Wednesday, September 13, 2006

He's A Few Years Late For The Party

Kofi Annan has announced today that unless the UN intervenes, Sudan is "headed for disaster". No way. You don't say, Kofi.

He goes further and says "When we had Rwanda, almost everyone said we should not let it happen again". Well first of all, almost everyone?

Second of all, if the policy in Rwanda was to debate whether or not it was a good idea to intervene, and then do nothing, and then debate again until everybody's dead, then it looks like it is already all happening again.

Say what you will about the Americans, believe in 'imperialism', 'blood for oil' conspiracies, military-industrial complexes, blame them for all the world's ills, criticize their screw-ups, but hey, at least they're trying in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also did their best in Germany and Japan.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

isn't it rather conceited to believe that our north american "civilized" opinion is the right one, and we should force it on other countries like Sudan? Sure, we've been raised to believe that genocide is wrong, etc etc, but obviously the people causing the "problem" believe that they are in the right.
How would you feel if they came to Canada and started forcing their beliefs on our people?

Here's an analogy... my boss told me he always keeps a baseball bat in his vehicle, so that in case he's driving down the street and sees some guy getting beat up, he can step in and rescue him. But what if the guy getting beat up really deserved it?

Obviously I'm not entirely of the opinion that genocide is a good thing, as I am not currently planning a trip to Sudan to help smite the enemy. Just some interesting points to think about

cs

Rocketman1200 said...

I personally agree with you; for the most part people around the world have to sort out their own problems. In that way, my comparison between the US and the UN isn't particularly valid, because the US is not acting primarily out of humanitarian concern (unlike the UN), but out of it's own interests, as everybody knows.

The thing that bugs me about the UN is that they pretend to be involved and making a difference, when they really usually just watch from the sidelines.

So yeah, no reason to really jump into the fray in Sudan, unless doing so helps your interests at the same time as it helps the people out there.

Anonymous said...

sometimes the only incentive to help is spreading our much beloved democracy to a heathen country, like Iraq. If Iraq had taken over Canada, do you think that there would be many Canadian "insurgents" conducting suicide bombings and sneak attacks against the evil foreigners who were forcing their political and other beliefs on our country?
Well sneak attacks maybe, but I doubt there would be democratic suicide bombers lining up. Maybe it says something about our way of life if it's not enough to make people want to die to protect it?

Nathan Giesbrecht said...

CS, the fact is that genocide HAS occurred in Sudan, and the UN is only NOW debating what to do about it. There shouldn't even be a debate, it should be stopped, clear thinking individuals don't need to think about it.

It's not "conceited" to believe that our way of life is better than theirs, it's a proven fact by your simple statement that your not "planning a trip to Sudan". I'd bet the average Sudanian would start a new life in Canada in a second, if they had the chance.

As for your brutal analogy of the guy getting beat up on the street... wtf? There are laws in place for people who deserve punishment, and it's to be dealt out by courts, not vigilante justice!

Your boss is a bone-head too. If starts chasing some gangstaz with a baseball bat, he's much more likley to get his own teeth kicked in, than to "save" anybody.

He'd be much better off if he just yelled at the attacker out of his car window, and called the 5-0 on this celly. Thats the way our society is supposed to work.

The UN is a complete joke, it's name alone implies the irony in its mandate. An organization called "United Nations", whos job is to help nations that completely un-united with any of their neighbours or the community. If UN counties were actually "united" in some basic belief, it might have a purpose. All it does now is stand in the way of meaningful change.