No United Nations?

A former US defence adviser called Edward Luttwak will speak in Melbourne in September about the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

I have actually read a well-known book by this guy called The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. I have a taste for history and it presented a controversial theory about how the Romans solidified their borders which I found interesting but faulty.

Can't say I agree with what he has to say about the conflicts of our times either...
He said building schools and other civilian infrastructure in Afghanistan was "infinitely more outrageous than bombing".

...uh.. yeah, you read that right....

"It is not intervening in the country to knock off the enemy and go home... this taking over Afghanistan, wanting to determine the history of Afghanistan and have it evolve the way you want it."

Yes Dr Luttwak... I would like Afghanistan's history to evolve in a way that makes it a tad less fertile for terrorist safe havens. Pure military force is failing to achieve this. Clearly he doesn't give a shit about civilians either....

Luttwak bases this view on the idea of "frozen" conflicts that never end.

He calls the creation of the UN a "colossal mistake", noting "The Israelis eventually fought hard wars with the Egyptians and they fought enough to reach a peace. They fought with the Jordanians, they reached a peace. But with the Palestinians, the rules are United Nations cease-fires - there is fighting, people are horrified … so you impose a cease-fire and the war doesn't end."

I've heard this before... mostly on the Right wing but occasionally on the Left too: The notion that all would be okay if Israel simply wipes the Palestinians out, ironically as these same jerks go on to dismiss any photo of a dead Palestinian child or other non-combatant as "fake"...

I enjoyed Luttwak's book about Roman strategy and keep it on my shelf, but anyone who sees unlimited war as the way to peace needs his head examined. The UN was created because people didn't want another conflict like WW2, and had there been no UN, there may have been none of the slight relief the world has had from famine, disease, cultural destruction, environmental destruction, child slavery and just about every other evil you care to name.

A world without the UN...? Seriously?

By the way... Luttwak stated in print of Obama prior to the election that he was "born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood".

Hmm..... very few understandings are indeed "universal", Dr Luttwak... that's why we have wars in the first place.

Fighting disease / Fighting for the Rights of Children

Positive action in Mogadishu, one of the worst places on the planet:

"10 February 2010 – Despite fighting that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Mogadishu, health workers have fanned out across the war-torn capital of Somalia in a three-month United Nations-backed campaign that has immunized nearly 300,000 women of child-bearing age and 288,000 children.

The children were vaccinated against polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus and provided with vitamin A supplements, de-worming tablets and nutritional screening, while the women were immunized against tetanus in the Child Health Days campaign, supported by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Health Organization (WHO) as part of a nationwide effort to provide life-saving health and nutrition services to every Somali child under the age of five and every woman of child-bearing age."

Rest of article here.

Incidentally, the Somali cabinet - such as it is - promised to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child last November, which would leave the United States has the only country in the world which has not.

Long a contentious issue, US conservatives love their "war" rhetoric:
"On February 14, 1995, war was declared on parental rights in America", splutters the Home School Legal Defense Association in a 'special report' in 1999, " On that day, the Clinton Administration announced that the United States would sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and send it to the U.S. Senate for ratification." Rest of that here.

And note this bit:
"If the United States ratifies the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. government will be obligated to “ensure” the following ... That every child shall receive the highest attainable level of health care services. Article 24 (1). In Chapter 11 of the American Bar Association book by Davidson and Cohen, they state that this provision indicates that a mandatory federal health insurance plan would be necessary to comply with the Treaty."

Oh dear... well they can't have THAT, can they?

And is it just me... or is any one else sick to death of conservatives stamping "declared war" over everyone who does not agree with them or give them what they want - even those in their own government?
What if I said to one of them "no, you can't drink my coffee"...? Have I "declared war" on their drinking habits...?

Among the other 'warlike' things the Convention does is... forbid executing juveniles.

Roper v. Simmons 2005 (one of those U.S. Supreme Court decisions that Sarah Palin can't think of other than Roe v. Wade) forbids this now anyway, but putting them away for life without parole is another thing you can't do under the Convention, and Roper v. Simmons does not cover this.

The book pictured is a children's book designed to encourage creative thinking. More about it here on the US AID East Africa site