The First Casuality is the Truth, now it is Truth and Civilians
butchcasidy
Posts: 835 Forum Member
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War is lunacy, caused by lunatics on one side or the other. No better intelligence over the past one thousand years. What has happened to 'The Geneva Convention'? 'Rules of Engagement'. ? Not really applied since WW2?
I thought war is the last resort to protect a nations life and property. Engage troops to protect the civilians. To WW1 very few civilians were killed mostly enlisted soldiers now they protect the soldiers and mass kill civilians. The rules of war are reversed. To save pilots we invent drones to save the flyers. WW2 brought the mass killing of civilians
but at a cost of many solders but now, no-one seems to care about civilians be it Ukraine of Gaza. We now have real weapons of mass destruction to kill people whilst soldiers and the elite are protected.
I say in this apparent world of supreme wealth and invention surely it is time to return, once again to a policy of 'people matter' ? My suggestion, for what it is worth, the United Nations must be the answer. It was set-up to be the answer but it is now weak and ineffective, deliberately made so. The Security Council should have a permanent force of say, 50,000 blue helmeted troops on call to take over any trouble spot that inflicts harm on the civilians of the other side. The Gaza Strip (as it once was called) and the eastern part of Ukraine should be taken over by the United Nations with the former coast sealed and made a de-militarized zone. No imports allowed other than peace making things. The world is going to Hell on a Hand Cart.
I thought war is the last resort to protect a nations life and property. Engage troops to protect the civilians. To WW1 very few civilians were killed mostly enlisted soldiers now they protect the soldiers and mass kill civilians. The rules of war are reversed. To save pilots we invent drones to save the flyers. WW2 brought the mass killing of civilians
but at a cost of many solders but now, no-one seems to care about civilians be it Ukraine of Gaza. We now have real weapons of mass destruction to kill people whilst soldiers and the elite are protected.
I say in this apparent world of supreme wealth and invention surely it is time to return, once again to a policy of 'people matter' ? My suggestion, for what it is worth, the United Nations must be the answer. It was set-up to be the answer but it is now weak and ineffective, deliberately made so. The Security Council should have a permanent force of say, 50,000 blue helmeted troops on call to take over any trouble spot that inflicts harm on the civilians of the other side. The Gaza Strip (as it once was called) and the eastern part of Ukraine should be taken over by the United Nations with the former coast sealed and made a de-militarized zone. No imports allowed other than peace making things. The world is going to Hell on a Hand Cart.
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A good post. I strongly agree with a lot of what you have said.
To paraphrase Monty Python, every life should be sacred.
The UN already had 20,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of MONUSCO and they were pretty useless. It lasted years, cost a fortune and the UN troops were accused of trading eggs and $5 dollars for underage sex and selling munitions for gold. They also stood by and watched the rebels take over a city without firing a shot. They really aren't the answer.
War has been around since the day dot and will continue to be around in 100 years time.
Absolutely so and that is the tragedy. Any UN force must intervene to protect civilians and shoot at either side that shoots at them. It should truly be the worlds' policeman but under strict rules so to avoid the above. I did suggest the five members of the security council to provide the troops. Up to 10,000 from each under one blue helmet. If the five top nations can not agree to this then the whole UN is useless. Some of its own civilian staff were killed this week in GAZA. So its leadership is again safe while its staff are in danger. I would say no staff without UN protection. The Sunday Mail of Today is promoting vigorous opposition to Russia (one member of the Security Council). Letters from complete fools. In my youth it was said 'a nuclear bomb takes four minutes to reach London'. Have they forgotten this or are they really wishing to promote WW3? One thing for sure, we do not need is a 'European Army!
So nation with a vested interest in a certain conflict can disrupt the whole process.
Another issue is that in order for UN observer or peace keeping actions to occur, even when they've been voted for, they must have permission of the nations they wish to operate within. In many cases, I can imagine certain factions not wanting anybody to get in the way of their operations.
Not to mention that typically, UN actions are usually one big cluster-f**k. The big, rich member nations go in, blow things up and then bugger off. This leaves the weaker member states who don't have the proper resources to police and clean up the aftermath.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/04/11/angelina-jolie-addresses-g8-summit-london/2073351/
In April 2013, Angelina Jolie appeared before the men in suits and welcomed a UN deal to tackle rape and sexual violence as weapons of war.
The result of her intervention was that the G8 nations pledged £23 million to provide measures to prevent sexual violence and ensure justice for sufferers. Peanuts, but it’s a start. Britain held the Chairmanship of the G8 at this time and the measure was backed by William Hague, but only after being prompted along the way by Jolie.
The scale of this problem has been ignored by world leaders until now: In the last 20 years, more than a quarter of a million women have alleged rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone. Hundreds of thousands in Rwanda, tens of thousands in Kosovo. Figures for Afghanistan and Iraq have not been made available. I wonder why. Are our soldiers too pure and unsullied to not commit such a crime? If so, why not release figures..?
But why did it take an intervention by a Hollywood actress to bring this crime against humanity into the spotlight..? Well, Jolie puts glamour behind the podium and she gets prime time coverage. She used that spotlight to rebuke the politicians for “The international political will that has been sorely lacking”.
Under a proposed new international convention, rape and sexual violence in conflicts will now constitute war crimes and responsibility is placed on G8 nations to seek out and prosecute grave breaches of the Geneva Convention.
Sanctioning rape could be a charge against a military commander at a war crimes tribunal. Amnesties for sexual violence will no longer be included in peace treaties and it is also agreed that training for military police must be improved because they are often the first officials to come into contact with rape survivors.
