I came out with this funny-hazy title cauz’ the latest news simply cried for a crisis of black humor; that’s my reaction to stupid stuff that outrages me…crisis of pure nervous laughter.
So…let me begin…
Last week I‘d heard on CNN a conversation between a CNN reporter and a guy from the UN General Secretary’s office. The conversation aimed at dissolving the fog that surrounded the oh-so striking news of the oh-so brave soldiers that were to be deployed in Lebanon as a contribution to the already notorious UN’s peace enforcement and peace-keeping actions.
First…the very words ‘peace’ + ‘enforcement’ made me sick since the first time I heard it in school. I mean….can peace really be enforced? Can u walse ur way though peace with fire-arms, the same way u walsed during the war?
For all those strategy builders out there….that’s a silly question and the answer is conceived in the belly of simple war-logics:
‘Yeah, of course u can,..u dummie! There’s no other way. How ‘da hell are u gonna stop the crazy men baring guns if u ain’t got the guts and experience of baring one urself ?’. J
About the peace-enforcement utopia…. Ya,..basically,..that is the real deal…it’s obvious…u can’t obtain a cease fire, unless.. u appear on the stage with a larger weapon or a more numerous army. If only those were the only rules of the game..the operation of frightening up the anger and making it stop.
This play is not a monologue. War has a distinct sophisticated mechanism. So let’s say:
Character no1: we got UN as an international body …who is bound to act strategic and awfully pragmatic; first because it supports the heavy critical eye of international press; second …cauz’ it prefers such actions which are after all very dual as meaning, and that’s a very fine image equation.
By acting like that u get:
a. the humanitarian objective marked out- I mean..obviously: why the cease-fire, if not to stop the killing;
b. u carefully avoid the real disputes about the real subjects, putting them on delay, cauz’ of the primary humanitarian objective; only, funny thing, afterwards….u tend to go into a sort of international amnesia…and u start peace-enforcement, then peace-building, then peace-keeping, then, …the after-math of peace,…only by that time u’ve already taken ur tail out of the territory…it’s their blame again, u did not interfere, u’ve helped actually, and at high-costs…the whole world knows that. It’s not ur failure…it’s theirs, once again. So what do u do? Proclaim a whole new cease fire. By this time, hopefully…a generation of soldiers has changed…so they won’t make any fuss about it.
Character no.2: we got the citizens of the countries were peace is to be enforced.
And here I mean plain, normal citizens; not soldiers, nor politicians, the citizens walking that walk on the street, follow the road, get to the bridge, wanna’ cross it, but the bridge ain’t no more, so they turn around, get wood and rope..try again..
To these citizens peace-enforcement is not actually a bliss. Green uniforms down the street don’t mean the war is over. It’s just one more proof of danger standing at the gates somewhere nearby.
Larger effectives? Oh,..that’s just a bigger threat…means more arms baring weapons, more people waiting to be killed..and, more important, more people being authorized in order to do the killing.
For these citizens, international forces are no medicine; that’s just one more thing to worry about and live in fear. They see them as intruders, as people baring a false mandate to deploy authority. They hate them for intruding, they hate them for the space they’re violating, they hate them for having the nerve to impose on people who probably before, never knew that an international force existed. For these people international force is a second layer police, acting upon some stranger’s laws (their uniforms are feared, their actions are seen as completely arbitrary),…they loose identity, become secluded…in this view, peace-enforcement is more of a conquest than a real aid.
Character no.3: here we got the member countries of UN’s Security Council. Practically this is the place where the real deal is widely known and also, the place where the real deal holds back or falls off.
The nature of the engagement that these countries have towards UN and its actions is very confused. First…because they are not obliged to follow any rule of international law, only an isolated treaty-based law, where the biggest possible sanction is exclusion from the body. Second …because their engagement, mediated by UN, is actually an engagement towards an international good cause, but that’s just an utopia’s image.
The real rules governing such bodies are not rules made in the spirit of justice; they are economic rules, made in terms of cost-benefit. In this terms…some wars seem expensive, others very cheap if u count out the outcome.
So…they’ve decided to put together a 15.000 people peace enforcement effective. U got to think of this as of a group of kids putting their money together, setting out to buy a piece of candy.
Some of them already know that candy and they don’t fancy the flavor, so, no…they ain’t gonna give their money.
Others know the candy, tasted it so many times before, became tired of it or found themselves dissatisfied…so,…no,..they ain’t gonna give their mney.
Other others know the candy, dreamed of it so many times, never got to taste it, although they’ve spent money on it before,…so,..it’s a high risk operation to try for it one more time, so,..no,..they’re gonna stick to chocolate this time.
The ones who actually put the money down for the candy…are: the ones who are ashamed not to; the ones who are obliged to (cauz’ that’s their curse: to always put money down for a bigger kid that’s gonna beat u up if he doesn’ get the candy); the ones who want, who like, and who can obviously afford the candy. They have just one more stair to climb on the candy eaters ierarchy,…u gotta stand in row for that candy…sometimes, …so many times. U gotta have a strong objective that blanks out tiredness and boredom;..and believe, strongly believe in the power of The Candy.
That’s what Italy is doing right now (sending the biggest part of the starting effective). That’s what France isn’t doing no more (no need for that candy no more).
That’s what Germany has been doing for several years, pouring all sorts of troups everywhere, hoping for a permanent seat in the Security Council. Still…no candy.
That’s what US didn’t even bother to think of doing…cauz it’s a permanent member, it practically owns the Candy Shop…
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