Sitting on the sidelines

As I walked up the hill this morning, I was listening to the podcast of Wednesday’s Democracy now!, where Jeremy Woodrum, co-founder of the US Campaign for Burma, articulated how frustrated he is to see ‘one country…block the entire will of the international community’.

The problem is that China has almost single-handedly and unilaterally paralyzed the UN Security Council. They haven't made a single statement. They haven’t made a single resolution. They have done absolutely nothing. They're just sitting on the sidelines while Burma burns. It's hugely frustrating to see one country, China, be able to block the entire will of the international community.

The scary thing is not so much Woodrum’s apparent willful oblivion of the role of the UNSC, the nature of ‘the international community’, and the history of the use of the veto, but that he can present himself as a knowledgeable commentator and get away with it.