Rwanda?? did it have to happen?

This only goes if the wall is completely undefended and the raiders know this. The examples I have given show that even if no actual defenders are present, if the enemy suspects them to be, they will not allow themselves to get bogged down trying to cross a wall. To make this situation even worse, I stated in my original post that the refugees should also dig a ditch, restricting access to the camp to the gates themselves. An important thing to realize here is that the raiders of these camps are irregular troops looking for easy loot and quick slaughter of undefended people; they are very likely to turn around and seek easier targets if they are even required to get off the horse only to open the gates.

Accepting for a moment that you/majorwoody are right, and that the raiders will not be stopped by a simple pallissade and ditch, then all you would need is one man with a gun to stand on that wall or gate or watchtower or whatever. That one man could potentially destroy the entire raiding party with the technology available to him; therefore the raiders will not risk trying to get into the camp. And there is no need to turn the refugees into another Liberation Front.

 

However, finding out is easy. Ride up to the walls. Do they shoot at you? No? Ok, lets go kill them. Even if there is one guy with a rifle up there, a few volleys of AK fire should deal nicely with that.

You cannot really equate the relatively large, foot-oriented armies of ancient Greece with horse-mounted bandits, especiallyin terms of mobility and the ability to turn around and run away at a moment's notice.

Gates are always the weakest points in a wall anyway, and are naturally the first place to attack. Making the wall more defensible will simply make initial attacks on the gate more determined.

A very good point. But then, if all refugees start building pallisades, what do the Radiers do? Go back to life as a farmer? Or start knocking down a few gates?

One man could not destroy the whole rading party, not unless they were exceedingly stupid and he was exceedingly lucky. And had plenty of ammo.

Yes, a few armed men behind a pallisade would undoubtedly make the raiders go away in search of easier targets - however, the raiding party has much greater firepower, and wooden pallisades are not much protection from AK-47 fire. Uh, and you now seem to be advocating giving guys to the refugees, which you started of being against!

 

As a solution to the point I can't deny, which is that a mere bunch of poles won't do much to stop a determined invader. However it is part of my argument that these raiders are cowardly, abusing their greater mobility to target unarmed civilians, and that they cannot be considered determined invaders because of this. I highly doubt these people would do anything that requires them to get off their horses before all adult males in their target camp are eliminated. Why would making a gate defensible make the attacks more determined? The risk is greater for the attacker.

But you're right, since I was trying to argue that these people should not be given guns, I propose a single UN machine gun team be posted in a tower above the gate of our little encampment, that will repel the horsemen no doubt.

I cannot equate Greek armies with Sudanese horsemen, but how about Mongol raiders and the Great Wall of China? How about Byzantine fortifications against Turkish and Persian raiders??

 

I'll go along with that.

No you can't. I won't let you. :evil:

Ok seriously -
Because the Great Wall of China (and Byzantine walls) were not really intended as a 'you may never cross this' barrier, but as a means of slowing/delaying the enemy to allow reinforcements to arrive.
The Rwandan camp cannot afford to let its defenses be breached, as they are the only thing standing between the raiders and victory. Rwandan refugee camps have no force of mobile reinforcements on standby.
China and the Byzantines did (at least in theory).

 

Aye, but imagine if China had been camp-sized...

 

That would be something to see trying to jam a billion people into 400x 400 miles

 

A UN GAURD TOWER?THATS EASY TO BEAT ,DONT FIRE ON THE UN TROOPS AND U CAN RAPE AND MURDER WITH IMPUNITY...THEY WILL JUST SIT BY AND WATCH AS THEY DID IN SIERRA LEONE ,BOSNAI,ETHIOPIA...FILL IN BLANK....14 YEAR OLD BOYS WITH HOMEMADE CROSSBOWS WOULD BE A BETTER DETERRENT THAN UN TROOPS.....

 

So the rules of engagement are changed to 'protect the civilians'

The UN is only as effective as its members are willing to be - take a look at the League of Nations for a 'let us learn from history' example.

