You are almost there Mr. Prime Minister, almost. According to an article in today's National Post, Prime Minister Martin says:
The world community may be facing a human tragedy of “even greater proportions” than Rwanda unless it acts quickly to support an intervention by African Union troops.
...It’s (the timeline for action being passed) why I met with the head of the African Union commission, basically saying we’ve got to get those troops and we’ve got to get in there. And we’ll do whatever is required...
As long as whatever is constrained to training the African troops and providing them with flak jackets. Here you go African troops, have some cash, have some flak jackets, it is not like we will ever need them...
Why is it that the United Nations is so slow to act?”said Mr. Martin. The answer is two-fold. Number one, some countries have economic interests and they’re worried about losing them. To which my very clear response is, well, economic interests are one thing, human lives should trump that. The second is in my opinion an outmoded opinion of sovereignty. Sovereignty is something that is conferred on a country by the international community and sovereignty has to have a duty, a responsibility to your own people and if you can’t protect them, then the rest of the world, I think, has to take that on.
This is the typical craziness the comes from the world community. Prime Minister Martin's point about Sudan were equally valid about Iraq. France and Russia had economic interests in Iraq and were worried about losing them. Saddam Hussein was butchering annually the amount of people dying in Darfur. Furthermore, Iraq's sovereignty was in the hands of the "international community" since they had terms they had to meet from the treaty that ended the first Gulf War. But instead of the "rest of the world taking it on", the coalition is condemned by the United Nations for fighting an "illegal war".
At the present time, there’s some 50,000 people in Darfur in the Sudan who have lost their lives. “There are crimes against humanity being committed and the United Nations is debating intervention as to whether or not this is a genocide or whether or not it threatens international security. “When in fact what it should be doing is saying there are humanitarian atrocities that are occurring here and that should be sufficient reason to go in and that’s my basic point, he said.
As I see it, this is the problem when you bind your foreign policy to the United Nations. There is no rhyme or reason as to why they do things and most often they bicker and delay as way of doing nothing at all.
