Hey pin head, he may have lived in Salem Mass and filed with the US patent office, but he was a Canadian Citizen (originally from Scotland) and spent most of his life in Nova Scotia and Ontario.
So before you go spouting off about being anti-intellectual, try doing a Google search...
First of all our public school system in Ontario is NOT and old protestant system. It has always been a public school system. It was created by Egerton Ryerson (name-sake for Ryerson University in Toronto) in the early 1840s, after the Rebellion of 1837. This public school system was created as part of the reforms brought in by Lafontaine and Baldwin to address the causes of the rebellion.
So the public school system in Ontario is actually older than Canada itself. Religious schools did not recieve government funding.
But during the negotiations for Confederation in 1867, Ontario (predominantly Protestant) agreed to publicly fund a Catholic school system and Quebec (predominantly Catholic) agreed to fund a separate Protestant system. These systems existance were and still are part of our constitution - the British North America Act (1867) (and now the Canada Act 1982). The only issues we have had have been around funding - Ontario would only fund the Catholic system up to grade 10 until 1984, when it funded it fully.
Now, the section of the Contitution dealing with freedom of religion and separation of church and state was added as part of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. So the original requirement for funded religious schools is still there until challenged by someone who will take it to the Supreme Court.
One would think it would be easy to get rid of it, since Quebec no longer has Protestant schools - it now has public English and French systems. Even in Quebec, religious schools such as the Catholics must pay for their schools themselves.
Now, as a father of two children of school age, I agree that our province should not be funding both a Catholic and Public system, both on the basis of expense AND on the basis that it give special status to the Catholic religion that no other religion enjoys (and no religion should enjoy special status). I'm quite sure this violates the separation of church and state, but the ability to challenge it has only been around for about 22 years. And the Catholics have a lot of votes in this province. Also, our Charter has specific provisions that state that it applies to the laws of Canada but not to the other sections of the Contitution itself, so even if it is declared in violation of the charter, the charter may not appply to the section of the old British North America Act that deal with this. It may actually take a contitutional amendmant to fix it (and we all know haow easy THAT is).
So I agree that it is an idiotic system and we should put all of our money into a single, excellent public shcool system with no religious affiliations, but your simplistic explaination of it is just wrong. You need to see it in it's context to see how really silly it is.
Ahhh, I see, you tried for a whole hour to do something that THOUSANDS of others have been able to do (install Tomcat on linux) and when you can't do it (even after looking on Google!) you immediately conclude that it's Java's fault.
Hmm, interesting.
Well, since I have been able to install and run Tomcat and Java (Sun JDK an IBM) on RedHat and Suse boxes without issue in under an hour. I must assume that the problem lies with Debian or your configuration.
So, try this. At a command prompt type "java -version" and see what it says. Type "echo $JAVA_HOME" and see what it says. Find out what version of Debian you are using. See if your $JAVA_HOME\bin and $JAVA_HOME\lib are in your $PATH. Now take all this information and try the Tomcat mailing list and see what others have done to solve your problem. Oh, and Kaffe, which is only 1.1 compliant is not likely to work. You might want to stick with the Sun or IBM implementations.
If you are missing any of the above information, you may be one step closer to solving you problem.
So, is Debian now "crap" because you couldn't get it to work fast enough? Next time I have trouble installing Galeon, can I make the leap in logic that Mozilla is no good, or that I can post "Fuck you, C" on/.?
Posting opinions, especially strongly worded ones, that are based on false, mistaken, and outright wrong premises are FUD. No different thatn M$ saying the GPL is viral or AdT Institute saying Linus Torvalds stole the source code that became Linux.
Think before you post.
BTW, the above link took me about 3 minutes to find and I didn't even use Google.
Wow, you are dumb as a bag of hammers. If you can't install Tomcat (HINT: tar -xzvf....) on a linux box, I have to infer that your problem is NOT with Java...perhaps with Debian, but as they say, "The poor worker blames their tools."
Fuck you, honestly.
BTW, if you really want help with you issues, instead of taking the time to post FUD at/., why not post a question (or God forbid, do a search on the archives of) the Tomcat mailing list...
