Liberal Local Blog and The Local Liberal Bloggers

Brian,
The reason there’s been no comment MAY be the fact that everyone involved was either rescued or punished. What’s there to comment on? Bad guys got caught doing bad things and got what was coming to them.
Where as in Iraq all sorts of bad things are going on and no one seems to be able to anything about it except either cover up or rant about the cover up(s).
I mean suppose, just for starters, $9 Billiion dollars got lost and all you could get for an explnation was “Gee, things were pretty hectic then and now it’s not worth looking for.”
By the way did you hear that Blackwater bodyguards shot the dog of the New York Times’ Baghdad bureau staff?
{http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/18/blackwater-guards-shoot-nyt%e2%80%99s-dog/}
Maybe they’re running out of stray Iraqis or maybe they’re out of season this time of year, what do you think?

SteveMule

SteveMule and others:

Here is the respons efrom one of the members of the team think tank.

First, the Washington Post article was written in 2005, and it states:

The United Nations is facing new allegations of sexual misconduct by U.N. personnel in Burundi, Haiti, Liberia and elsewhere, which is complicating the organization’s efforts to contain a sexual abuse scandal that has tarnished its Nobel Prize-winning peacekeepers in Congo.
The allegations indicate that a series of measures the United Nations has taken in recent years have failed to eliminate a culture of sexual permissiveness that has plagued its far-flung peacekeeping operations over the last 12 years. But senior U.N. officials say they have signaled their seriousness by imposing new reforms and forcing senior U.N. military commanders and officials to step down if they do not curb such practices. (emphasis mine)

So, if this article was written in 2005, and it’s 2007, and we’re still hearing about it then the person who said (t)he reason there’s been no comment MAY be the fact that everyone involved was either rescued or punished. What’s there to comment on? Bad guys got caught doing bad things and got what was coming to them, is either woefully ignorant or lying through their teeth.

According to the GAO:

Command and control is also an
issue for disciplinary actions against UN peacekeeping troops involved
in criminal, sexual, or other misconduct. The UN sets standards of
behavior, including prohibiting peacekeeping troops from criminal
activities and sexual exploitation. The involvement of peacekeeping
personnel in these activities has been documented in several
operations’ and the UN had nearly 1,200 cases of alleged misconduct or
crimes by peacekeepers in 2003 and 2004. However, troop-contributing
countries are responsible for disciplinary actions against their own
troops. According to the UN, there is widespread perception among
international observers that peacekeeping personnel rarely if ever face
disciplinary charges. The UN is taking several steps to address this
problem, such as developing specific standards of behavior for all UN
troops and a model memorandum of understanding on conduct for all troop
contributing countries. However, individual countries are still
responsible for discipline of their own troops.

I don’t know where SteveMule got his info that everyone involved was either rescued or punished, but I can’t find any information to back up that assertion. Maybe you should ask him to back up his claims like we back up ours.

To SteveMule

Where to begin? Since we’re obviously dealing with a liberal, who, as all liberals do, when he can’t argue the issue, he makes personal attacks and, finally, argues that the argument itself is invalid.

I’ll make this simple, line by line, so even an ignoramus like myself, as you imply, can understand it.

The ‘Thunker” in your Thunk Tank is talking about, at least, two seperate incidents.(Correction- If you read my argument, you would see I’m talking about TWO (2) REPORTS. The reports themselves reference NUMEROUS EVENTS. “The involvement of peacekeeping personnel in these activities has been documented in several operations’ and the UN had nearly 1,200 cases of alleged misconduct or crimes by peacekeepers in 2003 and 2004.” I don’t know how much new math you were taught, but 1,200 [one thousand two hundred] is greater than 2 [two].) Each one recieved (note-If you’re going to talk about my presumed eductional level, you should at least know enough to use spell check. It’s RECEIVED) corrective action (to some extent) and involved, at least, two different sets of soldiers from, at least, two different countries. (Again- Read before you coment )
Jane Holl Lute, Assistant Secretary General for UN Peacekeeping Operations, acknowledges that sexual abuse is widespread.

She says: “We’ve had a problem probably since the inception of peacekeeping – problems of this kind of exploitation of vulnerable populations. My operating presumption is that this is either a problem or a potential problem in every single one of our missions.”

That’s from 2006.

American forces were NOT involved so, again, why comment?(When did Brian or myself argue that we were talking about American troop involvement? I realize that as part of the “blame America first” party that’s what you want to talk about, but that wasn’t what Brian and I discussing.) There’s plenty enough to comment on that involves America, American forces, American corperations (CORPORATIONS), American politics, American policy (foreign and domestic) without having to all bonzii (I understand foreign languages can be tricky for those of you having trouble with your own, but it’s “banzai”) crazy about what ding-dongs from Sri Lanka are doing. (See Ms. Lute’s comment above)
What your ‘Thunker’ is doing (rather clumsily and crudely) is the old game of “Well, if that bothers you why shouldn’t this?”
Quick question – is your ‘thunker’ out of High School yet? I’m asking not because of bad grammer(GRAMMAR)/spelling or anything trivial like that – it’s just the simplicity of their logic – they seem bright but young at the same time and please note my question is NOT meant as a slam. Just wondering out loud.

SteveMule

Steve, next time I won’t waste my time. If you can reasonably argue the points Brian and I brought up, do so, otherwise, don’t bother.