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Well, they don't just sit there - they occasionally murder people and rape women and children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_peacekeeping#Hum...



True but irrelevant, and potentially inflammatory.


Not that irrelevant... it is just another side to the general corruption and outright gangsterism that often characterises the modern UN. They also voted to legalise the execution of homosexuals only recently. http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/un-general-assembly-vot...

[edit] The US abstained - http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2010/151133.htm


Just like Abu Ghraib is ust another side to the general corruption and outright gangsterism that often characterises the modern US, right?

I don't know how much you can read into things. In war, you usually have the bad guys and the worse guys. If you put a good person in a war zone he or she will do bad things.


Just like Abu Ghraib is ust another side to the general corruption and outright gangsterism that often characterises the modern US, right?

Bingo. Not for the country as a whole, or the people within it, but definitely for the executive branch.

I don't know how much you can read into things.

I don't think there is any real need to look for a subtle subtext here. The UN certainly isn't bothering to be particularly subtle.

In war, you usually have the bad guys and the worse guys.

In that case you accept no possibility of a defensive or peacekeeping force working on behalf of ordinary people and think that soldiers are mindless thugs who will just loot anyone they are sent to protect. I don't accept that and think that it is possible to have a culture of respect on the ground, but only if that permeates the entire organisation and only if infractions by those people that you are imposing on a situation are publicly investigated and properly dealt with as a matter of absolute policy.

If you put a good person in a war zone he or she will do bad things.

If I take that statement at face value, then I'd have to say that history contains plenty of examples to the contrary.




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