No actually, the Mounties (with the help of FBI) got a wire-tap warrant for the house in which Mafia Boy lived after tracking him down via IRC lurking. They then intercepted all telephone communications in and out of the house for 3 months, including all internet communications (they also had the cooperation of the ISP, since the kid was using a hacked account at the same ISP as his Dad's real account). The lion's share of the evidence against him came from these intercepts, not lurking.
Oddly enough, the RCMP had to pull the plug and arrest Mafia Boy not because he was about to launch another attack (which he was) but because the same wiretap overheard his father plotting to have a business rival killed in a hit! Great family, eh? No wonder he called himself Mafia Boy...
Shit, it's right-wing propaganda filled BS rants like that that almost make me root for Osama.....
As a Canadian, thanks for your help on D-Day. And Dieppe...oh, wait....I'm sure the Eurpoeans are so glad you waited almost 3 years and until the JAPANESE attacked you before you decided to enter the war on the side of 'democracy'...Oh and thanks for arming the Mujahadeen in the first place...great forsight there from Ronald Reagan and, oh my, Donald Rumsfeld!
As for your timeline damning the Clinton administration I think you need to have your memory cleared up a bit. The 9/11 attack hade been in the planning for YEARS before the Cole. They were two separate attacks carried out by two separate cells of Al Queda. There was no "first the Cole and if it works, World Trade Center!". Even if the US had massively retaliated in response to the Cole, 9/11 would still have happened, perhaps sooner and with more planes. As for the embassies, I seem to remember a few cruise missles being lobbed at Afghanistan in an effort to get OBL for that and then the Republicans and Neo-Cons jumping up and down, claiming Clinton was just doing it to divert attention away from the Lewinski scandal. So when Clinton did try to do something, your ilk, who are NOW suddenly bloodthirsty looking for revenge and willing to fight, stopped him. Gee maybe if you guys had let him lob a few more cruise missle maybe there wouldn't have been a 9/11. Then there's the warnings of an attack your current President ignored. There's plenty of blame for 9/11 to go around in the US so I wouldn't be so quick to start that arguement if I were you.
You know why Europe and Canada were not attacked on September 11, 2001? Because they didn't act like bullies and piss anybody off!!!! We have this annoying tendancy to treat people fairly and not make enemies. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, the real Sage General can conquere his enemy WITHOUT fighting. Check this essay out...written by an USian, I might add.
If you are so sure your course is right, why don't you sign up to go fight in Iraq (or whereever GWB's next target on the Axis of Evil is)? Please, put your money where your mouth is - feel free to send us updates from Paris Island every could of weeks. You sure seem will to put everyone elses ass on the line for your right-wing ideals, I was wondering if you would be willing to put your own there. Or are you just a chickenhawk?
Mark me as a troll, but need I remind you that it wasn't the "modern euro-centric" countries that have been attacked over the last couple of years. Seems to me that it has been the neo-con USian cowboys who've had planes and trains thrown at them. So what was that you were saying "unless you are trying to get someone to attack you"? Tell me again how that is "the real world?"
Man, you should be on K5 - turing a discussion of the worst Star Trek series into a right-wing diatribe....
BTW, I was one of the very few who got 80's and 90's in Physics, Calculus, Chemistry, etc, was a starter on the football and basket ball teams and got top marks in Welding class. But of course, I went to a small rural public county high school (900 to 1100 students, depending on the year) up here in Canada where I could do all those things without being looked at funny.
BTW, I don't know about YOUR highschool, but at mine, the "in crowd" might have gotten A's in English or Calculus, but everyone of them would have flunked wood shop hard. I was following you until that line. And do you happen to know if anyone got a video of that kiss in Texas? Just curious....;)
Wait, didn't the Greatful Dead allow this with a regular tape recorder for something like 25 years? They even set up a spot where you could put it so it would ge the best sound....
Ah, those were the days. Maybe if more musicians had the attitude of the Dead, this stuff wouldn't be "News."
Yes but that's the difference - the problem of generating the energy becomes a problem of technology not physics. It's no longer "impossible", it's "hard to do".
