Matt grapples with a deep philosophical conundrum.

Great diavlog. I was really happy to hear Matthew make a clear and emotional statement of his views, and of a larger picture item. Not that I don't like the details and inside baseball and disinterested stance he usually adopts, but moments like these help me to draw together some of the pieces from past UN Plazas (even if I'm not sure that I agree wholeheartedly with his views). To be specific: it does sound like a highly legitimate question to ask what we're getting for pouring money into a region that shows no return on investment. On the other hand, it should also be asked, "Compared to what?" I don't understand the situation in the Congo anywhere near well enough to have an opinion, but in the abstract, I wonder if an onging "$2 billion per year" at least buys keeping the lid on the kettle. That is, were the peacekeeping troops and other UN investments not in place, how much worse could the region potentially become? Sometimes, you don't have enough money or will among your constituents to solve a problem, but maybe you do have enough at least to keep things from getting much

I'd actually like to hear more about the UNESCO Culture of Peace projects that Matt briefly alluded to. Peacekeeping missions, interventions, crises and chronic international hot spots get the attention of the media, but the long-term projects that promote nonviolent conflict resolution, equity and human rights --which are the real hope of the UN and its war-prone member nations -- are virtually ignored in favor of the drama. Maybe No Drama Obama will pay some attention. If there ever was a moment when the US could reverse course and stand for something at the UN besides hostility and obstructionism, it's now. I thought it was interesting that Mark was optimistic about US leadership, while Matt suggested that "leadership" was often interpreted as domination. It's probably no coincidence that Matt is hanging out with the Hispanic journalists at the UN. No one is more skeptical of US "leadership" than the peoples of Latin America. "Pobre de México. Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de Estados Unidos."

Quoting bjkeefe: ...a region that shows no return on investment.

Running through that clause I just thought about all the coltan and other raw stuff the world is getting. Goma is the city near which Jane Goodall did her chimp studies, right?

Quoting Baltimoron: Running through that clause I just thought about all the coltan and other raw stuff the world is getting.

Goma is the city near which Jane Goodall did her chimp studies, right?

I should have been more precise. By "a region that shows no return on investment," I meant in the narrow sense of putting money into peacekeeping efforts for that region, with the implied question of, "Since there's never enough money to do all the things we'd like to do, would we be better off putting UN resources elsewhere?"

"Maybe it comes from wanting to do well and then being in an African country without a whole bunch of oversight and you just fuckin' wing it." Excellent adverbial usage, on Matthew's part. 'Fucking' employed as an emphatic interjection has always pleased me, and here it is especially well performed.

Great diavlog, and I was anticipating a UN plaza on the escalation of the conflict in Congo. I think Mark is reaching to simplify in regards to the LRA. I don't know if there are any formal links between the LRA and anyone else; I haven't seen anything to say there are. The LRA is the most utterly insane group you'll ever come across. The LRA is, however, naturally strategically aligned with Kabila, in that both are against the Kagame-Museveni alliance. The LRA is concerned with toppling Museveni in Uganda, and Kabila's tensions are with Kagame in Rwanda. I wrote up a little introduction on the topic, if anyone's looking to get some basic info: Central African history, particularly in the Interlacustrine area, is quite fascinating. And by fascinating I mean often horrifying. It's impossible to understand the current conflict without understanding certain things about the broader history of the region. We have four countries who are principally involved with the conflict: Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. During the second Congolese Civil war, many other Sub-Saharan Africa also involved themselves, due to the financial interests in the bountiful, unstable Congo, but these four were the principal actors. Rwanda is a tiny nation. But just as Obama showed ignorance in dismissing Iran

Quoting cognitive madisonian: But just as Obama showed ignorance in dismissing Iran as "tiny", ...

You blew a lot of your credibility with that one. Go look up the full text and get some context. He said Iran as a threat was tiny compared to the Soviet Union. Which they are, and which they will be even if they manage to build a couple of nuclear weapons. Not sure why you want to waste your time rehashing talking points from a campaign that is over and done with, but if you're looking to present yourself as an authority on any other topic, you might consider resisting the temptation to mix these in to your discussion. Makes me think there's less reason to believe anything else you have to say, which I'm pretty sure is not your objective.

Quoting bjkeefe: You blew a lot of your credibility with that one.

Go look up the full text and get some context. He said Iran as a threat was tiny, compared to the Soviet Union. Which they are, and which they will be even if they manage to build a couple of nuclear weapons.

And Rwanda is tiny in comparison to DRC (really, REALLY tiny). Now try reading the rest of my post

Quoting cognitive madisonian: Now try reading the rest of my post

Too late.

Well if you prefer ignorance, so beit. It'd fit with your broader approach to politics.

Quoting cognitive madisonian: Well if you prefer ignorance, so beit.

I prefer to reduce my ignorance by reading sources I don't have reason to distrust.

Right because I have a political agenda in explaining Interlacustrine Africa affairs. You sir are a first class tool.

Quoting cognitive madisonian: You sir are ... first class ...

Thanks!

*reminds self to not feed trolls*

Promises, promises.

