U.N. approves up to 26,000 troops, police for Darfur

This is a story that Lawhawk has been all over the past year or even more. However, he probably missed this as it came out while was probably on his way home. I am sure you will see a whole article from him on this shortly. So here is the teaser article:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council authorized on Tuesday up to 26,000 troops and police for Darfur and approved the use of force to protect civilians in Sudan's arid western region.

Expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year, the combined "hybrid" U.N.-African Union operation aims to quell violence in Darfur, where more than 2.1 million people have been driven into camps and an estimated 200,000 have died over the past four years.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who conducted months of talks with Khartoum, described the resolution as "historic and unprecedented" and said the mission would "make a clear and positive difference."

The resolution, number 1769, invokes Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, under which the United Nations can authorize force. The measure allows the use of force for self-defense, to ensure the free movement of humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack, but acknowledges Sudan's sovereignty.

But the resolution, which has been watered down several times, no longer allows the new force to seize and dispose of illegal arms. Now it can only monitor such weapons.

I am not sure that this is anything more than symbolism over substance. The U.N. is not sending a peace keeping force, it is sending a baby sitting squad with power to observe. They can't seize and dispose of illegal weapons, only monitor them? Monitor them doing what...shooting and killing innocent civilians. "Yup, that was an illegal weapon that killed that baby over there...good monitoring troops!"

I am tired of this. The U.N. is a useless agency that is mired in its own mediocrity and irrelevance. U.N. peace keeping forces have failed to keep peace since its founding. U.N. peace keepers themselves have been almost as bad as the forces they are supposed to protecting civilians from.

Its about time the United Nations authorizes a peace keeping force with authority to actually keep the peace. Who will actually make a difference rather than "monitor" illegal weapons. Take the illegal weapons! They don't want to give them up, use force. Monitoring the situation is only going to allow the status quo to continue. All we will be left with is another acronym, UNAMID or the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, and another failed peace initiative, more innocent lives lost and a bad situation made worse by inaction and failed action.