That is a HUGE leap. A little over 100 years ago, it was "impossible" for a human to fly. Then it became really "hard to do" for any length of time and under control. And now I can fly just about anywhere in the world in under 24 hours.... (not to mention space probes on Mars, Hypersonic aircraft etc)
As long as it is no longer impossible by the laws of physics, everything else is a matter of time.
If an institution cannot police the power and influence it putatively has, then by definition does it not in fact lack that power and influence?
Because the UN was not set up with an enforcement arm. Hmmm, who could have wanted that? Given that they have no "police force" or standing army, the UN does a very good job at enforcing it's resolutions, all things considered. I dare say the state of New York couldn't do as well with out the New York State Police, the NYPD or the New York National Guard.
The collective UN membership already has sufficient resources; the apparent limitations are political rather than fundamentally logistical. NATO's relative effectiveness owes much to the closer political alignment of its membership
While that is true, I think the problem is institutional not political. So long as the UN has to beg it's memeber nations on an Ad Hoc basis for things like peacekeeping troops, operational support or simply transportation, we are going to see a lot more Rawandas. The UN doesn't need to change any of it's rules or powers or role in the world. It just needs an always available pool of resources (like peacekeeping troops, operational support and simple transportation) so it can act in the best interests of all nations or the nation affected, rather than have those decisions subsumed by nations with ulterior and at time diametrically opposed motive to that of the UN.
For me it's simple. If the UN had a standing army, or at least a sizable peacekeeping rapid reaction force of highly trained professional from around the world, it would not have and to go to beg the US, the UK and France for support and help. It could simply have acted (as many in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations wanted to in 1994, but were prevent from doing by the Security Council membership), and we would be arguing about Open Source Java instead of preventing genocide (because Rawanda wouldn't have happened).
And in case you have any doubts, your own Marine corp studies Gen Dallaire's plan in 1997 and concluded that 5500 troops with some Armoured APCs would have stopped the genocide cold.
I guess if those "winners" that formed the security council paid their dues, a resource thin UN wouldn't be susceptable to corruption. The US is notoriously in arrears almost all the time.
How bout you judge the UN by the other programmes which work quite well, like UNICEF, UNHCR and the World Court? I can tell you, I can certainly find a lot of scandal and corruption with the Bush administration, should we decide that the US system of democracy doesn't work?
There most certainly were "weapons caches" - they were stock piles of machetes and AK-47s to be distributed to the militias when the killing started. The weapons were being stored by the RGF government forces and the Presidential Guard and were being distributed to the Interhamwe militia. General Dallaire recieved information about their existance and the planned genocide from an insider in February 1994 a full 2 months before the start of the killing. When he reported that he was going to confiscate the weapons from the caches around Kigali, he was ordered not to. He had about 2500 troops on the ground and could have stopped it right there.
I am not blaming the US for the state of sub-Saharan Africa. I know it is the fault of the European colonialism and paternalism. But that is irrelevant to this. When it came time to support the UN on the ground, it was the US that VETOED resolutions to provide UNAMIR with more troops, resources and logistics, because they somehow had the idea that soldiers shouldn't be killed in war. The UN should not have to beg for resources from governments with ulterior motives, it should have the resources to do it themselves.
BTW, do you know why the UN was there? To implement and enforce the Arusha Peace Accord that was to bring to an end the civil war in Rawanda. It was negotiated by Tanzania with the help of the UN - no colonial European involvment. So once again, the US missed a chance to support fixing a problem instead of sitting back and blaming others. You realize that for about $100 million in February 1994, the properly supported UNAMIR could have prevented a genocide and preventede the deaths of 800 000 innocent people? Instead, the US alone spent $300 million in August and September 1994 to take care of refugees in Goma, Zaire, many of whom were the perpetrators of the genocide rather than the victims. To be quite cold-hearted about it, it would have been in the best ECONOMIC interest of the US to prevent the genocide in the first place. And too bad I have to trot that argument out....
I've was shocked that the world did nothing when the genociode was going on (and I remember it going on), but after reading Gen. Daillaire's book I was horrified how absolutely preventable it was. His first hand account of the tragedy has coloured my thoughts about these kinds of things ever since.
I would encourage everyone to read the book so you have some insight as to why I get so worked up about this...
