Just Watching Movies in the Basement, Dad
"For what so that this carpenter answered,
It was for nought: no man his reasoning heard;
With others so great he was put down
That he was thought mad by all the town."
- Chaucer, The Miller's Tale
In Chaucer's tale a jealous, yet simple and kind carpenter, John, hosts a young student, Nicholas, during the boy's stay in college. Nicholas, a crafty and testosterone-laden youth, convinces his host that a great flood will come to destroy the entire town, and John must build some tubs to save all John, his wife, Alison, and Nicholas. While awaiting the flood, Nicholas and Alison descend from the tubs to fulfill their natural, sexual desires, and when the final scene unfolds, John, now the cuckold, is considered the fool of the town. When his neighbors come to his house, all delight in his impotence and ignorance.
Today, two different countries cuckold Old Man United Nations. First, according to today's Washington Post, Sudan's leader, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al -Bashir rejected a UN mandate to place troops in Darfur in order to stop the carnage on the civilians caught in a power struggle between the Sudanese government and the rebels. Second, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ignored the UN deadline to halt its nuclear program. Now he and his country, with enormous oil reserves, face economic sanctions.
What will the United Nations do? Tighten the belt on Sudan, one of the poorest nations on the planet? If that course occurs, the Sudanese government will suffer nothing as its population dwindles on the edge of extinction. Those in power will get their money the old fashioned way, they will steal it. For Iran, limit the nation's ability to export oil while world-wide supplies deminish and demand increases? Will the European nations, Russia, China, and for that matter the United States tolerate $100-a-barrel oil in order to stiffle the Iranian economy?
Niall Ferguson in his book, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, cites that Woodrow Wilson envisioned the League of Nations, the UN's predecessor, "would not merely guarantee the territorial integrity of its member states but might consider making future territorial adjustments 'pursuant to the principle of self-determination'" (p. 63). Years later, the Nazis rose to power through self-determining, democratic elections and began violating borders as soon as they could. The embers of the League extinguished on the day Germany invaded Poland. Now, the world witnesses similar defiance. What will stop the genocide, estimated to have cost 450,000 lives according to the Washington Post article above, when a dictator refuses to allow the UN troops to enter? What will stop the Iranians from developing a weapon to realize their deepest, seediest desire, "wiping [Israel] off the map"?
Unless you favor continued mass killing and future nation-sinking, diplomacy in a vacuum will not produce a peaceful solution. In Chaucer's tale, the neighbors perpetuate the crime, the humiliation of a man who had offered his home to a homeless student. The neighbors join in the fun and make no moral stand. The joke, the "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" between neighbor and reader, continues in front of the oblivious and helpless John. In this world stage, the Two Rogues have rendered the UN impotent because of the fracture within the security council. For example, in the Darfur resolution to commit troops, a resolution approved 12-0, China, Russia, and Qatar abstained. Why? Surely, those nations cannot believe mass killing a resonable activity for a government to perform. Likewise, in the case of Iran, Russia and China, and in many ways France, oppose the diplomatic objectives of the United States and Britain; thus, President Bush retorts that the US will go it alone and all responses are possible. Surely, the Chinese, Russians, and French cannot believe another Middle East war, either nuclear or conventional, to be a positive development in the progress of man.
These complicated situations warrant complicated solutions, but in reality, the Chinese and Russians have tremendous power to resolve them peacefully. They must make the just decision, to commit the men and materiel to stop both, and ignore their desire to counteract US hegemony. Otherwise, the UN peacefully sleeps, blissfully ignorant of all the sneaky behavior occuring downstairs.
It was for nought: no man his reasoning heard;
With others so great he was put down
That he was thought mad by all the town."
- Chaucer, The Miller's Tale
In Chaucer's tale a jealous, yet simple and kind carpenter, John, hosts a young student, Nicholas, during the boy's stay in college. Nicholas, a crafty and testosterone-laden youth, convinces his host that a great flood will come to destroy the entire town, and John must build some tubs to save all John, his wife, Alison, and Nicholas. While awaiting the flood, Nicholas and Alison descend from the tubs to fulfill their natural, sexual desires, and when the final scene unfolds, John, now the cuckold, is considered the fool of the town. When his neighbors come to his house, all delight in his impotence and ignorance.
Today, two different countries cuckold Old Man United Nations. First, according to today's Washington Post, Sudan's leader, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al -Bashir rejected a UN mandate to place troops in Darfur in order to stop the carnage on the civilians caught in a power struggle between the Sudanese government and the rebels. Second, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ignored the UN deadline to halt its nuclear program. Now he and his country, with enormous oil reserves, face economic sanctions.
What will the United Nations do? Tighten the belt on Sudan, one of the poorest nations on the planet? If that course occurs, the Sudanese government will suffer nothing as its population dwindles on the edge of extinction. Those in power will get their money the old fashioned way, they will steal it. For Iran, limit the nation's ability to export oil while world-wide supplies deminish and demand increases? Will the European nations, Russia, China, and for that matter the United States tolerate $100-a-barrel oil in order to stiffle the Iranian economy?
Niall Ferguson in his book, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, cites that Woodrow Wilson envisioned the League of Nations, the UN's predecessor, "would not merely guarantee the territorial integrity of its member states but might consider making future territorial adjustments 'pursuant to the principle of self-determination'" (p. 63). Years later, the Nazis rose to power through self-determining, democratic elections and began violating borders as soon as they could. The embers of the League extinguished on the day Germany invaded Poland. Now, the world witnesses similar defiance. What will stop the genocide, estimated to have cost 450,000 lives according to the Washington Post article above, when a dictator refuses to allow the UN troops to enter? What will stop the Iranians from developing a weapon to realize their deepest, seediest desire, "wiping [Israel] off the map"?
Unless you favor continued mass killing and future nation-sinking, diplomacy in a vacuum will not produce a peaceful solution. In Chaucer's tale, the neighbors perpetuate the crime, the humiliation of a man who had offered his home to a homeless student. The neighbors join in the fun and make no moral stand. The joke, the "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" between neighbor and reader, continues in front of the oblivious and helpless John. In this world stage, the Two Rogues have rendered the UN impotent because of the fracture within the security council. For example, in the Darfur resolution to commit troops, a resolution approved 12-0, China, Russia, and Qatar abstained. Why? Surely, those nations cannot believe mass killing a resonable activity for a government to perform. Likewise, in the case of Iran, Russia and China, and in many ways France, oppose the diplomatic objectives of the United States and Britain; thus, President Bush retorts that the US will go it alone and all responses are possible. Surely, the Chinese, Russians, and French cannot believe another Middle East war, either nuclear or conventional, to be a positive development in the progress of man.
These complicated situations warrant complicated solutions, but in reality, the Chinese and Russians have tremendous power to resolve them peacefully. They must make the just decision, to commit the men and materiel to stop both, and ignore their desire to counteract US hegemony. Otherwise, the UN peacefully sleeps, blissfully ignorant of all the sneaky behavior occuring downstairs.
posted by Henry Plantagenet at 6:18 AM
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