RE: [Futurework] Peering into the vortex of speculation

[Harry Pollard]

Lawry,   Didn’t the UN finally impose sanctions on Sudan – or at least threaten to do so? Isn’t that interference?   In any event, you seem to be saying that they were unable to get the Security Council to come to a decision to “interfere” is this possible genocide. I suppose you would call that a competent bureaucracy?   I think they are likely to replicate the actions of most of the other international governmental organizations and spend their time sitting on their fat (ahem) chairs while coming to the conclusion that nothing can be done.   I think a couple of dozen young people on the ground with Oxfam and other similar organizations are worth more than all those bloated bureaucrats at the UN (Or, is it only plutocrats who are bloated?)     I have always thought the UN was a good place for countries to talk to each other rather than fight, but I’m now much less sure of there worthiness.   Perhaps the tsunami event was a last straw. The Aussies got to Indonesia with supplies pretty quick, as did help from Singapore. The US Carrier Group steamed at full speed and was landing supplies by helicopter in time to prevent famine and disease. They also landed 200 sailors to help the Indonesians. I think that New Zealanders got there soon after.   USAID paid money to the locals to help clear the roads and schools. This did two things. It accomplished the necessary clean up and it put money into the hands of people so they could buy food and suchlike. (Seems to me the UN took credit for this later in a communiqué.)    In fact, the principal job of the UN was to issue communiqués. I think it was 2-3 weeks before their “logistics” headquarters began to take shape.   In their statements, they never thanked those quick response people – in fact they never even mentioned them. Nor did they mention any monies contributed that didn’t come through the UN. It was their show or forget it.   Aid people on the ground opened their warehouses and supplied food , but once it was gone there was no more. Later, the UN issued a communiqué that everyone in Sri Lanka was fed until it was found a large part weren’t (riots in the streets didn’t help).   Have to be careful with this ‘Mission Accomplished’ stuff (as we know).   The UN has virtually declared itself beyond reproach. The worst thing you can do for the idea of a United Nations is to accept that. The great advantage of the UN at present is its various specialized agencies - UNICEF and suchlike – but they could probably get along fine quite separate from the UN.   As you know I don’t get my thinking from right, or left, propaganda pieces. I find things for myself.   I wasn’t looking for the Charter a couple of years ago when I was prying into the UN files. I was looking for some committee material when I came across one which meets regularly. I forget now what I was looking for, but I checked the Minutes of this particular discovery.   All they contained was a report that the Committee had met last year (or last month, whenever). I looked up ‘last year’ and the Minutes duly reported that they had met the previous year. I went back a couple more meetings, and that’s all that was in the Minutes.   Apparently, the task of this committee when they met was to report that the committee had met.   Had I not read it myself I wouldn’t have believed it.   Bureaucratic incompetence is not confined to the UN. It’s a stock-in-trade of every large organization whether private or public.   A non-privilege free market would handle the private bureaucracies. The only way to attack the octopus called government is by a citizens revolt, but that isn’t likely because they are easily bought off.   Meantime, you do take on so. My quip about the Democratic war in Vietnam drew an impassioned paragraph from you. I like to see the juices flow, but there’s a time and place for everything.   Remember passion is good to get you moving when you see that something is wrong.   It’s great to keep you slogging away in the face of failure when you are trying to end the wrong.   Yet, in between, when you are thinking of what course to pursue to make things right (when you are perhaps trying to find the real problem) then passion gets in the way. That’s the time to be cool. This list is the time for thinking. Save the passion for when it’s needed.   One last thing about “bipartisan support” for war. At that time, everyone gets behind the troops, not because they necessarily support the war, but because they know better than to oppose it.   You know that.   Silly and nonsensical -   Harry   ******************************* Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655  Tujunga  CA 91042 818 352-4141 *******************************   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lawrence deBivort Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 5:54 PM To: futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Subject: RE: [Futurework] Peering into the vortex of speculation Really, Harry, you can be so silly sometimes.   The UN has no power to intervene in conflicts, unless it is by decision of the other nations generally, and the Security Council permanent members in particular. Please read the UN Charter.  It has nothing to do with bureaucracy, incompetent or otherwise. What a silly comment.   And what kind of nonsense from you to suggest that American wars led by Democrats should count any less than those led by Republicans.  Morally, I would suggest to you that they are indistinguishable.  Further, if you knew the history, you would know that generally America’s wars are carried out with overwhelming bipartisan support, whether they are declared in congruence with the US Constitution or not.       From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 7:57 PM To: 'Lawrence deBivort'; 'Keith Hudson'; 'Karen Watters Cole' Cc: futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Subject: RE: [Futurework] Peering into the vortex of speculation   Lawry,   There is little to compare.   The war in Greece killed about 150,000 ending in 1949. The Far Eastern wars of ‘national liberation’ in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma, killed hundreds of thousands – and I think is still going in Burma.   We helped the Europeans in Yugoslavia so any deaths can’t be blamed on us alone. It’s true that the Democrats started a huge war in Vietnam but as they were Democrats we won’t count that.   I don’t know whether anyone has tallied the kill-rate in Africa – must be umpteen millions. However, they were killing each other. The killings in their hundreds of thousands in the Sudanese area highlights the bureaucratic incompetence of the UN.   The Economist commented on UN reaction with the followed headline:   Mild rebukes for Darfur’s killers   The final sentence read:   The UN, meanwhile, keeps telling the Sudanese government to disarm the militias it armed in the first place. But without a credible threat of serious consequences if it does not, that seems unlikely.   Now let me see, where did the threat of serious consequences come up before?   Harry   ******************************* Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655  Tujunga  CA 91042 818 352-4141 *******************************    From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lawrence deBivort Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 5:35 PM To: 'Keith Hudson'; 'Karen Watters Cole' Cc: futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Subject: RE: [Futurework] Peering into the vortex of speculation   Viet Nam took place during the height of the Cold War. Several countries genuinely supported our ‘fighting communism’ there, foolish though they may have been.   Iraq, though, has no real rationale other than beating up on Arabs and ‘showing strength’ after September 11.  International support has been trivial to ludicrous, though no more ludicrous than the government’s efforts to make it look genuine.   And once again US civilians and military fell into the trap of overestimating the net superiority of our arms, and once again the world waits for America to learn its lesson.  Meanwhile, the dead keep mounting, especially those of the Iraqis.  If there will be a lesson learned, it will again be at the expense of the ‘targeted’ people, the Vietnamese back in the 60s and 70s, the Iraqis now.   It would be interesting to know how many people the US has killed since the end of WWII, and compare that to the killings of other countries.   Sad.   Lawry

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