Now they need to create Southeast Sudan and Southwest Sudan.

FTFA: The United Nations, which has 3,000 combat-ready peacekeepers in South Sudan, tracked the advancing fighters from helicopters for days before the massacre and rushed in about 400 soldiers.

But the peacekeepers did not fire a single shot, saying they were greatly outnumbered and could have easily been massacred themselves.

Remember back in the 90s when Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali suggested the UN create a heavily-armed shock force and the US blanched? Well, wouldn't those guys have been useful today...

/collective legitimization: how does it work?

Sad? What happened to the obvious tag?

T.I.A.

So, when you throw money at problems, it doesn't always make everything better. Who knew?

FTA: "The attack was presaged by a fund-raising drive for the Nuer militia in the United States - a troubling sign that behind the raiders toting Kalashnikovs and singing war songs was an active back office half a world away."

This is the same thing dozens of Islamic "charities" in the U.S. do.

Seth'n'Spectrum: Remember back in the 90s when Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali suggested the UN create a heavily-armed shock force and the US blanched? Well, wouldn't those guys have been useful today...

/collective legitimization: how does it work?


Yeah, probably would've worked as well as it did in the Congo. UN troops are notoriously useless as the whole system is set up so that third world countries can make cash off of letting the UN utilize their badly trained, badly armed, often child raping soldiers. Oh, and so their third world officers can make a bunch of war profit while in the area.

Seth'n'Spectrum: FTFA: The United Nations, which has 3,000 combat-ready peacekeepers in South Sudan, tracked the advancing fighters from helicopters for days before the massacre and rushed in about 400 soldiers.

But the peacekeepers did not fire a single shot, saying they were greatly outnumbered and could have easily been massacred themselves.

Remember back in the 90s when Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali suggested the UN create a heavily-armed shock force and the US blanched? Well, wouldn't those guys have been useful today...

/collective legitimization: how does it work?

The US just sent in 100 combat troops to central Africa in October.... and it appears no one really noticed.
'Boots on the ground'.

"Ultimately, they'll also deploy in South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

/ see "Obama Deploys 100 U.S. Combat Troops to Aid Africa Anti-Insurgency"

Spade: Yeah, probably would've worked as well as it did in the Congo. UN troops are notoriously useless as the whole system is set up so that third world countries can make cash off of letting the UN utilize their badly trained, badly armed, often child raping soldiers. Oh, and so their third world officers can make a bunch of war profit while in the area.

Boutros-Ghali was proposing reforms to make the peacekeepers more professional, more experienced, more effective precisely because of failings like the Congo and elsewhere.

The US attitude to the UN is a carbon-copy of the Republican attitude to government: It's bad because it doesn't work, but it doesn't work because we go out of our way to sabotage it.

/that's not to say the US is the only problem-maker in the UN, but it's a very, very big one.

imontheinternet: So, when you throw money at problems, it doesn't always make everything better. Who knew?

[end foreign entanglements.jpg]

Shocking isn't it. We can't fix Haiti. How-in-the-hell does anyone think we can fix Africa?

Let's use US tax dollars for US infrastructure and energy research instead of giving it away to various colors of people around the world. Especially when it doesn't support our national interests.

Africa wins again.

mdeesnuts: Shocking isn't it. We can't fix Haiti. How-in-the-hell does anyone think we can fix Africa?

Let's use US tax dollars for US infrastructure and energy research instead of giving it away to various colors of people around the world. Especially when it doesn't support our national interests.

Places in poverty, like Africa, often have extremely high birthrates. It's a bit callous to think this way, but for every person you feed, you are ensuring that he or she survives to have ten children. Now, instead of one starving, suffering African, there's 11.

Meanwhile, no local economy can ever develop. How can Intumbo, the dirt-farmer, hope to compete in the market, when there's a UN truck just down the road handing out free food? Nobody's going to pay for his crops, when there's a fresh batch of Monsanto's genetically engineered western deliciousness a short walk away. He may as well pack up his stand and go to the truck like everyone else.

