Intervene or not?

The situation in Libya continues. There's an ongoing debate in Europe and the US whether an intervention should take place or not. If it is, the next question is by who, why and how?

If a legal intervention should take place, it needs to go through the UN security council. This is a slow process and some leaders thinks that there is not enough time to wait. So far there has been suggestions that the security council (SC) should apply a UN sanctioned no - fly zone over Libya to prevent Muammar Gaddafi from bombing or gassing his own people. The five permanent members of the SC is not unified about this decision. France make their point by saying that a military intervention cannot happen without a clear United Nation mandate. At the same time Ban Ki-moon says that even more action beyond UN sanctions might be needed, since in Libya the regime has lost it's legitimacy and has declared war on it's own people.

So far some sanctions has been backed up by the UN and as well as the European Union, including an arms embargo and travel bans, and some nations have announced their own asset freezes.

Throughout history there has been successful interventions and less successful ones. I do think that is it very important to be careful about the situation and make sure the situation is analyzed before taking action. But I do not think we wanna repeat some of the mistakes that has been made before (Rwanda comes to mind). If an intervention is to take place it should be under the a UN mandate. The next problem is to find the actual people to do it. The UN does not have their own army and therefor relies on the armies of it's member nations. The question which countries would be willing to offer some assistance. For instance, the US army is busy in Iraq and Afghanistan, also Obama would have difficulties explaining to the American people why they should be apart of yet another military operation. If an operation will take place I doubt it will be led by the US.

The best thing would of course be if Gaddafi just resigned and gave up his power. If he continues to kill civilians, the international community will probably start feeling the pressure to act.

Why?

I always had a strong believe that you cannot force reforms and change on a whole nation and it's people. I do believe that the 'west' has the ability and responsibility to inform, educate, and assist other nations when it's necessary and asked for. If change is going to happen, it has to come from inside the country. This is exactly what is happening in Libya and other places in the Middle East. Another important thing to look at is the fact that for a very long time the radical Islamists of the Arab world has been viewed as the revolutionaries. But what we are seeing now is quite to opposite. We are seeing people who believes in change, and are now speaking up.

These two elements together forms a very good basis for a real chance of change, so the rest of us should not turn our backs on people who has hope, and has shown that they are more than ready for something new to come.

Me in the Security Council in NYC

I read the news today, o boy.

Hello!

Over and over again we are facing news about young girls being approached by older men on internet. It's very common for these men to say they are model photographers who are looking for models. Since we live in a very shallow and vain society a lot of girls dream about becoming models. In these modern days our society does not pay too much attention to accomplishments that actually requires hard work and intelligence. Pop culture praise people who are famous because they happen to be children of very wealthy parents, or just happened to be on a private sex tape that somehow leaked out to the public. I would say that a lot of these people have very little knowledge about the real world. I've seen shows on TV where some of these glamorous people does not even know how to cut up a tomato. At the age of 21 I would think anyone would have been faced with this problem.

Anyhow, back to my point. Growing up thinking this is the best and only way to live makes young people easy targets for adults that has an ill mind. I am not saying this is the children's fault at all. With new technology kids are facing these kind of problems each day. I do have a few thoughts about it though. I remember when I was 15, I had a profile on a social network site called Lunarstorm (don't know if it still exists), I was approached by a strange man perhaps in this late 40s. He said he was looking for models, and that he thought I was perfect for what he had in mind. At the age of 15 this sounded super cool. But, to me it sounded a little bit sketchy, so what I did was that I wrote the man back and said that it sounded like fun, but I wanted to talk to my mum about it and see what she thought. I figured that if this is a real and honest man he would not mind me talking to my parents. So yeah, guess what! I never heard from him again.

It is important children realize that 'candy man' is not the evil and fishy looking man walking the streets. He/she has found new modern ways. I know kids already knows this. But, still it happens all the time. Is the dream of becoming a model so big that you are willing to risk your own safety? It is probably even more important that kids realize that being famous is not all there is. I would like to see a society that celebrate other things than fame, money and good looks.

