Susan Rice Scares The Geek

"Say what, Geek! You sure get a case of the knocking knees right easy."

Yeah, it is easy to say that. Very few people get an anxiety attack over a UN Ambassador--particularly before the person takes office.

To err on the side of candor this is a first for the Geek. He has been able to yawn his way through every previous naming ceremony--even that of John Bolton.

Not this time. This time is different. Come along with the Geek as he lays out his case.

President-elect Obama often promised (before the appropriate audiences only) that he would put a new emphasis on the United Nations and assure that the US played a constructive role in that institution. He has made good on that particular campaign promise--at least symbolically--by restoring the UN Ambassador to cabinet rank.

Without passing on the merits of Obama's decision, suffice it to say that the PR will have a greater, more direct influence upon critical foreign policy decisions than would have been the case had the office been left at its sub-cabinet position. The enhanced influence of the PR on the making and execution of foreign policy undoubtedly will cheer those who seek a greater harmonization of US and UN policy.

The High Minded advocates of greater global cooperation under the blue UN flag will be quite happy with the restoration of the PR's "lost" status. They would be even more gratified if the reality of the next months and years is the PR being not only the American ambassador to the international organization but the UN's ambassador to the Oval Office.

These considerations in and of themselves do not cause the Geek undue apprehension. However, the elevation of the PR to cabinet rank is a necessary part of the context producing the Geek's current anxiety attack. Another contextual factor is the presence of the High Minded, who would be ecstatic should the UN gain greater leverage on American foreign policy,

Another key component of context is the radical shift in the orientation of the UN at both the Security Council and General Assembly levels in recent years. The "mission creep" exhibited by the ever-more-ambitious UN has changed much in the way the outfit operate. It has also served to alter the way in which the organisation views itself and its role in world affairs.

It must be recalled that the primary reason invoked for the creation and maintenance of the UN was the preservation of international peace. The UN was presumed to be both the deterrer of aggression and the punisher of aggressive war when it occurred.

Although often prevented from executing its primary function by the dynamics of the Cold War and the use of the veto by one or more of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the UN did punish aggression at least twice, once in 1950 and again forty years later. The potential, let alone the actuality, of the UN operating to promote effective collective action against an international aggressor gave the organisation legitimate claim upon the support of the American government and people.

The UN provided other useful services to the global welfare over the years. Its attempts to maintain international peace through monitoring and "peacekeeping" forces were meritorious even if rarely effective. Similarly, its efforts at ameliorating the human misery attendant upon both war and natural disasters have been commendable, if, again, less than spectacularly successful.

Starting in the waning days of the Cold War and proceeding at an ever escalating rate, the UN has sought to carve out a new role for itself which is only tangentially related to its original functions. That role can be best described as intervening in the affairs of distressed or collapsing states.

The UN Charter was carefully crafted to prohibit the organisation from interfering in the internal affairs of member states. This principle of non-interference has two champions on the Security Council: China and Russia.

Despite both the strictures imposed by the Charter and the self-interest of at least two Great Powers, the UN has involved itself in more and more internal operations. The involvement has normally been covered by either the declaration of a "humanitarian" crisis or the invocation of a compelling consideration such as "genocide."

From Somalia fifteen years ago to Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo today, the UN has sought an interventionary role. It has gained strong support for this species of mission distorting creep from those in the European Union and the US who see national boundaries and national sovereignty as obsolete or at least obsolescent barriers to the full protection and expansion of human rights.

What this means is both simple and alarming. Should a US administration become convinced for whatsoever reason that the situation in a distressed or collapsing state had progressed to an unacceptable level of bloodshed, it would find a ready and willing collaborator in the dispatch of armed force to protect lives, restore stability, and insure the exercise of human rights

Who could object to such fine, noble, and altruistic sentiments and objectives?

Certainly not Susan Rice. And, here comes the reason for the Geek's trembling.

Ms Rice when she was a staffer on the Clinton National Security Council experienced an epiphany. She saw the aftermath of the bloodletting in Rwanda. She was on the killing fields. She smelled the stench. She saw the death.

And, apparently, she vowed, "Never again." Or, at the least, she has maintained publicly, repeatedly, that she "would go down in flames" in the effort to stop mass killing in the future.

Mass killing is not stopped by simply asking the killers to cease and desist. Wholesale murderers are not famed for their readiness to stop. It takes force to stop force.

It takes killing--and dying--to stop the killing.

Before the peace can be kept, it must exist. It must be imposed. Imposed impartially by an outside military force of high competence, high firepower, high levels of training, high levels of command and control, high levels of discipline. The record of the past several decades demonstrates that such force is possessed by few countries, most of which are located in Europe and North America.

It takes a significant number of troops and a fair risk that some of these will be killed to provide the sort of stability oriented peace imposition mission for which Ms Rice would be willing to go down in flames. Back during the Clinton Administration the US showed both an unwillingness to send enough force or to take casualties when our military was tasked with the "humanitarian" mission in Somalia.

Apparently, Ms Rice missed that. Or, the memory of what happened after a poorly planned and executed Special Forces operation ended in both American deaths and the televised desecration of American bodies. Or, the memory was wiped away by the tears shed for the dead of Rwanda.

Then there is another set of problems which may have eluded Ms Rice in her passionate commitment to assuring more Rwandas do not happen. Sufficient force, sufficient killing and dying can assure that internal violence is halted, domestic peace restored. It can even serve to arrest those suspected of crimes against humanity.

But that is all the outsiders can do. Their guns cannot do more than silence the guns of the killers within. Guns can arrest putative evil doers. Those are the limits of force.

What happens next? What will be done once the killing stops? What other than feeding and housing and caring for the wounded, the fugitives, the fearful?

Will the UN and its member states build a new nation-state in the wreckage of the old? Who decides what type of nation, what variety of state, what form of government, what sort of economy will be erected on the rubble?

How long will it take? How much will it cost? Most importantly, will it work? Is there any realistic chance that a viable entity can be created for the benefit of the residents by the well intentioned High Minded outsiders?

Ms Rice would be very well advised to take a good, cold look at the consequences of the invasion of Afghanistan. Before eagerly sending American and other troops off to Darfur or the Congo or Zimbabwe or Somalia or any of the other states which are or shortly will be distressed, Ms Rice should smell the air of Afghanistan, walk the streets of Afghanistan, smell the dead of Afghanistan.

Ms Rice would be well advised to ask herself if there was any realistic probability that the well intentioned efforts of progressive High Minded folks would result in any better state of peace for the locals than the adventures of the neocon ninnies of recent memory.

Will Ms Rice do any of these things? The Geek is willing to bet hair that she will not. And, that is why her appointment scares him. Ideology, whether of the Right or the Left, does not serve the interests of the US. It doesn't even serve the UN well.