OBVIOUS tag got kidnapped and buried in a hole somewhere in Sudan.

imontheinternet: mdeesnuts: Shocking isn't it. We can't fix Haiti. How-in-the-hell does anyone think we can fix Africa?

Let's use US tax dollars for US infrastructure and energy research instead of giving it away to various colors of people around the world. Especially when it doesn't support our national interests.

Places in poverty, like Africa, often have extremely high birthrates. It's a bit callous to think this way, but for every person you feed, you are ensuring that he or she survives to have ten children. Now, instead of one starving, suffering African, there's 11.

teach a man to fish, he's fed for life

give a man a fish, tomorrow you need 11 fishes

Trance750: D135: imontheinternet: mdeesnuts: Shocking isn't it. We can't fix Haiti. How-in-the-hell does anyone think we can fix Africa?

Let's use US tax dollars for US infrastructure and energy research instead of giving it away to various colors of people around the world. Especially when it doesn't support our national interests.

Places in poverty, like Africa, often have extremely high birthrates. It's a bit callous to think this way, but for every person you feed, you are ensuring that he or she survives to have ten children. Now, instead of one starving, suffering African, there's 11.

teach a man to fish, he's fed for life

give a man a fish, tomorrow you need 11 fishes

Give a a man fish, and he eats for a day

Train a man how to fish and he eats for a lifetime

Train a man how to teach his neighbors to fish, and you have a self-reliant society.

Train a man to let someone else catch the fish for him, and you've got a Democrat.

/casting

Development aid is a waste of money. More than thirty years of doing this 'professionally' should have proved this by now.

"The attack was presaged by a fund-raising drive for the Nuer militia in the United States - a troubling sign that behind the raiders toting Kalashnikovs and singing war songs was an active back office half a world away. "


Hmmmmm....

Seth'n'Spectrum: FTFA: The United Nations, which has 3,000 combat-ready peacekeepers in South Sudan, tracked the advancing fighters from helicopters for days before the massacre and rushed in about 400 soldiers.

But the peacekeepers did not fire a single shot, saying they were greatly outnumbered and could have easily been massacred themselves.

Remember back in the 90s when Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali suggested the UN create a heavily-armed shock force and the US blanched? Well, wouldn't those guys have been useful today...

/collective legitimization: how does it work?


Reread that part you quoted. They UN had 3,000 combat-ready troops already in South Sudan. They sent 400, who did nothing, because they were outnumbered. Think that over.

Isildur: They UN had 3,000 combat-ready troops already in South Sudan. They sent 400, who did nothing, because they were outnumbered.

'Combat-ready troops' does not mean what you think it means. Read the Canadian commander Dallaire's account of the troops he had under him in Rwanda back in 1994. The UN needs better quality soldiers, not just the grunts volunteered up by India, Pakistan, and whoever else is trying to curry favor for a Security Council seat. These guys aren't exactly cream of the crop.

The fact that they had 3,000 peacekeepers in the field but could only move 400 probably also speaks to understaffing of the mission and/or logistics problems.

Seth'n'Spectrum: Isildur: They UN had 3,000 combat-ready troops already in South Sudan. They sent 400, who did nothing, because they were outnumbered.

'Combat-ready troops' does not mean what you think it means. Read the Canadian commander Dallaire's account of the troops he had under him in Rwanda back in 1994. The UN needs better quality soldiers, not just the grunts volunteered up by India, Pakistan, and whoever else is trying to curry favor for a Security Council seat. These guys aren't exactly cream of the crop.

The fact that they had 3,000 peacekeepers in the field but could only move 400 probably also speaks to understaffing of the mission and/or logistics problems.


Ok, expert, what exactly does combat-ready mean in this context, and why, with days of warning, could only 400 people out of 3,000 be mustered?

Isildur: Ok, expert, what exactly does combat-ready mean in this context, and why, with days of warning, could only 400 people out of 3,000 be mustered?

