and evidence of an unproven and dangerous puddingheaded theory--and its 'desire' to have the civilized world hand over sovereignty of its forces--so that the UN can effectively unilaterally disarm only civilization--would be a blunder of epic proportions.

 

[the number 42]

Very rousing - ever considered a career in political speech writing? However, I don't for a second buy the connection you try to make between 1/ not intervening in Rwanda and 2/ pulling out of Iraq. The two situations are totally different. But, as you say:

There is a door that shuts off in the mind, that just says no, I won't accept that reality.

We could sit around and throw that one at each other all day.

 

[russ_watters]

Internal conflicts are yet to be solved. What an organisation such as the UN was made for, in the first place, is to avoid INTER - NATION conflicts.

So, you're saying the UN went outside of its jurisdiction in going into places like Somalia? How about Indonesia right now? That's a humanitarian effort, not an international conflict? Why is there a UN human rights council? How can the UN even make a declaration of universal human rights? Is France breaking the charter by fighting in the Ivory Coast?

The UN Charter is thin on internal conflict and humanitarian actions, but these things most certainly are within the scope of its responsibility to address.

 

[russ_watters]

The 20th century, in the whole of human history, is unique in having tried to establish this...

But going back to one, or a few nations, who decide, on their own, to "go and do the right thing", even with the best of intentions, brings us back to 99% of our history, when the powerful imposed, by swords and guns, what they had in mind, on the less powerful.

Well, like you said - the UN is an organization unprecidented in human history.

No single individual problem, no matter how severe, is, in my opinion, worth sacrifying the fragile attempt at a world order, which was emerging, where inter-nation relations are not determined anymore by their relative gunpower.

Wow. Neville Chaimberlain would be proud. This is exactly the sort of not-my-problem-ism that leads to genocide and world war.

Yes, these are examples of the inefficiency of the UN. It doesn't work perfectly. But very rarely, it is too aggressive, which is, I think, THE big asset of an organisation such as the UN. So it could have been the building ground for a more efficient system.

And in my opinion, this lack of aggressiveness is its biggest failing: you don't become a legitimate force by doing nothing: with NATO growing and doing things without the UN, the UN is in danger of becoming moot. In many ways, it already is a pointless excercise in gum-flapping.

And frankly, I don't understand Kofi Anan - you'd think being African, he'd want to help Africans. It seems he's just standing in the way.

 

[PerennialII]

The inefficiency of the UN in handling world problems results from the bickering of its prominent members when trying to enforce their own interests, it doesn't have anything to do with failing ideals. As well as from the actions of several members which can't really stand the light of day, as such increasing world lability and digging ground from under any non-national effort. If the members could at times set aside their own interests and for once think what the UN is supposed to represent, crises could be handled more to as supposed to. The concept of the UN is not failing and it exceeds what can be attained with unilateral action (which is a sure method of producing problems in the long run, well, in any run actually considering the current state of affairs), the practical implementation is a mess and needs to be reworked. UN as it is is a paper tiger, "a conference centre", and needs to be enforced if it is to mean anything, the other option is in my mind much worse. How can we even expect the organization to work when its members seem to have lost sight / meaning of what it is supposed to be there for in the first place ?

 

[vanesch]

So, you're saying the UN went outside of its jurisdiction in going into places like Somalia? How about Indonesia right now? That's a humanitarian effort, not an international conflict? Why is there a UN human rights council? How can the UN even make a declaration of universal human rights? Is France breaking the charter by fighting in the Ivory Coast?

The UN Charter is thin on internal conflict and humanitarian actions, but these things most certainly are within the scope of its responsibility to address.

I'm not talking about legaleze, I'm saying that the UN is not geared up enough to handle internal conflicts. If I am not mistaking, the UN can only intervene within a country by invitation. There is no possibility for it to go and impose things internally if not requested by the country at hand ; this is the "internal affairs" clause. The UN cannot, of course, impose the respect of human rights, because that would mean that any dictatorship anywhere in the world is exposed to UN intervention, which is clearly not the case. So all this talk about human rights is essentially intellectual.

Does that mean, as some claim here, that the UN is "bad" ? I don't think so. There's a hierarchy of conflicts. The classical one is inter-nation conflicts, and the purpose of the UN was to try to remedy this. If you open a history book, 3/4 of its contents is about inter-nation conflicts. So if this can be solved, or limited, that's already a great win. With the Kuwaiti intervention, the UN proved that the system worked, on that level.

On a lower hierarchy level, there are internal conflicts, civil wars, genocides, revolutions,... Although they can have a high dead toll, they are much less harmfull than inter-nation conflicts, which, as 3 wars have shown, usually lead to large-scale institutionalised killing. In internal conflicts, the highest possible death toll is the total population of the nation at hand, so the problem in any case, is confined. In 1917, the battles of Sedan and Somme lead to 1600000 dead soldiers in 6 months. THIS should be avoided. Internal conflicts come second. It is true that the UN tries to do something about it, but it is much less geared up to do so. Nevertheless, instead of looking only at the failures (and yes, Rwanda was a failure), I think that A LOT of internal conflicts have been avoided, by diplomacy, negociating and so on. I agree with you that there should be much more work there.
As I said, there's a lot in the UN I don't agree with. The decision process is wrong. There is a problem of representativity (there should be elections for the representatives). There shouldn't be ambassadors of the different governments, but elected representatives. And countries with no elections would then systematically have nothing to say. The UN should have its own, large, army, financed by taxes imposed upon the member nations, and not depend upon the goodwill of the participating nations. They should be more firm, etc... But none of these reasons should make us go back to the situation of inter-nation conflicts, of which the highest possible death toll is the world population.

 

[vanesch]

The inefficiency of the UN in handling world problems results from the bickering of its prominent members when trying to enforce their own interests, it doesn't have anything to do with failing ideals. [...]

Well said !