US troops? Are f*cking kidding me? Have a look at the latest copy of National Geographic. Most of the countries that contribute to the UN the most are third world countries like Ghana or El Salvador. The US isn't even on the list. Please tell me where all these Blue-Beret wearing American troops are.
As for wanting Burundi and Madagascar to have equal say as Germany and the US, I actually do think that's a good idea. Maybe the world will take notice of things that aren't in the strategic interests of the US or have billions of barrels of oil underneath them (often the same thing).
Well, perhaps "world government" is a bit strong. How about giving the UN enough just to police what power and influence it already has?
The Yanks are always whining that they don't want to be the "world's policeman" but then won't pay their UN dues or allow the UN to take over that role for them (but I suppose that would require them to support the International Criminal Court and the International War Crimes tribunal).
Imagine a UN with the recources and logistics to prevent the next Rawanda or to actually capture indicted war criminals in Bosnia or to have enough troops and weapons to deliver aid to Somolia without the US getting it's hand dirty...
Not a world government, but an international body with some teeth, like NATO or TANZAC.
Sorry perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I am not advocating a "World Government" because I agree that would not be a very good thing. But niether am I standing up for a status quo in which 5 memebers of the Security Council can go against the entire world because it's not in their interest. How about a UN that can have troops sent at the drop of a hat to a hot spot at the advice of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations rather than a long, protracted bunch of debates in the Security Council, which won't meet on a weekend, even while thousands dies live, on TV. How about a UN that actually gets money from it's members (like the US, the biggest defaulter on UN dues ther is) and can use it for things like this without having to BEG the great powers for scapes and support they should already have.
It doesn't have to be a World Government but it shouldn't be a World Debating club either.
Rawanda was simple a case in point. The UN had troops on the ground that were ready to do what it took (well, except for the Belgians and Bangeldeshis. The Canadians, Senegalese, Ghanians and Tunisians were ready to do it) to prevent and then stop a genocide. But the UN wouldn't allow it because they couldn't get resources, money or permission from the Security Council members. And since they didn't have any of their own, they HAD to go begging. Maybe a UN that doesn't need to go begging for a few troops (5500 would have stopped the genocide, btw), money to support them and logistics help from member nations will be able to do something in the future.
No, in the case of Rawanda EXACTLY 10 years ago, the UN had armed troops on the ground that were ready, willing and able to go after the weapons caches and the genocidaires but were ordered not to by the Security Council, led by the US, the UK and France.
As for the dysfunctional africa because of a post-colonial past being the foault of the UN I don't see it. The French had military advisors and soldiers on the ground supporting the Goververment of the dictator that planned and started the genocide. The Belgians turned tail and ran like simpering dogs when they lost soldiers in action (imagine that!). All outside the UN or without their approval. Only Canada, Ghana, Senagal and a bunch of useless Bangledeshi's stayed to try to do anything, under the authority of the UN.
Don't be surprised that you think the UN is corrupt and inept when it is the government of the US that undermines it in every way possible. This is called a self-fufilling prophesy.
Well that may be true, but I suspect the people of Rawanda wouldn't have given a tinkers cuss about that kind of BS. Instead of relying on the good graces of the US, UK, France etc the UN could have just gone in and stopped the slaugher of 800 000 innocent people. Lt Gen Romeo Dallaire, who headed UNAMIR at the time, pled with the UN and the Security Council to allow him to conduct offensive operations to at first prevent the genocide by capturing weapons and then to rescue people and stop the killing once it had started. But on at least 3 occasions the US, the UK and France VETOED such action. And the rest is, unfortunately, history.
Given the choices like that, I think having a little "world government" isn't so bad. Maybe not to the extent you seem to be afraid of, but the UN should have WAY more power than it does now.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhm, back bacon isn't ham...think pork backs...guys from the Sourth know what I mean..
Hey pin head, he may have lived in Salem Mass and filed with the US patent office, but he was a Canadian Citizen (originally from Scotland) and spent most of his life in Nova Scotia and Ontario.
So before you go spouting off about being anti-intellectual, try doing a Google search...
Uhmmm, not quite, but close.
Firstly, you've got things WAY out of whack.
