Review: The Fog of Peace: A Memoir of International Peacekeeping in the 21st Century by Jean-Marie Guehenno, Brookings Institute, 2015

Jean-Marie Guehenno - who is a man - is representative of the mid-level globalist apparatchik. He began his career as a French diplomat. He moved to the United Nations and was its Undersecretary for Peacekeeping from 2000 to August 2008. He is currently CEO and president of something called International Crisis Group. No doubt, a good living if you can stomach it. In his latest posted article, he blames the escalation of violence in the world on a "resurgent nationalism." The overall tone of the book can be found in the article with its feminine, and cheap, moralism and its fact free "content." 

If you can't trust us with your life, liberty and property...

The main virtue of this book is that it provides a window into the mentality of the globalist evader. In both his article and book there is no mention of, much less discussion on, the number one threat to world peace: the global jihad. Instead, he wallows in a cowardly moral equivalence. For example, his analysis and description of the peacekeeping mission on Cote d'Ivoire leaves the reader wondering what the issues were between the contenting parties, "in September 2003 the ministers of the major rebel armed group, the "Forces Nouvelles," walk out of the government of national unity" (98). Who are these rebels? What do they want? Are their demands reasonable? Who knows and cares? Obviously not the author. Or, he doesn't care enough to inform his readers.

Guehenno is clear that his job was to hoodwink governments into throwing away their treasure, and the lives of their young men, to satisfy the "greater good." And, not incidentally, the author's need to be a do-gooding big shot. In the preface he notes, "For many years, some of us had felt slightly uncomfortable that our wealth and security apparently were not transferable ... I saw it as a unique opportunity to change my life by having for the first time the opportunity to change the lives of others" (x, xiv).  Or, as he demonstrates his new found lack of loyalty to the nation of his birth:  

My compatriots were doing their job, and I would have done the same had I been working at the Quai d'Orsay, making sure that French interests were protected and that the French Army would not walk into a disaster. But my job as an international civil servant was now to mobilize the resources of a powerful nation for a broader interest and reconcile legitimate national concerns with the higher goal of saving lives in Congo. I felt that in most situations, national interests are not compatible with the goals of the UN charter, but harnessing them for that purpose is hard work and sometimes requires a bit of clever diplomacy." (133)

From the horse's mouth, as it were. Ayn Rand once wrote that in any conflict between good and evil or right and wrong, the compromiser is the rubber hose that transfers the living power of the good to the bad or evil. Guehenno's mission since 2000 has been to transfer the West's life, liberty and property to third-world corpses. Another way of looking at Guehenno, if one must and one should in self-defense, is by analogy with Lancelot Clokey. Clokey was a minor character in The Fountainhead. As another character describes him: 

You have the right to make people conscious of yourself. So you've done the wise thing. You've written a remarkable collection of bilge - yes bilge - but morally justified. A clever book. World catastrophes used as a backdrop for your own nasty little personality. How Lancelot Clokey got drunk at an international conference. What beauties slept with Lancelot Clokey during an invasion. How Lancelot Clokey got dysentery in the land of famine.

Guehenno is not quite that bad, or maybe, he's far worse. But, for some reason while reading his book, the name "Lancelot Clokey" popped into my head. However, the author's constant and obsequious browning nosing of Kofi Annan does get old very fast. 

This book's main value is the glimpse it provides into the rationalizations of a Davos Man functionary. His job is to maintain the facade of "humanitarian" globalism so that its Western victims don't take notice of the destruction of their countries and way of life. He briefly mentions that his father was a "leftist." The author also admits to participating in the notorious Paris riots of 1968. He doesn't provide much background on his ideological upbringing. However, it's clear that destroying the sovereignty of Western nations, and the freedom they preserve, has been his family's business for quite a while. 

Being a big shot when others pay the bills is fun.