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PEOPLE DEAD; BIG DEAL
Not much media interest in this:
Human rights activists charged Tuesday that U.N. peacekeepers knowingly gunned down civilians in a raid that targeted a marketplace, pinning down dozens of people down during the biggest gunbattle in the U.N.‘s six-year mission in Congo.
The human rights group Justice Plus listed names of several alleged civilian victims from a March 1 raid in eastern Congo and said they “paid with their life, while the mandate of the United Nations was to protect them.”
The United Nations said its troops fired only when they were attacked, and that women and children were among those who fired weapons.
About 60 people were killed. Whatever; the women and children fired first! There is news on another shooting, that resulted in one death and received slightly more attention, here.
Look, I’m as disgusted by the media’s double standards as everybody else on this site, as well as revolted by the sex and rape scandals involving peacekeepers, but I think you’re being a bit unfair in this case.
The thing is, though a good deal of the UN’s peacekeepers are lowlifes, there are also good and honourable soldiers amongst them who are doing the best job they know how to do, under tough circumstances.
In the attack they’re talking about in this article, the peacekeepers were entering a militia camp to dismantle it and search for weapons (good thing, IMHO). Sometime during the op, they were fired on, and basically had little option but to return fire. Now, one of the darkest sides to conflict in Africa is that women and children are regularly used as soldiers, something the US saw in Somalia. It’s not right to expect a soldier to not defend himself just because those shooting him are women or kids. AK-47s, whether in the hands of a man or of a woman, make the same nasty holes in your body.
Basically all I’m trying to say is let’s not merely get into a parallel of what the intl media does to the Coalition forces in Iraq. Let’s condemn the UN peacekeepers where they deserve it, but let’s also cut the good guys amongst them some slack, and give them the benefit of the doubt sometimes.
Impi’s right, at least on the fairness angle.
There’s no reason I know of to believe that female people and juvenile people (aka “women and children”) don’t shoot at people now and then, and I certainly don’t think it’s wrong to shoot back, given that the UN wasn’t there to herd them into deathcamps or anything. (Even when the UN lets other people do that, I don’t think they’ve ever directly done it themselves, nor do I know of them doing it even indirectly in Congo.)
Yes, but. I wonder what the MSM would have said if it wasn’t UN peacekeepers who shot at women and children but US soldiers. Regardless of the facts.
I would agree that any military person, whether a peacekeeper or a soldier, should be allowed to defend himself if shot at by anyone, regardless of who that person might be. However, I do recall that part of the reason why the Black Hawk Down crisis happened in Somalia was that the militia hid behind women and children knowing that American soldiers would hesitate to shoot.
Personally I wonder whether the Congolese women and children did in fact shoot at the peacekeepers and if so whether the latter made efforts to keep casualites to a minimum as American soliders are forced to do.
If we are to be fair, indeed let’s be fair.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 04 14 at 06:54 PM • permalinkImpi, you have a good point and you put it well. Unfortunately the problem is that the UN keeps using those same lowlifes. And they keep trusting them to keep the peace, and, insitutionally, they don’t really seem to care very much about the horrible things they’ve done. Nor do the peacekeepers seem very effecive, despite whatever good intentions the individual soldiers might have.
Speaking of the UN, this story has been given prominent position on the SMH site:
UN agency launches world hunger video game
I note that the game doesn’t seem to involve paying families of raped children hush money, turning a blind eye to genocide or corruption, or organising emergency medical evacuation for peacekeepers injured while having relations with goats.
It’s right up there with this one earlier in the week:The 191-member U.N. General Assembly approved a nuclear terrorism treaty on Wednesday that would oblige governments to punish those who illegally possess atomic devices or radioactive materials.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 04 15 at 12:05 AM • permalinkImpi, when I said “Get out of Jail Free” card, I meant it.
Had US troops responded in such a way, I would have supported it; indeed, that happened during the Iraq invasion. Read some of the personal account from American troops. I don’t blame the UN troops for the same response.
But if US troops had returned fire today under those circumstances, would there have been a ho-hum response from the media? Take a look at the news coming out of Iraq, where Reuters photographers recently took pictures of terrorists in the act of firing mortars.
I think not! Especially given the ho-hum response to the rape-and-abuse scandals involving UN troops.
