UN Peacekeepers

I've had a very long absence from posting - sorry! - but I will try to improve. There's certainly no shortage of things to say.

Recently read this story about the quality of UN peacekeepers. No huge surprises, but the extent of the incompetence is still amazing:

There was a bunch of Ukrainians, who typically rolled out of bed at noon, cracked open the vodka, and drank until dawn the next day, before going back to bed. The commander no longer bothered asking them to do anything.

Later on...

He was left to rely on a tough and professional contingent of Kenyan soldiers. What proportion of his force could he actually count on? About a third, was his answer. It would have been better for everyone if two thirds of them had stayed at home.

Remind me again what the UN's purpose is? Other than to condemn Israel, I mean.

Impeach!

Says... Dennis Kucinich. No, not because the aliens said to. Apparently he thinks we should impeach Obama because of the attack on Libya. Priceless, priceless.

The best part are the comments below the story. My favorite is this one:

This was authorized by the U.N.

Please explain how the President has committed a crime.

Oh, well, in that case....

Clarity in Libya

Thanks to President Obama for clarifying our position vis-a-vis Libya. We are only intervening to protect Libyan civilians, not to oust Colonel Ghaddafi. However, Ghaddafi should go. But not because of the military intervention, of course. No, he should go because otherwise we might work with the U.N. to isolate him diplomatically, a threat which must chill the Colonel to his bones.

It is no wonder that the President is held in such high regard by foreign leaders, including the Arab League, whose own clarity of purpose was demonstrated by their welcoming a no-fly zone as long as no bullets or missiles were actually used. Perhaps butterfly nets would have sufficed.

No doubt this will all come to a happy conclusion soon.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Addendum to my post about the Sears Tower: Speaking of a "world government" that can take the place of "all humanity" in preserving a building (or site), one thing I neglected to mention was the UNESCO World Heritage Convention of 1972.

This is an approximation of the sort of overall governing body that could represent "humanity", but it has a basic problem: The sites remain the responsibility of the state powers that own them. (I guess this assumes that any site worthy of the list must be state-owned, which is a particularly UN-oriented idea.) The UN itself has no responsibilities at all, nor does it have the power to actually preserve the sites, other than the threat of delisting them.

UNESCO's role is essentially that of organizer, not really preserver. Being toothless, it can't enforce preservation; lacking ownership, it also assume no risks. By contrast, a city historical society is typically more interventionist, since it actually has the power to block building modifications and sales, while assuming none of the risks of ownership.

Interestingly, the example I used in my previous post - Notre Dame de Paris - is not a World Heritage Site, but Notre Dame de Reims is.