First of all our public school system in Ontario is NOT and old protestant system. It has always been a public school system. It was created by Egerton Ryerson (name-sake for Ryerson University in Toronto) in the early 1840s, after the Rebellion of 1837. This public school system was created as part of the reforms brought in by Lafontaine and Baldwin to address the causes of the rebellion.
So the public school system in Ontario is actually older than Canada itself. Religious schools did not recieve government funding.
But during the negotiations for Confederation in 1867, Ontario (predominantly Protestant) agreed to publicly fund a Catholic school system and Quebec (predominantly Catholic) agreed to fund a separate Protestant system. These systems existance were and still are part of our constitution - the British North America Act (1867) (and now the Canada Act 1982). The only issues we have had have been around funding - Ontario would only fund the Catholic system up to grade 10 until 1984, when it funded it fully.
Now, the section of the Contitution dealing with freedom of religion and separation of church and state was added as part of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. So the original requirement for funded religious schools is still there until challenged by someone who will take it to the Supreme Court.
One would think it would be easy to get rid of it, since Quebec no longer has Protestant schools - it now has public English and French systems. Even in Quebec, religious schools such as the Catholics must pay for their schools themselves.
Now, as a father of two children of school age, I agree that our province should not be funding both a Catholic and Public system, both on the basis of expense AND on the basis that it give special status to the Catholic religion that no other religion enjoys (and no religion should enjoy special status). I'm quite sure this violates the separation of church and state, but the ability to challenge it has only been around for about 22 years. And the Catholics have a lot of votes in this province. Also, our Charter has specific provisions that state that it applies to the laws of Canada but not to the other sections of the Contitution itself, so even if it is declared in violation of the charter, the charter may not appply to the section of the old British North America Act that deal with this. It may actually take a contitutional amendmant to fix it (and we all know haow easy THAT is).
So I agree that it is an idiotic system and we should put all of our money into a single, excellent public shcool system with no religious affiliations, but your simplistic explaination of it is just wrong. You need to see it in it's context to see how really silly it is.
Ahhh, I see, you tried for a whole hour to do something that THOUSANDS of others have been able to do (install Tomcat on linux) and when you can't do it (even after looking on Google!) you immediately conclude that it's Java's fault.
/.?
Hmm, interesting.
Well, since I have been able to install and run Tomcat and Java (Sun JDK an IBM) on RedHat and Suse boxes without issue in under an hour. I must assume that the problem lies with Debian or your configuration.
So, try this. At a command prompt type "java -version" and see what it says. Type "echo $JAVA_HOME" and see what it says. Find out what version of Debian you are using. See if your $JAVA_HOME\bin and $JAVA_HOME\lib are in your $PATH. Now take all this information and try the Tomcat mailing list and see what others have done to solve your problem. Oh, and Kaffe, which is only 1.1 compliant is not likely to work. You might want to stick with the Sun or IBM implementations.
If you are missing any of the above information, you may be one step closer to solving you problem.
So, is Debian now "crap" because you couldn't get it to work fast enough? Next time I have trouble installing Galeon, can I make the leap in logic that Mozilla is no good, or that I can post "Fuck you, C" on
Posting opinions, especially strongly worded ones, that are based on false, mistaken, and outright wrong premises are FUD. No different thatn M$ saying the GPL is viral or AdT Institute saying Linus Torvalds stole the source code that became Linux.
Think before you post.
BTW, the above link took me about 3 minutes to find and I didn't even use Google.
Wow, you are dumb as a bag of hammers. If you can't install Tomcat (HINT: tar -xzvf ....) on a linux box, I have to infer that your problem is NOT with Java...perhaps with Debian, but as they say, "The poor worker blames their tools."
/., why not post a question (or God forbid, do a search on the archives of) the Tomcat mailing list...
Fuck you, honestly.
BTW, if you really want help with you issues, instead of taking the time to post FUD at
No actually, the Mounties (with the help of FBI) got a wire-tap warrant for the house in which Mafia Boy lived after tracking him down via IRC lurking. They then intercepted all telephone communications in and out of the house for 3 months, including all internet communications (they also had the cooperation of the ISP, since the kid was using a hacked account at the same ISP as his Dad's real account). The lion's share of the evidence against him came from these intercepts, not lurking.