If there are going to be standards, they need to be applied equally.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 04 15 at 12:54 AM • permalinkFunny how the UN commit atrocities and no-one seems to care, they even find reasons why its reasonable.
But the US commit “atrocities” (they took my clothes off - sob) and The World is full of indignation.
The US put their military offenders on trial whilst the UN troops are unaccountable - they just go home.
So Impi you should be calling for a full inquiry into these UN atrocities, just to be fair.
Jeff, rog, you both seem to have misunderstood me. My very first sentence in my original post was to the effect that I’m disgusted by the media’s double standards, and I stand by that. Had this been American troops, there’s no doubt in my mind at least that it would have been blown into a major story, far in excess of what it merits. That the media calls for investigations for the dubious shootings of one Iraqi yet is mostly silent on the dubious killings of 60 Congolese is indeed disgusting and should be decried as such.
My point is that while condemning the media and assorted left-wingers we should not become like them and immediately jump to the worst conclusions about some group just because we dislike them or who controls them. That’s what the other side does whenever they hear of something involving American, Brit or Aussie troops, and it’s wrong. We need to be better than the other side, not merely a mirror of them, supporting different groups but behaving the same way.
In terms of the abuses that various members of the UN’s peacekeeping force have committed, such as rape and the like, I’m not defending them over it, nor will I. As I said, we should condemn them loudly where such condemnation is justified. So, by all means, rant on about the flaws within the UN’s system for dealing with criminal peacekeepers, and let’s roundly condemn those guilty of such crimes as the scum they are, but once again all I ask is that you use a little common sense to understand it’s not all of the peacekeepers who are doing these things, and that some of them are just trying their best to do a tough job (peacekeeping in the eastern DRC is no cakewalk) and it’s not fair to paint them with the same brush.
I guess a parallel is with the stuff at Abu Ghraib. The media blew it totally out of proportion, and wherever you looked there were people using this to condemn the entire US force in Iraq. We hated that then, and pointed out the lunacy of associating all of America’s forces with the illegal actions of a few. Let’s not now repeat that sort of generalisation, whatever our personal opinions on the UN.
Good point, Impi. Well said…..I guess this is my knee jerk reaction to all of the crap coming out of Iraq. The target of our ire should be the MSM, not the troops themselves.
But let’s not forget that the United Nations has a responsibility here. They should be establishing and enforcing the rules of engagement. The MSM should be focusing on the leadership of the UN, exactly as they focused on the US leadership during the Abu Ghraib fiasco. But do we see that…...? No!!
So I still see a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card being played by the UN here.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 04 16 at 01:51 AM • permalinkYes, I agree with you there. The UN’s leadership has been spared accountability for far too long now, and it’s time it stopped.
By all rights, heads should be rolling at the UN, and the fact that after the oil-for-palaces scandal, the disgusting antics of a large number of peacekeepers (indicative of a lack of a proper investigative and disciplinary process), the UN’s failure to act timeously after the Indonesian tsunami and many more we have still not seen any senior UN figure being held accountable and taking the fall is disgusting and symbolic of all that is wrong with the UN.
It’s so bad that I’m prepared to say that if Bolton fails in his task to seriously reform the UN, the organisation is going to go the way of the League of Nations.
Yep, Impi, that’s pretty much the case. Assuming, of course, that Bolton is confirmed as the UN Ambassador. Even mentioning his name in the same sentence as the terms “Ambassador” and “United Nations” pushes the button of any bona fide leftie, let alone the genuine moonbats.
And assuming that the UN is not past saving.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 04 16 at 10:52 AM • permalinkI think, despite the opposition, that Bolton will be confirmed as the UN’s ambassador. There’ll be much gnashing of teeth and enough flaming op-eds to keep Siberia warm for a decade, but in the end I think he’ll go through.
As for whether the UN is indeed salvageable, I really don’t know. I’d say there’s probably a slim chance of saving it, but the obstacles in the path of any reformer are so massive that even attempting reform will probably be the most difficult job any diplomat could have.
Personally, I don’t have anything against a united nations organisation in principle, as a properly organised and run UN could do a lot of good in the world. As it stands now though, it’s unacceptable, and I think in the end equation the UN only has two real options: Reform or die.
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“Blue Helmet” = “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
Glad I don’t have to wear one.