That is all for now.

Related post:

http://fragmentationnation.blogspot.com/2008/12/get-seduced.html

Also, a great South Park episode that touch the same subject:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s08e12-stupid-spoiled-whore-video-playset

But you see, it's not me, it's not my family.

People stuck in a refugee camp (Pakistan)

People stuck in another refugee camp (Sudan)

Travelers stuck at Heathrow (UK)

Swedish travelers stuck with their laptops at Heathrow (UK)

During the last week there has been chaos all around Europe because of all the snow. Air and train traffic has been cancelled. At Heathrow there has been over 2000 Swedish people just waiting to be able to get home for the holidays, or to go somewhere warm during this cold season. On the news we hear angry passengers tell us about the horror. "We have been waiting for a whole day, they give us no information on when we will be able to fly, also they don't offer us any food or water".

I'll be darned.

Let it snow.

Back in my hometown

.

Happy Holidays!

Support the civilians in Afghanistan here:

http://www.sak.se/stod/index.html

Swedish Soldier Down

Good Afternoon.

Today when I was reading some news from back home I saw the headline 'Swedish soldier killed in Afghanistan'. The vehicle he was traveling in was hit by a home made bomb. This is sad news, and my heart goes out to the his family. There are a few things I would like to mention about Sweden's involvement in Afghanistan.

Sweden has for a very long time taken a lot of pride in the fact that it during war times has taken a neutral stand point. Two examples of that is WW I and WW II. There is a war going on in Afghanistan, which means Sweden is in war, and has been since 2001. This has been debated quite a bit in Sweden, because from the beginning Sweden's involvement was only supposed to be a peace keeping unit in the so called ISAF force (International Security Assistance Force http://www.isaf.nato.int/). This force is however under the lead of NATO, it was not like that from the beginning but this happened in 2003. Keep in mind that Sweden is not a member of NATO. Like it or not Sweden is in war. War today looks very different than wars through history. There is still one thing that is for sure, and that is that people are gonna die, during modern war more civilians die than combatants. This is what we call collateral damage. See previous post:

http://fragmentationnation.blogspot.com/2010/02/ops-they-did-it-again.html

There are many nations involved in this war. The Mujahedin and the war lords will most certainly not take the time and care to see what nation their target is from. I don't think they think too much about the fact that there is supposed to be different forces with different tasks in their homeland. To them it's just invaders, just like Genghis Khan and the Soviet Union ones was. Last, my heart truly goes out to a nation that has not seen other than war for the past 100 years.

Update

Hello!

It's been a while since I wrote anything. A lot of things has been going on. I graduated from school and now finally have my masters degree. I also relocated to NYC. So I have been very busy with just getting a bit settled in the big city.

I do like it very much here. It is not the first time I live in NYC, for some reason I keep coming back. One of the reasons I moved here is that I want to get an internship at a NGO, also I do wanna do some volunteer work. Since I'm done with school I need to get started on the actual practical experiences.

That was all for this time.

My new home in Brooklyn.

Laws against burkas and niqabs in public places

Hello!

Today the government in Belgium is gonna vote about women wearing burkas and niqabs in public places. There is a suggestion that this should be fobidden and the punishment if you still wear it can be prison. I think this is silly. I do not understand why. The reason that has been given is that this law is important from a security and a moral stand point. A moral stand point? What does that mean in this context? It is also said that the liberty and independence for women is very important in Belgium. I can understand that argument to some extent, but I do think that there is another side to this as well. One thing is that this law might stop some women from leaving theire homes and I also believe that it can be dangerous telling people what to not wear.

There are more nations in Europe that are debating this issue. I know that it has been a topic in Denmark for a while. Which is interesting since there are no women wearing burkas in Denmark, and a very few wearing a niqab. The university of Copenhagen has done some research on this topic, and it has shown that about 50% of the women in Denmark wearing niqabs are Danish women that has converted to Islam.

But mostly I think there are bigger problems in Europe that needs to be solved and forbidden, like bootleg jeans, because they are ugly. ; )