• Rohingya: UN calls for Myanmar generals to be prosecuted for genocide, war crime
    19 replies, posted
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/un-investigators-myanmar-latest-news-prosecuted-genocide-investigated-a8509466.html Nothing had been done while people were getting slaughtered, so how will this be any different?
Why wasn't any of this brought on to the NATO forces and PMC's that operated in Iraq for the massacres that happened there either. Oh wait, the hypocrisy is real. Not saying that this shouldn't be done, it should, but the sword should swing both ways or you just end up pointing and screaming at eachother pointlessly.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/13/former-blackwater-guards-sentencing-baghdad-massacre Also lol at you playing whataboutism in response to a state led campaign of ethnic cleansing
I'm not speaking about independent incidents and personal blame as much as I'm talking about an illegal war that caused the deaths and still causes the deaths of tens of thousands in the region for what was essentially an oil grab. I'm not comparing the two, I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of the UN's ability to reflect on it's own actions. What is happening is horrific, I won't take that away.
The UN didn't invade Iraq
No, you're quite right, just two of the leading member states of both, among others. The UK and the US went in, and the rest of the UN mumbled quietly as they soaked up the resources, the same happened with Afghanistan, however many more countries joined in on this one. To fight the Taliban? Well, maybe. This is a speech given by an ex foreign ambassador for the UK government, the speech is given at an event during the Scottish independence, the question on the ballot as "Should Scotland be an independent country?". Just for a little context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktu4BPOD04w What we have here is a whistle blower, a high ranking one, which has gone largely unrecognized by the media. He was removed from his post for asking the the UK Foreign Office to stop working with the Uzbek government because they were torturing people for information, and thus the information was unreliable. He turned activist after this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray My apologies for switching around with wars they are however, obviously related and part of the same overall campaign.
Good Idea. Hey, while we're at it, how about we prosecute China's treatment of its Uyghur minority.... oh, wait, except China is one of the original charter nations and a permanent member of the UN security council, so they're never going to be prosecuted for anything.
PRC is not a charter nation of the UN; Taiwan is
"What is happening is horrific, I won't take that away" Says the man who actively just engaged in excusing a state led genocide via whataboutism only two posts earlier. Really mate?
Excusing? What world do you live in man.
The one where I don't use whataboutism to downplay or discredit topics, self explanatory really.
There's 2 topics going on, the OP himself stated how is this going to change anything. My response is it's bullshit meaningless fingerpointing with no substance, it has no substance because there are no standards, they don't apply the same standards to themselves. The massacre is an atrocity, the words of the UN has become meaningless to those they accuse because it's easily laughed back in their face by the general populace.
You seem to be obfuscating the issue... Give me an example of an American or British General commiting war crimes and not being punished for it within the last 20 years
Does the commander-in-chief count? Because Bush Jr. is still sitting in his Texas ranch painting pictures of dogs when he led an illegal, offensive war against a country that didn't attack us, killed minimum 200,000 Iraqi civilians, and tortured people. Not to mention Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield, and everyone else in his cabinet who was knowingly complicit. In a world where international law was applied equally, they would all be in prison for the rest of their days. Resonant isn't obfuscating anything, he's pointing out that Western nations haven't been held to the same standards when they flagrantly violate international law and that further weakens the UN's enforcement when they go after other cases of war crimes.
I don't want to get into whether or not we SHOULD have gone in, but what makes the invasion illegal?
Per the UN charter, the security council can only authorize war against an aggressor in the interest of preserving the peace. Iraq made no aggressive military action against the US to provoke invasion. The Secretary General at the time, Kofi Annan, explicitly called it illegal and not in accords with UN resolutions. Much of the justification for the invasion, such as Saddam being allied with Al-Qaeda, being responsible for 9/11, having WMDs, etc. were based on lies and forgeries. And even if Iraq was in violation, no single country can unilaterally invade another to enforce those resolutions.
You're right, my mistake. They weren't a charter member, but the have effectively supplanted Taiwan in the UN, which illustrates how much influence China has on the whole damn thing. I mean, good god, the only other nation that has ever been outright barred from participating in the United Nations is South Africa during the height of apartheid. But China just went and told the UN "hey, we're just going to take Taiwan's seat now," and the majority of the the member state were like, "sure bro, do what you want." I guarantee you when China finally does a complete takeover of Taiwan and Hong Kong, the UN isn't going to lift a finger no matter how brutal the Chinese military is. Of course, as this topic illustrates, it doesn't excuse the shit other permanent Security Council members like the US have done. It just goes to show how much of a complete shame the whole thing is. It's been nothing more than League of Nations 2.0 for its entire lifespan, and the only reason it still exists is because WWIII hasn't broken out yet.
Not totally; the UN has taken military action against aggressor countries twice, in Korea and in Iraq. The UN can get the security council together to vote to go to war, but basically only against small countries which have little or no affiliation with the Security Council. Since the Sec. Council must be unanimous, if Russia or China invades a neighbor, like when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, there's no chance the UN at large will do anything about it. The UN is still capable of stopping two tiny countries from attacking each other, but I think the charter was signed with the presumption that the Sec. Council members would be mature enough not to directly invade another country, but the UN never anticipated someone like Putin or Xi Jinping
It's hard to think of a way to make the UN more powerful that wouldn't either cause Russia and China to leave the organisation, or bring about the end of the sovereign state as we know it (something which I wouldn't mind, but which ain't gonna happen any time soon) The best thing I can come up with is if Security Council vetoes could be overruled by a 3/4 vote in the General Assembly or something like that In any case, changes to the UN's structure are themselves subject to veto by the permanent five, so RIP
I agree, I think the Sec. Council has too much power. In some cases, it has led to less security (US Veto-ing things related to Israel, Russia invading Crimea, China swinging its dick around the South China Sea). If Russia or China were much smaller countries doing the shit they did, the UN would pounce on them
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