Feral Jundi

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: A UN Army of Conscience and Practicality

   Ok, this is a good one, I promise.  What I have done is to present the point of views of four bloggers/journalists, break down the essence of their posts, and try to find some middle ground with their points of view. Then I will end it with my views about what the UN could do to create an ‘army of conscience and practicality’.

   The first article written by Gideon Rachman describes the necessity of creating a more professional and permanent UN Army.

     “Over the longer term, the growing demand for international peacekeeping forces means that it is time finally to bite the bullet and give the UN a permanent, standing military capacity”

   This is Gideon’s solution for making that happen.

     “All of this points to the need to create a proper UN force on permanent stand-by. Such a force need not be a conventional army, with its own barracks and personnel. It would be better to get countries to give the UN first call on a certain number of their troops, for a specific period of time. National sovereignty could still be respected by allowing countries to opt out of missions, if they inflame national sensitivities.”

   Gideon then mentions that conservatives in America would show horror at the idea of a UN standing army.  This is where he brings in the Reagan quote about the UN.

      “They might be surprised and enlightened to learn that the hero of the conservative movement, Ronald Reagan, once spoke approvingly of the idea of “a standing UN force – an army of conscience – that is fully equipped and prepared to carve out human sanctuaries through force”.

   The second article is by Max Boot and he makes the argument that conservatives on the far right might be a little miffed with a UN standing army, but that is only because the UN has a terrible track record of handling armies. Max does agree with Gideon about creating a more professional UN force, but they both disagree on the how.

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Sunday, July 19, 2009

Industry Talk: The UNWG is Coming to the US

Filed under: Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 10:52 PM

    Click on this link to see what Doug Brooks from the IPOA said in the comments section. (I though it was funny)Anyways, I welcome the UNWG to the US and hope they have a good time. –Matt

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Mercenaries Organized in United States to be Examined by United Nations Working Group

July 19, 5:34

Lawrence Gist – LA County Foreign Policy Examiner

The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the rights of peoples to self-determination will carry out an official visit to the United States of America from July 20 to August 3, 2009.

“This visit comes at a moment where, I believe, the United States Government is seriously considering options to ensure adequate oversight and monitoring for private military and security companies (PMSCs) contracted by the United States government and operating abroad,” said the group’s Chairperson-Rapporteur, Shaista Shameem.

“It is crucial that the United States Government, as a major client of these companies, demonstrates its commitment to ensure full accountability of private military and security contractors for any possible violations of international human rights and humanitarian law,” added Shameem, who will be joined during the visit by José Luis Gomez del Prado, another member of the Working Group.

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Industry Talk: Security Firms Lobby for Tougher Rules

Filed under: Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 4:36 AM

   You know, I give Doug and the IPOA a lot of credit for the hard work they have done to get this industry on the right foot.  I certainly hope congress is listening, because if they can provide the teeth to a set of standards, then things like the Code of Conduct that the IPOA has been promoting all these years could be something that could be respected.

   I have also noticed all the companies that have signed on with the ISO 9000 stuff in recent years.  That is great that they are getting that kind of certification, but I always look to the results of such things.  What really matters in all of this, is customer satisfaction and service.  That and taking care of your people–which I think is vital if you want your customers satisfied. (pissed off employees and contractors tend to pay it forward on to the customer in lots of poisonous ways) Together with happy employees and happy customers, and an application of Kaizen to your company, and the contracts will continue to come in.

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Thursday, May 7, 2009

Podcasts: COR Interviews Doug Brooks of IPOA, Discusses Industry Regulation

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Industry Talk: International Affairs Forum Interviews Doug Brooks of IPOA

Mr Brooks: The UN contacted [Executive Outcomes] and said, “Could you end the genocide in Rwanda?” This was probably about two weeks into the genocide when nobody else in the world was willing to go in there, to deploy their military. And so EO is sort of between assignments… They said, “Yea, we could do that.” …They got the tickets and were about to head to New York and got another phone call saying the deal’s off.

Shortly afterwards Kofi Annan would famously say, “Maybe the world’s not ready to privatize human security.

     So could the Rwandan genocide have been stopped by Executive Outcomes?  I think so, given EO’s track record in the region, but we will never know.  It is shameful that the UN and the leading nations of the world did not do all it could to prevent this tragic loss of life, and EO could have been a solution to stop it. Shameful….

     Anyways, this was an excellent interview, and some of the points that really jumped out at me was the discussion about the rules for the use of force and the IPOA’s work on developing a set of rules for that. That and the fateful decision of the UN not to use Executive Outcomes to stop the genocide in Rwanda(which is not new, but it still needs to be mentioned over and over again).

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