Oddly enough, the RCMP had to pull the plug and arrest Mafia Boy not because he was about to launch another attack (which he was) but because the same wiretap overheard his father plotting to have a business rival killed in a hit! Great family, eh? No wonder he called himself Mafia Boy...
For more see this for more information.
I believe this is exactly how the RCMP and the Montreal Urban Community Police (MUC) caught Mafia Boy back in 2000....
Shit, it's right-wing propaganda filled BS rants like that that almost make me root for Osama.....
As a Canadian, thanks for your help on D-Day. And Dieppe...oh, wait....I'm sure the Eurpoeans are so glad you waited almost 3 years and until the JAPANESE attacked you before you decided to enter the war on the side of 'democracy'...Oh and thanks for arming the Mujahadeen in the first place...great forsight there from Ronald Reagan and, oh my, Donald Rumsfeld!
As for your timeline damning the Clinton administration I think you need to have your memory cleared up a bit. The 9/11 attack hade been in the planning for YEARS before the Cole. They were two separate attacks carried out by two separate cells of Al Queda. There was no "first the Cole and if it works, World Trade Center!". Even if the US had massively retaliated in response to the Cole, 9/11 would still have happened, perhaps sooner and with more planes. As for the embassies, I seem to remember a few cruise missles being lobbed at Afghanistan in an effort to get OBL for that and then the Republicans and Neo-Cons jumping up and down, claiming Clinton was just doing it to divert attention away from the Lewinski scandal. So when Clinton did try to do something, your ilk, who are NOW suddenly bloodthirsty looking for revenge and willing to fight, stopped him. Gee maybe if you guys had let him lob a few more cruise missle maybe there wouldn't have been a 9/11. Then there's the warnings of an attack your current President ignored. There's plenty of blame for 9/11 to go around in the US so I wouldn't be so quick to start that arguement if I were you.
You know why Europe and Canada were not attacked on September 11, 2001? Because they didn't act like bullies and piss anybody off!!!! We have this annoying tendancy to treat people fairly and not make enemies. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, the real Sage General can conquere his enemy WITHOUT fighting. Check this essay out...written by an USian, I might add.
If you are so sure your course is right, why don't you sign up to go fight in Iraq (or whereever GWB's next target on the Axis of Evil is)? Please, put your money where your mouth is - feel free to send us updates from Paris Island every could of weeks. You sure seem will to put everyone elses ass on the line for your right-wing ideals, I was wondering if you would be willing to put your own there. Or are you just a chickenhawk?
Mark me as a troll, but need I remind you that it wasn't the "modern euro-centric" countries that have been attacked over the last couple of years. Seems to me that it has been the neo-con USian cowboys who've had planes and trains thrown at them. So what was that you were saying "unless you are trying to get someone to attack you"? Tell me again how that is "the real world?"
Man, you should be on K5 - turing a discussion of the worst Star Trek series into a right-wing diatribe....
...what is this G4 everyone is comparing TechTV to?
As a Canadian, I have only seen clips of TechTV (and know some of the hosts are Cannuks), but I though G4 was a processor from Apple...
A little help here...
No, oddly enough he taugh phys-ed. ;)
BTW, I was one of the very few who got 80's and 90's in Physics, Calculus, Chemistry, etc, was a starter on the football and basket ball teams and got top marks in Welding class. But of course, I went to a small rural public county high school (900 to 1100 students, depending on the year) up here in Canada where I could do all those things without being looked at funny.
Bob,
;)
You seem to have issues....
Wow, talk about projection!
BTW, I don't know about YOUR highschool, but at mine, the "in crowd" might have gotten A's in English or Calculus, but everyone of them would have flunked wood shop hard. I was following you until that line. And do you happen to know if anyone got a video of that kiss in Texas? Just curious....
...someone is charging for this device.
Wait, didn't the Greatful Dead allow this with a regular tape recorder for something like 25 years? They even set up a spot where you could put it so it would ge the best sound....
Ah, those were the days. Maybe if more musicians had the attitude of the Dead, this stuff wouldn't be "News."
We miss you Gerry.