The world is "hungry" for American leadership? No self respecting country thinks that way. It's shocking to hear US imperial ideology surfacing like that in the speech of an otherwise reasonable sounding person. I guess if you believe that the world is crying out to be told what to do by America, US foreign policy over the last few years starts to make sense. Still, the whole earnest "the world is hungry for American leadership" frame of mind is so disturbing that i'm finding it hard to digest. It's going to be a sleepless night. Otherwise, really interesting video. I make sure to watch all the UN blogginheads videos, but especially those featuring Matthew Lee.

I don't know what's more annoying, your pessimism, or how you link continental affairs with American electoral politics and talking head rivalries.

Quoting Samuel1599: The world is "hungry" for American leadership? No self respecting country thinks that way. It's shocking to hear US imperial ideology surfacing like that in the speech of an otherwise reasonable sounding person. I guess if you believe that the world is crying out to be told what to do by America, US foreign policy over the last few years starts to make sense. Still, the whole earnest "the world is hungry for American leadership" frame of mind is so disturbing that i'm finding it hard to digest. It's going to be a sleepless night.

Probably they don't want to be told what to do in every last instance, but there's no doubt that the world recognizes the stature of the US, and that as such, it will play a leadership role in many ways. Just a fact of life. What they'd like is for the US's leadership to be better than it has been. To that end, Rosa Brooks's latest is worth a look.

Quoting bjkeefe: Probably they don't want to be told what to do

Yeah; you should have stopped right about here.

Quoting Baltimoron: I don't know what's more annoying, your pessimism, or how you link continental affairs with American electoral politics and talking head rivalries.

American electoral politics has a lot to do with continental affairs. Obama will not stop a genocide, nor risk political capital on trying to stop a deadly war. He is a coward, is being advised by cowards, and will govern as a coward, allowing terrible things to go on when there is no overwhelming political reward for stopping them. The American left has embraced a policy of retreat from international involvement, both politically and militarily, and it is a shame.

It's strange that the Right was usually the party of individualism and opposition to government interference, yet on the international scale conservatives often throw their principals out of the window and decide to play at totalitarianism. I guess the theory is Americans can pull themselves up by their bootstraps because they are touched by God, but the rest of the world is childlike and helpless - "hungering" for paternal guidance.

If you want to permit genocide and deadly wars to happen when we could help to stop them, then that's your thing. I don't consider it a liberal/conservative issue, really.

At times, it appears that an entire continent from the Sahara Desert to the southern jungles is an ever-spinning whirlpool of sixty years of utter futility, sucking lives, money, and civilization into the cauldron of barbarism. Where is the complete financial accountability of the funds spent on UN 'peace-keeping' in Africa? Or, the complete transparent reporting of every dollar spent on UN foreign aid in Africa? Who trained, at what cost, UN peace-keepers who flee at the appearance of rogue militias or rebel 'armies.' Why do twenty-year old foreign-aid steel mills in Africa still never pour any steel? Why is bribery the standard operating procedure in broad swaths of Africa? What can possibly be accomplished in suppressing military conflicts in a land where simple honesty is merely an idealistic dream? "Under-funded"? The UN is not under-funded; the UN is mis-directed. 17,000 armed UN peace-keepers in Africa, yet the 650 members of the vicious LRA operates with impunity? The UN scurries around Africa trying to stamp out every outbreak of conflict; why not just take on the one conflict that is most winnable, and then with a reputation for military success take on another? Knock 'em down, one pin at a time. 17,000 is a force too

Quoting a Duoist: At times, it appears that an entire continent from the Sahara Desert to the southern jungles is an ever-spinning whirlpool of sixty years of utter futility, sucking lives, money, and civilization into the cauldron of barbarism.

Where is the complete financial accountability of the funds spent on UN 'peace-keeping' in Africa? Or, the complete transparent reporting of every dollar spent on UN foreign aid in Africa? Who trained, at what cost, UN peace-keepers who flee at the appearance of rogue militias or rebel 'armies.' Why do twenty-year old foreign-aid steel mills in Africa still never pour any steel? Why is bribery the standard operating procedure in broad swaths of Africa? What can possibly be accomplished in suppressing military conflicts in a land where simple honesty is merely an idealistic dream?

"Under-funded"? The UN is not under-funded; the UN is mis-directed. 17,000 armed UN peace-keepers in Africa, yet the 650 members of the vicious LRA operates with impunity? The UN scurries around Africa trying to stamp out every outbreak of conflict; why not just take on the one conflict that is most winnable, and then with a reputation for military success take on another? Knock 'em down, one pin at a time. 17,000 is a force too

You're beating your head against your own inflated expectations. Perhaps the history of UN peacekeeping is light for examples of spectacular victories. But, since WW2, there have been no large-scale wars on Earth, and peacekeeping deserves credit for limiting the sprawl of small conflicts into larger ones. The number of conflicts every year doesn't seem to abate, if the COW databases are any indication, but the death and casualty figures have leveled off.

By limiting the intensity of warfare, peacekeeping has also served to accentuate politics over military prowess. The continued existence of paramilitary and militarized political parties exposes the causes of these disagreements in a way that large-scale warfare obliterates. Peacekeeping frustrates these groups and channels anger back into media manipulation, diplomacy, and base politics.