Set The Record Straight
I heard my Congressional "representative", Betty McCollum, today on MPR Morning Edition. She was bloviating about the need for us to get the UN, and especially our French and German allies with their "Financial Resources" and "Militaries capable of helping us shoulder the burden", involved in Iraq, in order to shore up our credibility.
Let's check this out.
French Financial Resources - The French economy is a perennial basket case. Right now they're happy about 2% annual growth - which would be near-recession-caliber news on our part. 2% is slightly faster than the economy of the rest of Europe - and a little over half of the world's economic growth of 3.4%. France's socialist economy will soak up any gains quickly - and they're bouncing back from an endless slow streak anyway.
Although perhaps those aren't the financial resources McCollum was talking about?
Gemany's economy - Yeah, it's growing - at .1% last quarter, entirely on the strength of exports. If there's another terrorist attack, and people stop buying Beemers and Volkswagens, though, you can kiss it auf wiedersehen - the growth is based on exports. Germany's domestic economy is still ganz in schlamm, and there's not much sign of change.
So Betty McCollum - where is this money coming from?
France and Germany's militaries - The likes of John Kerry, Betty McCollum and Dennis Kucinich constantly prattle about all the military help we'll get from the Germans and French, if only we ask them. But - leaving aside the jokes about the French military for the moment - their military is a tiny shadow of the US military. The Texas National Guard has more tanks than the French Army. The force we have in Iraq right now is greater than the combat strength of the entire French Army. The Germans military record lately is very mixed; their special forces performed well in Afghanistan, while their regulars have had problems in the Balkans. Neither Army is trained or equipped to operate at the pace that the US military does.
What help are they supposed to be?
UN Scandals - Leave aside for a moment the fact that the UN is a scandal-riven organization - the Oil For Food and now the Sex for Foodscandals should be enough to seal that deal. Simple fact: the Iraqi people hate the UN for their decades of propping up Hussein.
The UN at War - There have been many UN military operations since th end of the Korean conflict. Most - like the UN's involvement in the Sinai and Golan - were futile wastes of time and lives. Some - like the UN intervention in the Congo, and much of the UN's operation in Bosnia - were disasters of the worst order, with muddled chains of command, poorly-laid-out missions, and troops unwilling to die for...the UN leading to legendary debacles.
Two recent UN operations were unmitigated successes; the interventions in Sierra Leone and East Timor have been rightly regarded as successful missions. In both cases, the military commands involved - British and Australian, respectively - told the UN to butt out of the job of commanding troops. Just send men and supplies, they said, and leave the job of planning and commanding to people who had business doing it, actual soldiers from competent militaries rather than bureaucrats in New York.
So the two takeaways are:
- The left is telling itself a continuous bedtime story - about the UN's "integrity" and Old Europe's capacity to "help" us.
- Betty McCollum, MN District Four representative, should thank her lucky stars that Mark Dayton is in office.
Posted by Mitch at
May 26, 2004 06:49 AM
You need to slap a </i> in there somewhere.
Either that, or Firefox is just not rendering this page right.
Posted by: Kris at May 26, 2004 09:45 AMYet again, you are dead wrong on every count. You argue that UN involvement would not help the US for the following reasons:
1. The UN could not provide adequate financial support. To prove this, you provide a half-assed analysis of economic growth in three countries; as if this is somehow relevant to how much money the UN member nations could provide in the war effort. First of all, there are other countries in the world besides the three you mention. Second of all, even if all the other countries in the world were experiencing little growth compared to the US, their financial support would still be viable. Economic growth rates are not an adequate measure of a nation's foreign policy or military budget (e.g., check out the relationship between US military spending and the federal budget deficit).
2. The UN could not provide adequate military support. This argument is also bunk. Even if our army is somehow the biggest and the best in the world (and it is not), additional troops from other countries would still be helpful! Even by our own military's estimates, there is a shortage of troops on the ground. Even Donald Rumsfeld has admitted he underestimated the number of troops needed for an occupation force. With UN assistance, the coordination costs of a multi-national force would be relatively small.
3. The UN could not provide adequate political legitimacy. Your primary argument for this is that the Iraqi people hate the UN because the UN helped prop up Saddam Hussein for years. Interesting, but you seemingly ignore the fact that United States was responsible for this decision! Moreover, like most conservatives, you conveniently ignore the fact that the United States supported Saddam when we knew he was gassing his own people - and in fact that US companies were permitted to provide the nerve gas!
As an alternative means of impugning UN credibility, you throw out the food for oil scandals. Again, you ignore the uncomfortable fact that the US was fully complicit with these abuses, and moreover, that the US has its own share of scandals (e.g., Abu Ghraib) that are much more serious. Clearly, UN policies are no less credible than those of the US, and moreover, a shared occupation effort would clearly stem Iraqi fears that this war was all about US war profiteering.
Of course, the real reason that conservatives are opposed to UN involvement is exactly because this would mean less war profiteering for US companies. Meantime, these companies have ostridges like yourself to thank for their global raping and pillaging. I hope you're happy with what your president has inflicted on the world.
Posted by: Nick Heydenrych at May 26, 2004 05:38 PMEr, Nick,
I'll respond on the blog tomorrow.
Have smurfy day!
Mitch
Posted by: mitch at May 26, 2004 07:44 PM