Unless you're on the ground there now, it's impossible to know precisely the answers to your questions. I'm not posting from Juba, okay? But it's pretty obvious that the UN mission there is again anemically staffed and if you've read any of the literature on UN peacekeeping missions throughout the developing world it becomes readily apparent that this is just another example of how security council sponsors keep shooting best intentions in the feet.

3,000 dudes for a big-ass country? Are you surprised they were only able to bring together 400 people to a flashpoint?

Everyone who wants to fix Africa's problems raise your hand. Is that everyone? Good.

Now everyone with a hand raised go to Wal Mart and buy a rifle, this one will work fine. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Bushmaster-M4A3-.223-REM-16-Patrol-Carbine/1 9235996

Then buy some camping gear, then a plane ticket to Egypt and have your gear shipped to you. Then you all meet together and solve Africa's problems. In addition this would simultaneously solve my problems of having to listen to you.

Obligatory bash quote about africa:
http://bash.org/?4474

Africa isn't one country. It's fifty some odd countries (56? 57?) and has a total land mass larger than North America. Things are very different in various parts of the continent. While places like the DRC and Sudan have lots of problems there are countries like Tanzania that have long been peaceful. Heck, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda (yes, Rwanda!) are moving on a path to forming a federal state. While it's not Iowa or even New Jersey, East Africa also isn't Angola of the 70s through 90s.

As far as feeding people causes the population to increase, well that's true but not the whole story. When people are given even a minimal education, birth rates go down. This is especially true for women. Also when people's children are given immunizations, birth rates go down because the parents no long have to play "suriving children" roulette. So yes, merely feeding people can make a problem worse but include a basic education and some basic shots and things are more likely to stabilize.

Sometimes aid doesn't help. Sometimes it makes things worse but most well focused aid has a very positive effect. Not much good happens in the world without also having some bad come with it. The tradeoff is usually worth it in the end.

Seth'n'Spectrum: Isildur: Ok, expert, what exactly does combat-ready mean in this context, and why, with days of warning, could only 400 people out of 3,000 be mustered?

Unless you're on the ground there now, it's impossible to know precisely the answers to your questions. I'm not posting from Juba, okay? But it's pretty obvious that the UN mission there is again anemically staffed and if you've read any of the literature on UN peacekeeping missions throughout the developing world it becomes readily apparent that this is just another example of how security council sponsors keep shooting best intentions in the feet.

3,000 dudes for a big-ass country? Are you surprised they were only able to bring together 400 people to a flashpoint?


Yes, I am. A lot of what you say makes sense, except for the order of magnitude of the final number.

Out of three thousand "combat-ready" personnel...
With several days' warning...
400.


That doesn't sound like the U.N. planned to intervene. It sounds more like a case of "We'll send just enough people to deter attacks against themselves, but other than that, we're just going to document what happens, and hope our presence influences fighters to rein themselves in a bit because they know the world is watching."

Ever since the debacle in Somalia a few years back, no one from outside Africa--whether they have 3,000 soldiers to spare or 30,000-- has had much appetite for sacrificing a significant number of their own soldiers' lives for the sake of getting in the middle of another civil war in Africa. (And yes, I know Africa is a huge and diverse continent-- that doesn't mean that the sentiment I just described doesn't exist, even if it's unfair that it does.)

And the U.N., by its very nature, is ill-equipped to manage a military that can rapidly react with a heavy show of force, in these kinds of crises. I'm not one of the people claiming the U.N. has no purpose, but there isn't nearly enough consensus among its members for it to effectively do many of the of the things one might otherwise hope of it.

Isildur: And the U.N., by its very nature, is ill-equipped to manage a military that can rapidly react with a heavy show of force, in these kinds of crises. I'm not one of the people claiming the U.N. has no purpose, but there isn't nearly enough consensus among its members for it to effectively do many of the of the things one might otherwise hope of it.

The soviets were good at suppressing this kind of violence. Maybe we can pay them to do it again.