Responsibility to protect, my ass.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

First, Im'ma put my idealist glasses on, and throw this in here:

Responsibility to Protect - the United Nations

"Prevention requires apportioning responsibility to and promoting collaboration between concerned States and the international community. The duty to prevent and halt genocide and mass atrocities lies first and foremost with the State, but the international community has a role that cannot be blocked by the invocation of sovereignty. Sovereignty no longer exclusively protects States from foreign interference; it is a charge of responsibility where States are accountable for the welfare of their people. This principle is enshrined in article 1 of the Genocide Convention and embodied in the principle of “sovereignty as responsibility” and in the concept of the Responsibility to Protect.

"The three pillars of the responsibility to protect, as stipulated in the Outcome Document of the 2005 United Nations World Summit (A/RES/60/1, para. 138-140) and formulated in the Secretary-General's 2009 Report (A/63/677) on Implementing the Responsibility to Protect are:

"The State carries the primary responsibility for protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and their incitement;
The international community has a responsibility to encourage and assist States in fulfilling this responsibility;
The international community has a responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other means to protect populations from these crimes. If a State is manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared to take collective action to protect populations, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations."

So far, so good. And now, the relevant case-in-point.

Dutch peacekeepers responsible for 300 deaths of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica

"Netherlands must pay compensation to families of 300 victims - but Dutch soldiers should not be held responsible for the deaths of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, court rules".

...That was a year ago. The court found the Netherlands guilty of not doing enough to prevent the massacre of 8,000 people to the hands of the Bosnian Serbs. And that seemed reasonable at the time.

Idealistic hat off; cynical hat on. Fast-forward to 2015. Now that some of the information surrounding those circumstances has surfaced, there's been a development.

US, Britain, France must explain Srebrenica airstrike cancellation: minister

"The Netherlands wants the US, Britain and France to clarify claims that they decided to cancel airstrikes on Serbian targets during the Yugoslavian civil war without telling the Dutch. ... US documents shown in an Argos television documentary on Tuesday revealed the decision to cancel UN airstrikes was taken by the US, France and Britain in May 1995, but no one told the Dutch. This failure of the UN to provide air support to the Dutch peacekeepers in the face of the Serbian onslaught has never before been properly explained. The information in the documentary is based on hundreds of US documents made public in 2013."

So, provided that this is true, and the pesky question how come it wasn't taken into account by the above-mentioned court, basically it turns out that the Dutch had been found guilty of not doing enough about a situation they couldn't have done anything about in the first place - due to circumstances beyond their control that they had not been made aware of. Found guilty by those same people who had removed the prerequisites for the Dutch being capable of doing anything, without deigning a warning upon the Dutch about it. Naturally, this is going to make a lot of people oturaged, and some valid questions about the international allies' solidarity, duties and responsibilities within the international alliance might have to be legitimately raised.

Like this one: What could've made the allied forces stay away from doing their duties and providing the air support that their Dutch partners so badly needed in those dire circumstances? Was it the potential loss of military personnel in the ensuing battle, which could've raised a few eyebrows back home? Was it the political price of the act that they were so concerned about? But it's not like these allies were sending any boots on the ground, were they? Then what?

And, wasn't the subsequent ruling on the Dutch "lack of adequate action" a display of the utmost hypocrisy? And finally, who has turned out to be the weak coward in this whole drama? Because for years the Dutch press has been meekly selling us the narrative that it was the Dutch who cowered under pressure. Now it turns out they were betrayed.

With that in mind, and with all the "they be spyin' on us" debacle that's been raging between the two sides of the Atlantic lately, I really am not liking where this is going. While I am aware (and everyone has already been made as aware as they could possibly be) of the fact that in Realpolitik there are no permanent friends, only temporary interests... I have to ask, ultimately, is the Trans-Atlantic geostrategic partnership just a stupid facade that's not worth anything, and how/why exactly is anyone actually supposed to be honoring it? In other words, if selfishly motivated expedience does trump any stated principles of partnership and we've ended up with a situation where "anything goes as long as you can afford it", then what's the point of having all these alliances, treaties and the like?

Comments

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

This doesn't look good at all.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

Had it been asked the other way around (let's say, xzzz Serbs killed by KLA, whatever) I wonder if the onus would also be on the NL troops for having "failed to protect". Actually I don't remember "US, UK and France" troops ever failing to protect anyone, that's just impossible. They're just not accountable for that kind of failure, amirite?

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Britain, France and the US displaying disgusting levels of hypocrisy?

Look how shocked I am...

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

I can't recall when was the last time that the potential political cost of bombing people has ever been an issue - certainly not when Clinton bombed the entire Serbia. There must've been another consideration there. Either a misguided tactical decision or something even stupider than that.