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0 pointshandedness3y ago0 comments

As you stated you don't know much about their details, it wasn't meant to be pejorative: they're actually called Blue Helmets (and Blue Berets). I would wager their most defining visual characteristic is their helmet color, which is quite terrible as camouflage and wholly unsuitable for a conventional military force.

Their Rules of Engagement are also significantly different from those of a conventional military force.

The International Court of Justice (the IJC–not the ICC) is part of the United Nations System. At that body, at least, UN peacekeepers enjoy blanket immunity. To oversimplify it, it's another case of, "we have investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing."

The UN nominally expects host countries to prosecute the war crimes of their peacekeepers, but in reality the nature of deploying to somewhere needing peacekeepers is that the rule of law on the ground is already minimal, at best. So there's no real enforcement mechanism to prosecute these crimes.

It is not a trivial distinction. One can debate their virtue and utility value one way or the other, but the distinction is real and significant. They operate under a unique set of circumstances and saying war is hell and victors typically enjoy their own brand of immunity is true enough, but not entirely applicable here.

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pasabagi3y ago· 4 in thread

Who are we comparing them to, though? The US Military publically ran (and runs) an international network of torture camps. I don't think the US military is especially bad: rather, all militaries are awful, all war is unadulturated evil, and any attempt to make it 'clean' through ROEs or accountability procedures is stupid.

handednessOP3y ago

The whole point is that they are without comparison. There is no other force like it in the world. By definition it may have to be that way (if it should exist, which I'm not entirely sure it should), but so long as there are UN peacekeepers there will be armed troops where nobody's really both motivated and able to prosecute their war crimes with any reliability.

The legal framework surrounding UN peacekeeping is insufficient as the UN itself grants its peacekeepers blanket immunity, and expects host and/or contributing nations to prosecute war crimes committed by UN peacekeepers. But those nations are almost by definition unable to maintain the rule of law (or in the case of contributing nations, unlikely or unwilling to prosecute).

I'm not sure why "but other people also do bad stuff" is where everyone seems to go with that information. But to go along it, a more apt comparison would be the Mahmudiyah rape and killings: war crimes committed by US troops in Iraq, in which the perpetrators were tried, convicted and sentenced in American military and civilian courts. That's how that aspect of the inevitable evils of war should be handled:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killings

Had the perpetrators been UN peacekeepers, the host nation likely would not have had the ability to prosecute the accused competently and fairly, and the UN would have given them immunity if expected to act. The contributing nation would not have wanted to prosecute for a whole host of reasons.

One can argue that the UN is doing what it can, but it isn't much: Asking contributing nations to prosecute war crimes committed by their citizens (not likely), shaming those nations [1], and trying to support the victims [2]. Which all goes to show that the UN is rather toothless on the matter. There's an asymmetry to their ability to contribute to violence but not prosecute the criminal abuses thereof. I think that's concerning.

Regardless, your comparison reminds me that even Abu Ghraib resulted in numerous prison terms. Make of that what you will.

[1] https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/01/521142

[2] https://conduct.unmissions.org/remedial-trust-fund

runarberg3y ago

> Regardless, your comparison reminds me that even Abu Ghraib resulted in numerous prison terms.

Since this is HN I might as well provide the data:

In total 11 soldiers were convicted, of which 9 served time in prison:

- Former Spc. Armin Cruz - 8 months

- Former Sgt. Javal Davis - 6 months

- Pfc. Lynndie England - 3 years (released after 1 year and 5 months)

- Former Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick - 8½ years (released on parole after 4 years)

- Former Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. - 10 years (paroled after 6 and a half years)

- Former Spc. Sabrina Harman - 6 months

- Former Spc. Roman Krol - 10 months

- Former Spc. Jeremy Sivits - 1 year

- Former Sgt. Michael J. Smith - 179 days

And the two who served no prison time were:

- Former Sgt. Santos A. Cardona - 90 days of hard labor

- Former Spc. Megan Ambuhl Graner - Discharged from the army without prison time

saiya-jin3y ago

Sounds like Blackwater to me, including sample unpunished accusations of war crimes like spraying crowds of civilians with automatic fire.

We all know US will declare war on Belgium IIRC if international court of justice will ever sentence any US soldier, all pretty unique scenarios.

Blue helmets may not all be saints, but they did and do some important security work in semi-failed states ie in Africa where otherwise gangs would chop civilians from other tribes if left unchecked. Also kept Balcan states more stable after war. You are simply choosing to not see forest for the trees for whatever personal reasons.

pasabagi3y ago

I'm not really doing whataboutism. I just think that the contemporary framework for thinking about 'war crimes' is asinine, and the traditional framework, where a war of aggression was in itself the 'ur-crime', makes more sense. The US is an interesting case study for me, not because they're so awful, but rather because they (almost uniquely) have both the resources and the resolve to avoid war crimes, and yet, the results are hardly distinguishable from states with neither. The figures are not yet there, but I doubt the rate of violent death during the Russian invasion of Ukraine would be signifigantly in excess of that seen in Iraq in 2003, or in 1990, despite the fact that the Russians seem to make no effort to avoid civilian casualties, and the US made fairly comprehensive efforts.

The vast majority of the damage done by a war is not in massacres, or isolated incidents, but rather in the normal practice of warfare: attacks upon infrastructure, collateral damage, blockades and sanctions. These are the drivers that send life expectancy plummeting, and the idea that you can 'clean' war by avoiding some forms of violence, generally selected for symbolic reasons, is absurd.

So in the case of the UN, the reason why it's a good model is that the UN is unlikely to engage in wars of aggression, so even if the conduct of its soldiers are awful, they are ultimately less problematic than a national military.

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