4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, February 1, 2006 OPINION (Tbe irirn &tt i DoNN M. FRESARD Editor in Chief EMILY BEAM CHRISTOPHER ZBROZEK Editorial Page Editors ASHLEY DINGES Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE The only alternative to American leadership is a dramatically more dangerous and anxious world." - President Bush, speaking during his State of the Union address last night. 'N . JEFF _ . ... i . °_' ~ N ' , -.y ' .,, tw , C CRAVENS ThE CRAVE .t t a "k a -..nom. 01 Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their author. Jij w "'V \... I ' ~ The Future of the UN ANDREW BIELAK BURNING BRIDGES n recent years, attacking the United Nations has grown from an occasional pastime among American pol- iticians and intellec- tuals into an all-out sporting event. While previously standing as the ultimate nemesis of hawkish foreign policy wonks, the UN is increasingly becoming a bipartisan punch- ing bag, with thinkers on both sides of the divide taking as many shots as they can. Frankly, they have found much to swing at. Over the past decade, a series of failed interventions, corruption scandals and bureaucratic squabbles have rocked the organization, emboldening its detractors and leaving its defenders gasping for air. Brutal ethnic conflicts in places like Rwanda, Bos- nia and Sudan demonstrated the limits of an outside body in preventing human-rights abuses within a sovereign state. The oil-for- food scandal and its aftereffects called into question the principles and accountability of the UN's officials. Finally - and perhaps most jarringly - the skirting of the Secu- rity Council in the 2003 invasion of Iraq exposed the recurring problem that regard- less of the alleged existence of an interna- tional authority, states can and will assert their own power and bypass the rules when it's in their interest to do so. The problem with so many of UN's fault- finders, however, is not their critiques them- selves - which are often legitimate - but rather the narrowness of their vision and the agenda they tend to hide. Those who spit the most vitriol at the UN, rather than seeking critical improvements, often hold deep con- tempt for the organization itself. These crit- ics aim for either a drastic increase of U.S. authority and ability to extend its interests, or a large reduction in the institution's power worldwide. The most prominent example of this type of thinking unfortunately comes from a rather important member of the orga- nization, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who once famously commented that the UN headquarters could lose 10 stories and no one would notice. Conveniently omitted from these cri- tiques, of course, is remote acceptance of the massive impact efforts from the UN have on peace and international security. And who says that the UN has promoted international security? Well, we can start with the Human Secu- rity Report, a yearly publication that docu- ments the incidence of war and its casualties worldwide. As the 2005 edition makes clear, alarmist theories regarding the current state of international violence and warfare are largely unfounded. Contrary to the com- monly held belief that the world is getting more and more dangerous, both the num- bers of wars and the civilian deaths they cause have decreased significantly over the past 15 years. While we know that the end of the Cold War played a significant role in the reduc- tion of these conflicts, what is less widely acknowledged is the effect of increased activism of international organizations like the UN. Citing a statistic from the center- right Rand Corporation think tank, the report asserts that the UN has been success- ful in approximately two-thirds of its peace- keeping operations. The rate of success for the United States in the same category is 50 percent. So while it may be standard to assail the organization for mismanaged operations in eastern Europe and sub-Saha- ran Africa, one finds few accounts of the successful peacekeeping missions (i.e. East Timor, Kosovo, Cambodia, El Salvador) that are more common, statistically speaking. For all the anti-multilateral rhetoric streaming from certain intellectual circles in this country, the ultimate irony may be that the years to come could see an increas- ingly co-dependent relationship between the United States and the UN. While it is clear that the United Nations needs the United States as its most politically forceful and powerful member, what is less acknowl- edged is how integral the humanitarian aid, peacekeeping forces and international cred- ibility provided by the UN are to the future of our own foreign policy. This paradigm is currently playing itself out in Iraq, where deteriorating political support has led to repeated calls for reduction of American troops and an increase in the international presence. Despite the declared illegality of the invasion by the Security Council in 2003, it appears that in the long run, the United Nations will have to play a key role in redeveloping the country and maintain- ing some semblance of security. So let's start working on some of these reforms. Bring them on. There are a hun- dred ways the UN could increase efficien- cy, cut down on corruption and improve its image worldwide. But without a general understanding of the role the organization has played - and must continue to play - in promoting peace, stability and devel- opment worldwide, our efforts will get us nowhere. Maybe it's just too painful for some to admit, so I'll try saying it outright for them: A future with a strong, active United Nations is one that all of us - yes, all of us - should hope to see. Bielak can be reached at anbielak@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send all letters to the editor to