UN peackeeping ain't necessarily what we crack it up to be/Update: "Why trade Kandahar for Kinshasa?"

Further to this post,

CF drumming up a Congo mission?

from the CBC's Brian Stewart:

Are we really thinking of taking on another mission?

One of the most intriguing aspects of being Canadian is our national reverence for UN peacekeeping, an ideal that exists almost entirely now in our imagination.

Polls show most Canadians now insist that combat operations end with our term in Afghanistan in 2011 and want our high-quality army to be limited to peacekeeping only...

But history suggests there are few types of military mission more likely to end in failure, frustration and searing shame than what passes for peacekeeping today.

Think of Rwanda, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, the Balkans, Sierra Leone and Haiti, among many examples...
anyone thinking of a new Canadian peacekeeping mission — as Ottawa seems to be doing as it contemplates what to do with our military post-Afghanistan — should carefully read the details of an independent study commissioned by the UN's own Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs department.

The title may be bland "Protecting Civilians in the Context of UN Peacekeeping Operations." But the substance makes for chilling reading.

The bottom line: A decade ago, a chastened UN, reacting to past failures, set out to make "protection of civilians in armed conflict" a priority mandate, but still hasn't found the collective will, means or strategy to bring this about...

Canada, which is trying to win a long-coveted permanent seat on the Security Council, is rumoured to be courting votes among member nations by dropping suggestions in New York that it might consider a future peacekeeping mission.

A big mission to Haiti would make sense. Canada has a peacekeeping history there and, as a top aid donor, would have influence on ensuring a civilian-protection mandate.

But some other possible missions — one to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo has been rumoured — should only be considered with extreme caution.

Jumping from Afghanistan to the Congo would truly be a leap from the frying pan into the fire...

...Canada should not lend its name to any mission that only promises to protect the innocent, but then fails to act when courage is required.

Update: Another piece worth the read in, gasp, the Toronto Star:

Why trade Kandahar for Kinshasa?

...Canada's military and political circles are abuzz about what to do with our battle-hardened soldiers, who by next year will be all kitted up with nowhere to go. With a rapidly approaching mid-2011 deadline set by Parliament to start pulling out of Afghanistan, an exit strategy is slowly firming up while a redeployment strategy would move some of those troops to Congo...

We are not just weary of the fight, but leery of the moral ambiguities: our wavering Afghan allies, the widespread torture, and the loss of 142 soldiers so far. But why hopscotch from Afghanistan's minefields to Congo's killing fields where similar moral quagmires await us?

UN peacekeepers are backing the Congolese army as it tries to wipe out rebels guilty of atrocities in a region where 5 million people have died during a decade of fighting. But the army is also guilty of torture and atrocities. The government of President Joseph Kabila is racked by endemic corruption and political treachery. And Kabila wants the UN force to leave later this year...

Congo is now the UN's biggest peacekeeping operation, with more than 22,000 troops from neighbouring African nations. Yet it remains a disorganized force that can't stop the slaughter. Peacekeepers were warned last year by UN legal advisers not to participate in Congolese army operations against rebels if they anticipated human rights abuses, which is precisely what happened.

The fledgling Congo mission would surely benefit from having Canada's outgoing army commander, Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, helm the force, as Ottawa is quietly proposing. But if that opens the floodgates to a larger deployment, Canadians need to ask some hard questions.

After years of lonely slogging in Afghanistan without sufficient Western backup, why leave at the very time that American and British soldiers are finally providing a critical mass — and then jump to an under-resourced Congo mission? If our politicians lack the courage [emphasis added] to convince Canadians that our help is needed in Afghanistan, how are they going to persuade people that Congo is worth fighting and dying for?

Canada can't be everywhere. Despite our fondness for the moral certainties of peacekeeping, we must be mindful of our national interests [emphasis added].

We have deep entanglements in Afghanistan, and heavy obligations to nearby Haiti in its hour of need. Before we rush in to save Congo, we have unfinished business to take care of, and old promises to keep [emphasis added].

We seem to be rushing to pack up in Afghanistan because public support has collapsed; yet despite the Governor General's trip to Congo this week, do Canadians really have the appetite for casualties in Congo, and a willingness to dance with its dictator? From Kandahar to Kinshasa, and from Karzai to Kabila, it sounds like a hopscotch strategy from benighted Afghanistan to Africa's heart of darkness.

Quite. Though I'm sure the calculation is very few Canadian dead indeed in any Congo effort.