Look here
Yes but that's the difference - the problem of generating the energy becomes a problem of technology not physics. It's no longer "impossible", it's "hard to do".
That is a HUGE leap. A little over 100 years ago, it was "impossible" for a human to fly. Then it became really "hard to do" for any length of time and under control. And now I can fly just about anywhere in the world in under 24 hours.... (not to mention space probes on Mars, Hypersonic aircraft etc)
As long as it is no longer impossible by the laws of physics, everything else is a matter of time.
If an institution cannot police the power and influence it putatively has, then by definition does it not in fact lack that power and influence?
Because the UN was not set up with an enforcement arm. Hmmm, who could have wanted that? Given that they have no "police force" or standing army, the UN does a very good job at enforcing it's resolutions, all things considered. I dare say the state of New York couldn't do as well with out the New York State Police, the NYPD or the New York National Guard.
The collective UN membership already has sufficient resources; the apparent limitations are political rather than fundamentally logistical. NATO's relative effectiveness owes much to the closer political alignment of its membership
While that is true, I think the problem is institutional not political. So long as the UN has to beg it's memeber nations on an Ad Hoc basis for things like peacekeeping troops, operational support or simply transportation, we are going to see a lot more Rawandas. The UN doesn't need to change any of it's rules or powers or role in the world. It just needs an always available pool of resources (like peacekeeping troops, operational support and simple transportation) so it can act in the best interests of all nations or the nation affected, rather than have those decisions subsumed by nations with ulterior and at time diametrically opposed motive to that of the UN.
For me it's simple. If the UN had a standing army, or at least a sizable peacekeeping rapid reaction force of highly trained professional from around the world, it would not have and to go to beg the US, the UK and France for support and help. It could simply have acted (as many in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations wanted to in 1994, but were prevent from doing by the Security Council membership), and we would be arguing about Open Source Java instead of preventing genocide (because Rawanda wouldn't have happened).
And in case you have any doubts, your own Marine corp studies Gen Dallaire's plan in 1997 and concluded that 5500 troops with some Armoured APCs would have stopped the genocide cold.
I guess if those "winners" that formed the security council paid their dues, a resource thin UN wouldn't be susceptable to corruption. The US is notoriously in arrears almost all the time.
How bout you judge the UN by the other programmes which work quite well, like UNICEF, UNHCR and the World Court? I can tell you, I can certainly find a lot of scandal and corruption with the Bush administration, should we decide that the US system of democracy doesn't work?
"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water"
There most certainly were "weapons caches" - they were stock piles of machetes and AK-47s to be distributed to the militias when the killing started. The weapons were being stored by the RGF government forces and the Presidential Guard and were being distributed to the Interhamwe militia. General Dallaire recieved information about their existance and the planned genocide from an insider in February 1994 a full 2 months before the start of the killing. When he reported that he was going to confiscate the weapons from the caches around Kigali, he was ordered not to. He had about 2500 troops on the ground and could have stopped it right there.
I am not blaming the US for the state of sub-Saharan Africa. I know it is the fault of the European colonialism and paternalism. But that is irrelevant to this. When it came time to support the UN on the ground, it was the US that VETOED resolutions to provide UNAMIR with more troops, resources and logistics, because they somehow had the idea that soldiers shouldn't be killed in war. The UN should not have to beg for resources from governments with ulterior motives, it should have the resources to do it themselves.
BTW, do you know why the UN was there? To implement and enforce the Arusha Peace Accord that was to bring to an end the civil war in Rawanda. It was negotiated by Tanzania with the help of the UN - no colonial European involvment. So once again, the US missed a chance to support fixing a problem instead of sitting back and blaming others. You realize that for about $100 million in February 1994, the properly supported UNAMIR could have prevented a genocide and preventede the deaths of 800 000 innocent people? Instead, the US alone spent $300 million in August and September 1994 to take care of refugees in Goma, Zaire, many of whom were the perpetrators of the genocide rather than the victims. To be quite cold-hearted about it, it would have been in the best ECONOMIC interest of the US to prevent the genocide in the first place. And too bad I have to trot that argument out....
To all those who will read my emotional and at time angry responses to some posters below:
Before you judge me to harshly or think I'm some kind of nut, please read Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rawanda.
