A Discovery of the Limited Use of the United Nations: And Not From Dick Cheney
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George Clooney recognizes what is heresy to Liberals: the United Nations is useless except for observing International Days of Recognition
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In an interview last week with actor and sporadic activist George Clooney shown on Meet the Press today, he discussed his recent trip to Sudan and the mass murder that the Sudanese government is committing upon a portion of its people that have broken off from the country.
Mr. Clooney, no Liberal wallflower and an unabashed supporter of President Barack Obama, stated that the government was performing ethnic cleansing. He went on to warn that if the war inside Sudan heats up the stakes will be “very high in terms of human life.” Thus, he called for “crisis diplomacy that needs to be interjected now” to avoid such a catastrophe.
But then he went on to utter comments that, if one closed their eyes and didn’t recognize his voice, would swear that it was a dreaded conservative speaking. To wit, Mr. Clooney suggested “military intervention……either through NATO or through–unilaterally” but then conceded that such would not happen. Amongst other reasons for inaction, Mr. Clooney said “the [United Nations] Security Council will always have someone that will veto [military action].” When pressed if he wanted to run for political office to enact change, he said that his position as an unelected civilian allows him to “actually have an opinion and it may not fit what the U.N. wants………..and I can say, “This is what I think is right” and stand by it. And so I think it’s a lot easier than running for office.”
This is an amazing admission as virtually all Liberals, especially President Obama, believe that the United Nations is the sole legitimate imprimatur for any and all actions in response to bloodshed such as this.
This has proven to be a deadly assumption.
The United Nations, successor to that highly successful organization known as the League of Nations which oversaw the rise of Adolph Hitler, is basically a representative club of all of the countries of this world. Any substantive action, including military, needs approval from its “security council” which consists of, amongst other countries, China and Russia. Invariably, when attempting to punish or deter a country’s actions, such country will have some kind of tie (military, economic or otherwise) to a security council member which will influence the member to block any kind of substantive action. Some recent examples of U.N. fecklessness resulting in mass death were the 1990s genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and most recently the navel-gazing that is occurring as Bashar Asaad is slaughtering his own people. Thus, the standard U.N. response to most events that require substantive and material action is to issue a finger-wagging denunciation (this is on a day when the U.N. is feeling particularly perky) but usually just a flaccid promise to “continue to monitor events” and then, sometime thereafter, have a moment of silence for those who were slaughtered in part because of the U.N.’s inaction. Given Mr. Obama’s foreign policy track record, it is understandable why he feels a kinship to the U.N.
But one should not think that the U.N. does nothing. Quite the contrary. While not quite rising to stop mass human conflicts, it does observe international days such as International Mother Earth Day, World Television Day, and International Mountain Day.
And while Mr. Clooney may not persuade many of his Liberal colleagues about the ineffectiveness of the U.N., he can claim to add another act to his list of public services: somewhere, those notorious unilateralists, former Ambassador John Bolton and Vice-President Dick Cheney, are smiling and feeling vindicated.
-I.M. Windee