tothedaily@michigan daily. corn. 0 Kicking out Michigamua members worsens secrecy To THE DAILY: I graduated from high school in 1994 as a Mound Westonka Mohawk. It was fun - before big sporting events, hardcore fans would shave the sides of their heads, although they looked more like characters out of "The Road Warriors" than Native Americans. Still, we all identified as Mohawks, and it wasn't until 1997 that my school - about 30 miles west of Minneapolis and a thou- sand miles from the Mohawks' traditional homeland - changed its name to the "White Hawks." Does that make me a racist? No, but we.did promote racism. A lot of us have done dopey things that we didn't realize were offensive until it was too late. I'm disappointed that Brian Hull chose to focus on the intent behind Michigamua's ceremonies rather than their effects in his piece Michigamua speaks out (01/26/2006). There's a big difference between passive and active racism, though, and universally barring Michigamua members from activi- ties represents exactly the kind of visceral judgments we're trying to fight. Moreover, castigating Michigamua members with an unforgiving attitude seems likely to lead to more secrecy, not less. But most of all, demonizing Michigamua and calling the various -isms "symptoms of the small mind," as Mara Gay does in her col- umn Bigger than Michigamua (01/30/2006), causes the struggle for greater understand- ing to seem like a good-versus-evil war. Sometimes it is, but most times it's not. Ris- ing above our own preconceptions requires constant assessment and reassessment of what we're doing. The danger is assuming that we've achieved enlightenment and only those "others" are racists. Kurt Christensen School of Public Health education problems. To realize the potential of public education, many systemic changes need to take place, including increases in public education funding, improvements in America's social structure and welfare and increases in public concern and awareness. And so Singer seems right to question the motivation of politicians who hope that sending recent college graduates to strug- gling schools can replace the many system- ic - and expensive - approaches that are needed. TFA should not be thought of as a comprehensive solution to the shortcomings our public education system faces. The reason I was surprised to find myself agreeing with Singer is that he seems to go on to blame TFA for this mistaken intention, as evidenced by his title: "Where Teach for America goes wrong." TFA does not purport to be an end-all answer to the hardships of America's public education system; its mis- sion is instead "to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting some of our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort." As a soon-to-be mem- ber of the 2006 TFA corps in Newark, N.J. - where I'll be teaching middle-school Eng- lish - I certainly don't hold the illusion that an effort of two years will single-handedly turn the tide of any systemic shortcoming of public education. However, I do believe that in order for public education to reach its full potential, motivated and ambitious young Americans must care about and become involved in the public education system. My fellow corps members and I will be there to teach, but also to learn - both from our stu- dents and from the seasoned teachers we'll be working with. In short, Singer is right to argue against attempts to use TFA as a comprehensive solution for the public education system's shortcomings. But he is mistaken to take this as evidence that TFA has "gone wrong." Instead, what Singer seems really to be con- cerned with, and rightly so, is where politi- cians go wrong (again). Ross Jensen accountable, 01/25/2006). Let me affirm that I have been a revolutionary Trotskyist for almost 40 years and that I am unalter- ably opposed to any special consideration based on race, ethnicity or gender. Let me also note that BAMN is now frightening and alienating the populace of Michigan with its opposition to the ballot as a way of gauging whether the citizens of Michi- gan want these special divisive privileges maintained. An article in the magazine Commentary from the mid-1990s argued cogently that the Bolsheviks never concerned themselves with affirmative action and feminism. I can only recall four references by Lenin and Trotsky. During the 1902 split, Lenin derisively spoke of his opponents as having the "soft hands of a woman." He warned his girlfriend, Inessa Armand, in 1915 that she was disgracing herself with so much atten- tion to women's issues. After the Bolshevik Revolution, he complained bitterly to Klara Zetkin that the women's movement was dissipating energy from the workers' revo- lution. Trotsky, in his seminal work "The Revolution Betrayed," refers to a letter from one of his closest supporters, who blames aristocratic women for corrupting Bolshe- viks with their sexual advances. I will leave it to the reader to analyze why membership in the Bolshevik Party of October, 1917 dropped to 2 percent women. Robert Bernard Alum Sex in the grad library? Try North Campus To THE DAILY: I just read your article about sex in the grad library. I was thinking you should have a survey to see what campus locations might be perfect spots for the sexual activities of students. My idea would be the Vroom - or as I like to call it, the Vroom Room. It's a soundoroof room in the Groundworks Lab 0 Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Andrew Bielak, Reggie Brown, Kevin Bunkley, Gabrielle DAngelo, John Davis, Whitney Dibo, Milly Dick, Sara Eber, Jesse Forester, Mara Gay, Jared Goldberg, Ashwin Jagannathan, Mark Kuehn, Will Kerridge, Frank Manley, Kirsty McNamara, Rajiv Prabhakar, Matt Rose, Katherine Seid, Brian Slade, John Stiglich, Ben Tay- I.recir -r- I