Ignatieff: The UN if necessary but not necessarily the UN

[capricorn]

During the French-language leaders’ debate, the Liberal chief was adamant that he’d let the United Nations Security Council make the ultimate call on whether to send Canadian troops abroad.

“The Canadian army must never be used outside the country without the authorization of the UN,” Ignatieff told his debate partners.

While allies like France and Britain have vetoes on the Security Council, so do countries like China and Russia, which have shown much less willingness to support NATO or other interventions abroad.

Asked whether he really wanted to give Beijing and Moscow that kind of power over Canadian policy, Ignatieff chuckled.

“That’s a very funny construction to put on my words,” Ignatieff said.

Then he dialed back his debate rhetoric and admitted there could be exceptions.

“Canada has always believed as a matter of international law, since the creation of the UN in 1945, that the use of force in international affairs should be authorized by the Security Council of the United Nations,” he said. “And when you can’t get authorization from the Security Council of the United Nations, you’d better have an extremely good case in which you can use force. There have been cases. Let’s be perfectly honest, in Kosovo, where international authorization for the use of force was not granted.”

http://www.torontosun.com/news/decision2011/2011/04/14/17991346.html

So, Canada must never engage in military missions unless they're mandated by the UN Security Council. But, there are instances where it's fine to act even though there's no UNSC approbation attached. Seems pretty nuanced to me, in an Ignatieff kind of way.

In another of Ignatieff's many awakenings since entering Canadian politics, he is now championing an international body he once found lacking and downright incompetent.

“Well, the UN screwed up in Rwanda, it screwed up in Bosnia — it screws up most of the time,” Ignatieff is quoted as saying in a Maclean’s magazine article in June, 2003. “The United Nations is a messy, wasteful, log-rolling organization.”

It makes you imagine that every time Ignatieff cursed Harper for not garnering a seat on the UNSC, he must have been chuckling to himself.

[scouterjim]

So, Iggy wants Canada to hand over control of our military to the UN? Nuts to him! Typical Liberal. Hates the military, so he wants to be rid of any responsibility for it.