Jolie demanded “An end to impunity” in a speech that was more stateswoman than actress. “Time and again the world has failed to prevent this abuse or hold attackers accountable. Perpetrators have learned they can get away with it and the victims have been denied justice. But wartime rape is not inevitable. This violence can be prevented and it must be confronted. For too long, survivors of rape have been the forgotten victims of war, responsible for none of the harm, but bearing the worst of the pain. Hopefully their voices will now be heard and we can have some hope to offer them.”
She then turned to the Ministers lined up behind her and, eyeball to eyeball, told them with frosty clarity: “The world will be watching.”
She then went on: “It is encouraging to see men in leadership positions speaking out against rape. It is not just a woman’s issue, or a humanitarian issue, it is a global issue and it belongs here at the top table of international decision making.”
Representatives of France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Canada, USA and Japan added their voices to the resolution and William Hague said that sexual violence in conflict was “The slave trade of our generation. This is a turning point in our history.” So, will anything effective be done..?
Time will tell.
This has got to stop. You say 'others will stop the action' I think the majority of our planet want peace. I say the top five MUST be the peace makers and do the job they were set up to do. America must stop (arrogantly) being the world policeman - the world needs a policeman or men equally made up from the five.. Israel was set up by the UN in the first place and should have been under protection against invasion in 1948 that would have prevented that invasion by Arab states and would have prevented the 1967 second one - no GAZA problem then.
The only way is for the UN to invade GAZA take the place over and separate the two trying to kill each other. Tell Israel to remove itself and disarm Hamas. weapons free zone. Sure, it will cost the lives of UN soldiers but in the end this 'police-force' will be totally respected. And, stop supplying arms to small countries!
Almost everyone who wants peace is also willing to fight for something.
The 'UN' doesnt have any troops, all it has are troops seconded by individual countries. And no country is going to sanction its troops being involved in an invasion of Gaza.
The UN is an extremely dangerous organisation with little power, but massive consequences.
We've seen in Afghanistan how, once an army is put into a country where there is no easily identifiable enemy, a guerrilla war develops which becomes an unresolvable stalemate.
Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian military thinker defined war as: A decisive, brutal conflict between opposing armies with clear aims in which victory is established by forcing the other side to make terms. Mrs Thatcher fought this kind of war in the Falklands. The enemy was plainly identified, the political aim was clear and the victorious outcome was final and undisputed.
We no longer fight wars this way, as Iraq and Afghanistan have shown. The Clausewitz template no longer fits. Now, the enemy is shifting and many faceted. Political and military intentions merge. The war of counter-insurgency seldom offers clear winners and losers or even a conclusion. The wars in the Middle East are unwinnable, without frontiers or battle lines.
Today it may be possible to obtain military supremacy and still lose the conflict because it has failed to be seen as a clear victory in public perception.
The traditional two-sided war has given way to a kaleidoscope of conflict involving multiple participants and constituents, each with a different perspective. Controlling the narrative is almost impossible in a world where news can be relayed in real time from a mobile phone on the front line, not just to the world but to the combatants themselves.
Narratives collide. A missile fired from a drone over Pakistan is seen in Washington as a weapon of freedom, but as an act of mass murder by those on the receiving end, and then again, as a provocation to Jihad when seen from the Islamic world. Public opinion is divided and confused. The Taliban insurgent, the heroin poppy grower, the government in Kabul, the American and British soldiers..... all taking part in a different war.
In previous wars, the “audiences” that mattered were the ‘home’ and ‘enemy’ populations. The first needed to be convinced of the justness of the cause and the second had to be made, by military might, to accept that they had lost.
When the allies leave Afghanistan, neither of those will have been achieved because war is no longer counted in armies defeated or territory gained, but in political space at a minute, local level, and yet, the key target audience is the wider world.
The distinction between war and peace, victory and defeat is now blurred as is the difference between politics and military force. Increasingly, military action is itself a political process designed not only to kill an enemy but to undermine him, erode his support and perhaps even to recruit him. The complete fusion of military and political activity risks continual warfare, a global generational conflict.
War could become a continuation of normal political activity which is endless.
Who wants victory in a barren, uninhabitable planet?
That is the crux of the matter. The weakness of an armed force provided by disparate nations without any regular combined training, and introduced for cosmetic reasons (seen to be doing something).
Only the left would advocate something that doesn't work simply to be seen as on the side of the angels.
Now that's the rub: The human race like the thought of universal peace ,but we have never been able to control our inherent animal instinct of wanting to poke the vother guy in the eye:
To recap, I am saying that the UN must be the world policeman and the top five must be the policemen - in total unity - and that is the problem. What is happening in GAZA is the fault of the UN for not protecting both Israel and the Palastinians. I am not saying one state should be the policeman (America it thinks with the U.K. in tow all the time) I am saying it must be the five top states (or the Security Council). Russia is no longer trying to 'spread communism' as one writer put it. They are all into the New World Order that is globalisation and dominance of lesser states by the more powerful. It is this that must stop. The five states must join togather as equals with a set number of troops from each. What is happening in Gaza now is barbaric - without logic.
If Isreal was logical it would have placed Gaza into set squared areas, and cover one area at a time to clear all weapons - providing food water and all needs to the civilians! No bombing from the air. Then move to the next square and so on. By the time the force had reached the southern end of Gaza the population would be welcoming them"! But this is simple logic. Minimum deaths. But now, the UN must take over the coast of Gaza and supply all needs to the people. I acknowledge that the above thoughts would not have effect in Civil Wars (like Seria or now Libia) or one nation invading another. But what I mean really are racial based conficts.
Ahem....Russians as peacekeepers in the Ukraine???
Yep, that'll work....:D
The reason that various "volunteer" nations are used as peacekeepers when necessary is that the paties in any disputes/wars/conflicts accept the particular nationality of peacekeepers.
I doubt that all parties involved in all sides in the conflict would agree for yet another military force to be stationed in the country they are fighting for control of