Abstraction vs. Reality 2

WARNING! Our subject matter today involves sexually oriented material. If you are sensitive to such matters, do NOT follow the links provided.

While researching the behavior of UN “peacekeepers” in various locations throughout the world, I found several common threads. Sexual predation against the indigenous population is practiced regardless of the nationality of the victims. Complicity of the officer corps and other administrators is the norm. Reporting of crimes and general indignities is not encouraged. Reparations, counseling, prosecution and other indices of responsible action are rare to non-existent.

If you have the stomach for it, these are just a few of the 201,000 responses to a request to Google for the subject “UN scandals,” here, here, here, and here. Most of the current information which has been released is a result of our administration offering confidential information from the UN to the general public. Former Ambassador, Josh Bolton, during his term was a champion of open records and giving the public access to all of the happenings in the world body.

Keep in mind that these are not a handful of infractions but in some cases number in the hundreds. Neither are they limited to a single or a couple of operations. In the multi-national force they are not the result of a single warped cultural response of a specific nation’s troops. Like a cancer, these occurrences are random and equally hard to defeat. One is as likely to be abused or raped by a guy in a blue helmet in Congo or Kosovo. Where ever destitute refugees huddle homeless and hungry; the threat is constant. This assault on the helpless is the antithesis of everything which our nation stands for. This is probably the reason we occasionally hear of an American who refuses to don the blue helmet and be subject to a foreign command structure.

Women have long been the object of rapine by invading and conquering armies. Historically, it was often part of the overall battle plan and encouraged. It served, at a horrible cost to the victims, a national interest for the oppressors. Since there is no national interest for the perpetrators within the UN the criminal acts are all the more heinous. Also, the age of the victims of both sexes has dropped to the accepted definition of children. Without supervision, prosecution, or legitimate investigation the practice has become a recreational outlet for the troops.

If you check the links and read the accusations—well founded—you will note references to reports from nearly every year since the turn of the century. These are not isolated in time, venue, nationality (either victim or perpetrator) or rank. All of this evidence points to that which has become the rule and not the exception.

One of the most outrageous aspects of the whole matter is the necessity of trading sexual favor in exchange for foodstuffs and other relief supplies. As the good people and nations gather material to ease the suffering of refugees they are in fact supplying the coin of prostitution. To have to exchange the use of one’s body for a bottle of clear untainted water is the height of subjugation.

We display high dudgeon when the governor of New York pays a high priced prostitute for a night of self-satisfaction. In the world of moral equivalency does this compare to a man with a gun and blue helmet raping a 12-year-old girl in exchange for a pound of ground flour? At least the governor’s shenanigans had the necessary quid pro quo. Both parties were at liberty to decline the encounter. What choice does the twelve-year-old have? Will her future husband understand her lost virginity? Will her lowered expectations of men in general even allow her to pursue the joys of marriage which so many women treasure? These are people; and, they are being abused under the auspices of the United Nations.

As a father of five and the grandfather of twenty, I may rightly be accused of reacting strenuously to these matters. I have lived the life of “protector” far too long to be able to ignore these rotten apples in the United Nations. I continually ask myself what I would do in response to these crimes. I am not necessarily proud of my inner thoughts on the whole affair. Retribution comes to mind far quicker than reconciliation. God will deal with me for those thoughts and I have confidence he will also deal with the perpetrators.

Watch for Abstraction III and notes on Oil for Food.

In His abiding love,

Cecil Moon