António Guterres, You Won’t Stop Russia – But Mines Might

UN Secretary-General António Guterres made an appeal to countries planning to withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty and reintroduce anti-personnel landmines. Among these countries, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland are neighbors of Russia.

Their departure from the treaty is justified precisely by this geographical fact — and by the fact that Russia is an aggressive and imperialist great power that has invaded the territory of several of its neighbors. There is no doubt that its current regime might also decide to test the security guarantees NATO has given to these countries — once it is done with Ukraine.

That is why it is fair to ask Mr. Guterres how he intends to prevent Russia’s intentions, should it decide to attack, for example, my own homeland. And whether, in such a situation, he would take responsibility for the Finnish lives that would have been saved by effective mining.

I do not expect an answer from the UN Secretary-General, but I remind him that Finland once sought help — in vain — from the UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, before the Winter War that began in 1939. No help came then, and I do not believe Guterres would be able to provide any in the 2020s either, should Russia’s Putin choose to repeat Stalin’s move and order his army to seize Helsinki and strip Finland of its independence.

For this reason, I believe the UN Secretary-General would do well to keep quiet about the affairs of Eastern Europe, and instead focus on achieving a just peace in Ukraine, resolving the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and ensuring that Iran does not continue its nuclear weapons program after its war with Israel comes to an end.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Putin's Threat Bolsters European Border States' Defense Against Russia
Highlights of the BRICS Meeting in Kazan, Russia
United Nations, corruption and terrorism

Most useless organisations of our time

Amnesty International has claimed that Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians by setting up military bases set up in residential areas including schools and hospitals and launching attacks from populated civilian areas. That strongly supports Russian aggression against its neighbor.

The Amnesty´s claim is intellectually dishonest and shows how loosely the organisation is connected to the real world. That was also noticed by its Ukrainian sub-organisation, which decided to resign from the report. After all, Ukrainians are using empty buildings - that hardly endangers anybody´s safety.  

The United Nations has not been able to stop the Russian attack. Instead, the veto-right of Russia has halted all decision making in the organisation. Therefore it is clear, that solution to the crisis can only be based on other solutions. That is, military force.

After all this, the ultimate destiny of the UN may be similar to the League of Nations, which was replaced by the UN after not being able to prevent the second world war. The main problem with UN was that great powers - like Soviet Union in 1940´s - always refuse to make agreements that may turn against them, and therefore included the veto-right to the greatest powers of the time. 

Taken together, right now it looks like Amnesty International and United Nations would be two of the most useless organisations of our time.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Pacifism - a respectable tool to support inhumane dictators and warlords
How can Vladimir Putin survive from his propaganda after the Russian loss in Ukraine?
Is Gerhard Schoeder of Germany ignorant, troll or stupid?