I've was shocked that the world did nothing when the genociode was going on (and I remember it going on), but after reading Gen. Daillaire's book I was horrified how absolutely preventable it was. His first hand account of the tragedy has coloured my thoughts about these kinds of things ever since.
I would encourage everyone to read the book so you have some insight as to why I get so worked up about this...
US troops? Are f*cking kidding me? Have a look at the latest copy of National Geographic. Most of the countries that contribute to the UN the most are third world countries like Ghana or El Salvador. The US isn't even on the list. Please tell me where all these Blue-Beret wearing American troops are.
As for wanting Burundi and Madagascar to have equal say as Germany and the US, I actually do think that's a good idea. Maybe the world will take notice of things that aren't in the strategic interests of the US or have billions of barrels of oil underneath them (often the same thing).
Well, perhaps "world government" is a bit strong. How about giving the UN enough just to police what power and influence it already has?
The Yanks are always whining that they don't want to be the "world's policeman" but then won't pay their UN dues or allow the UN to take over that role for them (but I suppose that would require them to support the International Criminal Court and the International War Crimes tribunal).
Imagine a UN with the recources and logistics to prevent the next Rawanda or to actually capture indicted war criminals in Bosnia or to have enough troops and weapons to deliver aid to Somolia without the US getting it's hand dirty...
Not a world government, but an international body with some teeth, like NATO or TANZAC.
Sorry perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I am not advocating a "World Government" because I agree that would not be a very good thing. But niether am I standing up for a status quo in which 5 memebers of the Security Council can go against the entire world because it's not in their interest. How about a UN that can have troops sent at the drop of a hat to a hot spot at the advice of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations rather than a long, protracted bunch of debates in the Security Council, which won't meet on a weekend, even while thousands dies live, on TV. How about a UN that actually gets money from it's members (like the US, the biggest defaulter on UN dues ther is) and can use it for things like this without having to BEG the great powers for scapes and support they should already have.
It doesn't have to be a World Government but it shouldn't be a World Debating club either.
Rawanda was simple a case in point. The UN had troops on the ground that were ready to do what it took (well, except for the Belgians and Bangeldeshis. The Canadians, Senegalese, Ghanians and Tunisians were ready to do it) to prevent and then stop a genocide. But the UN wouldn't allow it because they couldn't get resources, money or permission from the Security Council members. And since they didn't have any of their own, they HAD to go begging. Maybe a UN that doesn't need to go begging for a few troops (5500 would have stopped the genocide, btw), money to support them and logistics help from member nations will be able to do something in the future.
Or maybe because the US refused to pay its dues.
No, in the case of Rawanda EXACTLY 10 years ago, the UN had armed troops on the ground that were ready, willing and able to go after the weapons caches and the genocidaires but were ordered not to by the Security Council, led by the US, the UK and France.
As for the dysfunctional africa because of a post-colonial past being the foault of the UN I don't see it. The French had military advisors and soldiers on the ground supporting the Goververment of the dictator that planned and started the genocide. The Belgians turned tail and ran like simpering dogs when they lost soldiers in action (imagine that!). All outside the UN or without their approval. Only Canada, Ghana, Senagal and a bunch of useless Bangledeshi's stayed to try to do anything, under the authority of the UN.
Don't be surprised that you think the UN is corrupt and inept when it is the government of the US that undermines it in every way possible. This is called a self-fufilling prophesy.
Well that may be true, but I suspect the people of Rawanda wouldn't have given a tinkers cuss about that kind of BS. Instead of relying on the good graces of the US, UK, France etc the UN could have just gone in and stopped the slaugher of 800 000 innocent people. Lt Gen Romeo Dallaire, who headed UNAMIR at the time, pled with the UN and the Security Council to allow him to conduct offensive operations to at first prevent the genocide by capturing weapons and then to rescue people and stop the killing once it had started. But on at least 3 occasions the US, the UK and France VETOED such action. And the rest is, unfortunately, history.
Given the choices like that, I think having a little "world government" isn't so bad. Maybe not to the extent you seem to be afraid of, but the UN should have WAY more power than it does now.
"Keep your friends close ... and your enemies closer"