I do remember a joke that used to be told about the UN 'Safe Zones' in the former Yugoslavia. Well - more of a pun, really.
The un-safe zones...

 

well thats what you get if you leave it to the bloody belgians.....

 

TD - please ease up on bashing countries...

 

Have you ever even met a Belgian person? Do you know anything at all about them?

Majorwoody: the idea of using UN troops for protection is simply that it means you don't have to give more Africans guns, because it is perfectly obvious where that would lead. If you have a proper wall/palissade around your camp, then you can simply tell the UN troops that anyone who attacks the palissade is attacking them personally.

 

the un is a joke,it needs to be disbanded and rebuilt from the ground up.i recently saw something on tv bout a tiny mercenary force is africa that stopped a rawanda type massacre ...ex pat soldiers from europe and usa . a tiny budget and few rifle companies.the liberal media got wind of it and shut the operation down.hundreds of thousands of africans were saved tho.....the brits did their very best to keep the jews of palistine from arming themselves in 46,47...luckily for the jews many weapons were smuggled through the blockade...i guess the british labor government was thinking along your line roel,more guns will merely ad more fuel to a tinderbox,it would of course...and in fact many arab s were tragically killed when they stormed the palisade in 1948.i dont see why sudanese genocide victems should have any less right to self defence than jewish genocide victems...

 

I'm not denying them the right to defend themselves, I'm being realistic. What do you suppose these Sudenese will do if you start handing out guns? Will they shoot the vile raiders and then return peacefully to their little farms and forget about the whole thing?

A UN force, if properly used (and I agree that this is a big if), will be much more efficient and will not allow a situation to escalate.

 

The UN didnt intervene because they dint care that much about black africans , and they didnt think it was worth risking a high number of troops. Also, rwanda had no reosurces to offer.

Thats partly what romeo dellaire or some other canadian UN military officer said.

I'll get a link for the quote as soon as I can.

 

Have you ever met an American person? I'm quite sure you'll be surprised mr.Roel.

 

Of course you have to bear in mind that any weapons in Jewish hands were about as likely to be used against the British as anything else.
Suddenly it all makes sense...

 

TD - where are you going with this?

 

Roel has not generalized and bashed the US as you do with other countries, and thus you cannot "mirror" his comment in that sense and succeed, mr.TD.

TD, I am becoming tired of your ad hominem style of debating and frequent use of irrelevant and derogatory terms.

--

Concerning the UN, I agree with majorwoody when it comes to the ineffectiveness of the organization. Too many members, too many conflicting interests...

I don't agree with arming the Sudanese though. The region is saturated with enough guns and ammunition. What the refugees need is concentrated, effective protection in the form you described with the mercaneries... just internationally sanctioned and controlled, IMO.

 

And if you can explain the relevance of this comment I'm quite sure I'd be surprised. TD you're the one who's been handing out the nationalistic little comments here recently, not the Admin.

In any case you haven't answered the question, have you ever actually met a "bloody Belgian" or been to Belgium?

 

I do have sympathy for this view. I would not suggest complete disbanding, as there are big chunks of it that do a good and much-needed job. But there are other bits that really really need looking at.

The Cold War turned the UN into just a big arena to play out political struggle - while this was better than having a nuclear war, it has ruined the organisation. They should reorganise how things are done, proceedures, membership of the security council (if that should still exist), the ability to veto, etc etc. And the military / peace-keeping aspect - troops need to have far more scope to actually keep the peace, rather than just protect themselves and not upset the status quo.

However, the biggest reform that needs making, and one that would effectively remove the need for any other reforms, is for all the members to consider the good of the whole before the good of themselves. And I submit that this is about as likely to happen as me randomly mutating into a fish.

Which is a shame, because that is all it would take to make the UN work perfectly.

However, it could still work a lot more effectively than it does. All it needs is whole-hearted support.