One more reason why Bush should pull out of the United Nations.

Newsflash, John. This kind of stuff goes on ALL OVER THE WORLD. Wherever there are degenerate and nefarious men, there will be victims. Case in point: wasn’t there a major teenage prostitution sting a year or so back with big ties to Cleveland???

Why would you waste your time and ours by implying that this is somehow specific to the UN troops?

Of course, if I wanted to be like you guys, I could just pull the old "Its not NEARLY as bad as what Saddam did to his prisoners" argument. But unlike many Conservatives, I don’t employ such arguments for sake of convenience.

"It’s a good thing there are no gay people in the military because otherwise weird sex stuff might happen.

- Tina Fey, on the Iraq Prison Scandal

This kind of stuff goes on ALL OVER THE WORLD. Wherever there are degenerate and nefarious men, there will be victims.

Wow, that’s a pretty tame response to human rights abuses, given your outrage over Abu Ghraib.

Of course, Starbuck could respond by saying that, as Americans, we have a particular responsibility to be outraged about abuses committed by our own troops. After all, the military is accountable to the civilian government, and the civilian government is accountable to its citizens. And he would be absolutely correct.

But who’s going to get outraged about what’s being done in Africa by U.N. troops? Which major metropolitan newspaper will put stories about the Congo on their front pages? Who’s going to spearhead the investigation? Who’s going to hold hearings? What U.N. leaders’ jobs are in jeopardy over this?

These questions answer themselves--we all know that no one will bother much about what U.N. forces do in the Congo. Starbuck is certainly right: this sort of thing goes on all the time, and most likely always will. Psychological experiments suggest that if you give one group power over another, a previously unseen sadism will manifest itself in at least some of those with the power.

So what’s the difference between Abu Ghraib and the Congo? The U.S. Army is accountable, so that there are effective ways of holding it responsible for the actions of some of its members. The United Nations, by contrast, is accountable only to itself, and is therefore devoid of any real legal or moral authority.

I like the Tina Fey comment, by the way.

Wow, that’s a pretty tame response to human rights abuses, given your outrage over Abu Ghraib.

Trust me, John. I’m just as outraged by this event as I am the goings on at Abu Ghrab (Did that not come through in the "degenerate and nefarious" comment?). I worked with battered, abused and sexually exploited teens and women for eight years of my life. I’ve seen these things first-hand and I can tell you that you haven’t seen outrage until you’ve seen a fourteen year-old prostitute hospitalized after being brutally attacked and sodomized by her pimp with a baseball bat, only to return to him so that he can murder her four months later. Don’t doubt for a second that I take a story like this VERY seriously.

Rather, my response was motivated by your implication that that this type of thing was somehow specific - or at least par for the course - when it comes to UN soldiers, which we know is not the case. History tells us that similar offenses have been committed by the US Armed Forces (and one need not go back too far to encounter such antics). Yet, I’m sure that John would be among the first to argue that the entire army should not be characterized by the actions of a few.

But who’s going to get outraged about what’s being done in Africa by U.N. troops?

Brace yourself, John --- I happen to agree with you on this one. Americans - as a whole (and that includes Conservatives AND Democrats) - seem to care little for what goes on outside our own country... at least until it affects us personally. I’m reminded of the Spanish train bombings a couple of months ago - an event that was regarded by much of the world as "Spain’s 9/11." Yet, how did most Americans react to hearing the news? Most of us shrugged it off. Now, is our centricity a bad thing or a good thing? I can imagine arguments for both.

But do we have a right to be outraged by the lack of outrage by the U.N. and the rest of the World? No. Last time I checked, we were still a member of the UN (not to mention, the strongest country in the world). It is certainly within our nation’s means to lend attention to this issue, but we won’t bother with it because our current Adminstration has nothing to gain from doing so. So much for moral authority.

Psychological experiments suggest that if you give one group power over another, a previously unseen sadism will manifest itself in at least some of those with the power.

See this film: The Experiment

Tina Fey is pure goddess, by the way.

Hey Startroll,
Why isn’t the caring "progressive" press in the US all over this?
And why is this a pattern during UN operations?
And why haven’t the soldiers been court martialed? If it was the US Army, the problem would have been taken care of long ago.
And, yes, it is a big deal if the UN is to have any legitimacy (which it doesn’t after repeated problems of this sort + the "Oil for UN and Saddam" program.

Tony, I have bad news and good news for you. Which do you want first? The good news? Ok, the good news is that once you learn how to read, you’ll find that all of the questions you’ve asked have been answered for you. The bad news? You’ll still be an imbecile.

John, you’re right on target. In fact, let’s just ditch the whole effort to get U.N. involvement in Iraq -- stop talking to Brahimi, and just have American troops do all of the security work from now until a sovereign Iraqi government kicks us out. That solution will be a heck of a lot better, and it has the virtue of being in line with the views of a lot of Republicans, i.e., multilateralism is for weak-kneed liberal America-haters.

Indeed.

And thanks to Glenn Reynolds for once again elevating the civic discourse in this country with truly important, novel, and constructive criticism. . .