U.N. troop fantasies

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Originally published 10:59 p.m., December 6, 2003, updated 12:00 a.m., December 7, 2003

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As more American soldiers are killed in Iraq, criticism of the Bush administration's Iraqi policy has drawn serious consideration to using United Nations troops to fill out coalition forces. In the past few days, even Sen. Hillary Clinton, New York Democrat, mentioned this concept.

While the United States has yet to fully develop a nation-building strategy for Iraq, our effort is at the very least persistent and sincere. Some naively assert U.N. involvement would alleviate much of the U.S. burden in rebuilding Iraq. However, they fail to recognize the breach of trust among "allies" and the U.N.'s history of failure in peacekeeping missions, which interfere with our success.

Betrayals are reflected in the recent reports regarding the Russian and French governments and their commercial groups, which provided the former Iraqi regime with information and military intelligence against American troops.

These actions occurred throughout Desert Storm in Gulf War I and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Gulf War II. As the United States conducts the war on terror, we cannot leave our troops vulnerable to treachery from apparently greedy allies that might be asked to help us now.

In Somalia, U.N. elements frustrated the peacekeeping process and led to its eventual failure. Few elements were proactive or helpful. For instance, many of the 22 countries participating mostly stayed in their compounds, leaving the daunting peacekeeping responsibilities to others. Further aggravating the problem, the Indian soldiers, being Hindu, were unable to command respect from Muslim Somalis, or even their Muslim Pakistani cohorts.

In addition, the Pakistani contingent in Somalia looked at the Somalis with contempt and committed various human rights violations, including beating the Somalis with sticks. These actions led to Mohammed Farrah Aideed's group ambushing and killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. As a result, U.N. authorized UNSCOM to take all necessary measures against those responsible for the armed attacks. This later contributed to the deaths of American soldiers in the tragic incident recalled in the film "Blackhawk Down."

U.N. modis operandi allows various countries to deploy undesirable and diseased soldiers as peacekeepers. Some of the 22 nations involved in Somalia came in "light" and left "heavy," stealing anything of value from the Somalis and other coalition members. Additionally, Zimbabwe sent a large contingent of soldiers who were HIV-positive, placing a burden on American and U.N. medical teams, and jeopardized the health Somali women through fraternization.

The efforts made in Haiti were much of the same. The Bangladeshis serving there for the U.N. held the Haitians in low regard and often physically abused them, as witnessed by one of the authors of this article.

"Whorehouse Row" in Port-Au-Prince was constantly packed with U.N. personnel who could have been engaged in nation-building or life-saving activity.

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