The UN is for lazy people

On the way home, I listened to a good interview on the radio with Jed Babbin promoting his new book Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think. The book sounds promising, but based on Amazon reviews, it’s more of a quick summary rather than an in-depth review.

Part of his thesis is that the UN takes traditional diplomacy and puts it into a useless debating forum without action. Babbin argues that because no action is taken, the UN actually makes war more likely. This got me thinking, perhaps there is a simple reason why leftists love the UN – they’re lazy. The UN wants to be the socialist government for the world. Take the world and put it into one centralized pot. But like all socialist governments, this breeds laziness and freedom from responsibility. Why try if the U.N. will take care of it? Got a problem? Leave it up to the U.N. If not their selling point, it’s the model they want to create.

Why do leftists love socialism? Because they don’t have to work. No job? Don’t worry, the government will take care of it. Got a problem? Leave it up to the government. When you look at its track record, the U.N. hasn’t done much in terms of results. But I think for the left, it presents an easy out. Lazy…

One of my favorite Winston Churchill quotes is “We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds; we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets; we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” It captures the essence of the fighting spirit of old. If diplomacy fails, F-U we’ll go it alone.

Here’s my leftist translation of the same quote: “We shall take it to the U.N.; we shall seek to pass resolutions against it; we shall study it in committees and subcommittees; we shall invoke clauses and bylaws; we shall never act unilaterally.”

Not exactly the stuff that captures the imagination.

Another Reason not to vote for Kerry

I’m no expert on international relations, but it always seemed to me we were strong enough and big enough; our job–duty–is to stand beside those who believe as we do – in free elections, a free press, a judicial system that aims at rule of law. If Israel seems occasionally uncomfortably tribal, it is a good deal less so than the countries that surround it. But what is Kerry’s plan? Note Kristol’s column. Also, observe Krauthammer.And the delightful new blogger, Kudlow.

As someone who grew up surrounded by Czechs, Latvians, and Cubans, I’ve always felt we have a duty not to throw the smaller nations, especially those with whom we share values, off the sled to distract the wolves. (Not that I think Israel will take being tossed over very calmly and its relatively martial attitude may lead to crises we will not be able to ignore. Good for them. Even worse for us.) Nor are the wolves likely to stay long satisfied. I remember Taborsky talking about sitting behind, as secretary to, Benes in that build up to World War II that so easily sacrificed the Czechs. All the sentimentality (based on guilt perhaps) of Casablanca and The Third Man can not ignore the fact that they were sacrificed, a sop to wolves, who only became stronger.

The Libertarian Gap

(crossposted on Flit(TM))

The Gap, or more formally the Non-Integrating Gap, is a concept at the core of Dr. Barnett’s The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century. But what is the Gap? This question comes to me every time I read a libertarian critic of the concept.

Gap countries are, by definition disconnected from the global rulesets that manage the Core, those states where a disturbingly large proportion of the world wants to get into. I say disturbingly because, all things being equal, there is really no reason for people socially acculturated and biologically specialized to warm climes to make their way in large numbers to nordic nations, but they do. Something pretty special must be attracting them while simultaneously repelling them from their ancient homelands. That something is clear after a bit of investigation, huge waves of horrifying violence interspersed with a daily brutality of individual denigration and lack of the normal rights to live out their lives in control of their own destiny.

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Meanwhile, in Afghanistan

I received the following essay on Afghanistan in an email from AEI. I thought it interesting enough to post here. It was written by Radek Sikorski in his trademark style; a mixture of optimism and hard-nosed reality.

For thoses not familiar with Radek, he’s a Polish emigre, a former Afghan guerrilla, an award winning photographer, a foreign correspondent, a political analyst and a former deputy defense minister of Free Poland. He’s currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Radek writes:

Nothing like hot dust in one’s face and the roar of a low-flying helicopter gunship to make a man feel alive. The last time I heard that sound in Afghanistan was in 1987: A patrol of Soviet Mi-24s were spitting gunfire at the house in which I was hiding with a mujahedeen convoy, in a village near Kandahar. This time, though, the sound of gunships–these decorated with the American white star instead of a Soviet red on the side–did not make me duck. On the contrary: The sound of helicopters in Kabul is now hopeful evidence of the foreign presence giving Afghanistan its best chance in 25 years.

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