The United Nations, Zimbabwe and Iraq - all mouth and no trousers!

There are obvious parallels between that UN vote on Zimbabwe and the final UN vote on Iraq.

In both cases there was;

1. a tyrant brutally oppressing his own people and flouting world opinion in the process;
2. everybody saying what a terrible thing this was, but
3. decisive UN action being blocked by governments that opted to stand by while atrocities were being committed, and
4. parts of the media reporting the UN's failure as a mistake by the British and American governments rather than as a cynical act of betrayal by the real culprits.

Is it any wonder that those who really care about injustice on this scale end up by having to take matters into their own hands?

Comments

[Diversity]

Has Stan Rosenthal's memory gone selective? Or is he making a one-man try at writing something as unreal as the Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)dossier?

The UN vote before the invasion of Iraq (one of a number of UN votes on Iraq) hinged on whether Security Council members believed that Iraq had WMD and posed a threat to other nations. Saddam's brutal but relatively orderly tyrany was not the question. No one I have heard of imagines that Mugabe has WMD. Nor is Mugabe's regime capable of much aggression against his neighbours.

Those who "care about injustice" taking things into their own hands is recipe for the murderous years we have seen in Iraq, or worse. Care passionately, yes. But remember both that the ways to hell are paved with excellent, passionate good intentions; and that " ... in the bowels of Christ, you may be wrong." (Cromwell was a well-intentioned, brutal tyrant; but at least he got that right). The only available route to the international law and order that humanity needs as a first condition for the general observance of human rights is via careful, frustrating, long-drawn-out building of consensus with the other powerful regimes which share this world.

And just by way of reminder, Saddam's main atrocities were committed long before anyone was talking about intervention.