UN critics blast away at wrong target

In a perfect world there would be no United Nations. There simply wouldn’t be any need for the UN. The world’s almost 200 independent nations would be at peace with each other, conflicts and wars a thing of the past.

But that’s not how the current world works. Animosity between states, dangerous territorial disputes between neighbours and outright wars remain facts of life.

And caught in the middle of all this is the present day United Nations, an organization frequently denounced for its perceived failings, its inability to stop violence and widespread bloodshed in various parts of the international community.

The United Nations has recently been widely criticized for not stopping the horrific violence and massacres in Syria with 25,00030,000 reportedly killed, the majority by the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Canada’s foreign minister, John Baird, has joined the chorus condemning the UN’s failure to end the killings in Syria. In an address to the UN General Assembly this week, Baird castigated the UN for spending its time in “fruitless” internal reviews of itself instead of acting forcefully to stop the atrocities in Syria.

Notwithstanding that many Canadians might understandably share the sentiments Baird expressed, it’s also important to realize that the UN can only be as effective as its member nations allow it to be. And many often are prepared to block anything running counter to their own narrow national interests, as both the Soviet Union and United States demonstrated repeatedly during the Cold War and later.

It’s a reality that governments which constantly complain about the UN’s purported failures should bear in mind, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper who clearly holds the UN in disdain. (Some suspect Harper’s failure to address this year’s UN General Assembly might be related to the fact that when he addressed it in 2010 he spoke to an almost empty auditorium.)

Many countries are prone to ignore the numerous positive accomplishments of UN agencies in such critical areas as providing life-saving assistance for refugees forced to flee conflict zones or other forms of badly needed assistance.

In the case of the tragedy occurring in the Syrian civil war, it’s not the United Nations organization preventing efforts to stop that conflict but rather the refusal of Russia and China to allow the UN Security Council to pass a required resolution authorizing military intervention by UN forces to end the fighting.

However, during his UN address, Baird failed to criticize either Russia or China for blocking UN intervention, some cynics suggesting the high priority given by the Harper government to broadening trade and economic relations with Beijing, especially affecting the Alberta tarsands, may at least partially explain the reticence about China’s role in preventing a UN Security Council resolution.

Such omissions are common. Despite the importance given by the United States and other western governments to combating Islamist extremism, no western nations, including the Harper government, have ever denounced the Saudi authorities for directly or indirectly promoting and financing Islamist groups that preach hatred of non-Muslims, particularly Christians and Jews.

Nor have the U.S. and other western governments publicly condemned oil-rich Saudi and Persian Gulf states for oppressing their own populations, denying their people fundamental human rights.

While governments in the U.S. and European Union denounce the minority Alawite Syrian regime for its oppression of the Sunni majority, the Obama administration has chosen to soft pedal the oppression of Bahrain’s Shiite majority, including confirmed torture of political dissidents by the minority Sunni Al Khalifa royal family. Could this be related in any way to the fact that Bahrain houses the naval base of the U.S. Fifth Fleet?

In addition, although the United States and other western nations, including the Harper government, are vociferous in demanding Iran end its nuclear program and want to impose even more draconian economic sanctions, there is no apparent concern over the possession of nuclear bombs by India, Pakistan or Israel, all three of which acquired such weapons secretly, Israel doing so with the knowledge of the U.S.

In such a self-serving world replete with sanctimonious lecturing of others for their alleged deficiencies or crimes, what Canadian and other representatives say at the United Nations will, predictably, fall on deaf ears in many parts of the international community.