Running from Conflict on the Horn
December 19, 2005
The BBC today has a story about the escalating conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. This story talks about how U.N. peacekeepers are leaving, more specifically, have been ordered to leave by the U.N. Security Council, by Friday. Who knew about this? Not most Americans. Instead, we are talking about Iraq.
What’s interesting is that the article says:
“On Wednesday, the UN Security Council decided to evacuate US, Canadian and European staff serving in the mission…Most of the UN peacekeepers monitoring the border following a war between the two countries that ended in 2000 are from Asian and African countries and these will stay.”
This is interesting for 2 reasons:
1. It’s funny how all the white people get to leave and the non-whites are staying. I can’t call this surprising. It would be nice is we used this as an Iraq exit strategy. Oh wait, we can’t because we pissed off the U.N. when we unilaterally invaded Iraq in the first place.
2. Why is this not considered taking an irresponsible, defeatist attitude? Aren’t we in this case pulling out of an ‘unfinished’ conflict where violence is still prevalent? Won’t the exit of U.N. peacekeepers increase the resolve of the warmongers in the region?
Maybe #2 only applies to Iraq, and not to the Horn of the Mother Continent.
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“Last week, Western UN staff in Eritrea left at the request of Eritrea. Most of the UN peacekeepers deployed to monitor the border under a peace accord that ended the war in 2000 are from Asian and African countries and have stayed behind”. This is in fact what BBC reports. It is unpleasant to read news-manipulation. I would not call it an irresponsible, defeatist attitude. This is just another of the unlimited series of Eritrea acts of hostility, which HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT THE UNIFORMED AUTHOR OF THIS BLOG PRESUMES TO BE AN IRRESPONSIBLE ATTITUDE OF THE UNITED NATIONS. Peacekeeping operations relies on the Country’s consent, therefore the SC had no choice but that of pulling out undesired staff members from Eritrea.
I find it ironic how the U.S., one of the countries which supplied these peacekeepers, picks and chooses when it decides to unilaterally involve itself in foreign conflicts in which it has no legitimate intereste. Why did our government decide to listen to the U.N. on this and not on Iraq?
This post juxtaposes this situation with Iraq, a situation in which we disregarded U.N. protocol and authority as BushCo saw fit.