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Replace the UN?

Should the world democratic community...

  • Work strictly within the UN organization?

    Votes: 14 35.9%
  • Remain in UN and also form a new supplemental organization?

    Votes: 8 20.5%
  • Form a new organization and disengage from the UN entirely?

    Votes: 17 43.6%

  • Total voters
    39

Tashah

DP Veteran
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Established in 1945, the United Nations is the stepchild of the failed League of Nations. Initially, the United Nations only accepted membership from the Allied Alliance nations who had declared war on the Axis Powers. This caveat meant that the original UN members shared a basic common cause and moral clarity. UN membership was eventually opened to all nations of the international community... regardless of political or moral stance.

In its current formulation, the United Nations majority is composed of Third World nations ruled by dictators and authoritarian regimes. This majority has formed a resolution/voting bloc which has resulted in the organizational marginalization of democratic nations.

Although the United Nations boasts of an international legitimacy and claims a moral high ground, it is now viewed by many democratic nations as an irrelevant tower of Babel that has substituted moral equivalence for moral clarity. The track record of the UN in addressing moral crisis is on the whole quite appalling... Israel/Palestine, the Uganda of Idi Amin, Cambodia, Eritrea, Bosnia/Kosovo, Rwanda, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and now Sudan. It is failing in efforts to address the critical issue of nuclear prolifferation with India, Pakistan, Libya, North Korea, and Iran as prominent examples. Criminal activity such as child prostitution by UN troops in areas under its juristiction has been reported, and organizational corruption such as the Iraq Oil For Food Program is being investigated. Authoritative and despotic regimes such as Syria and Sudan have been promoted to the UN Security Council and the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Has the time now come for the democracies of the world to disengage from the United Nations and form a new international agency such as the Community of Democracies?


 
Tashah said:
Established in 1945, the United Nations is the stepchild of the failed League of Nations. Initially, the United Nations only accepted membership from the Allied Alliance nations who had declared war on the Axis Powers. This caveat meant that the original UN members shared a basic common cause and moral clarity. UN membership was eventually opened to all nations of the international community... regardless of political or moral stance.

In its current formulation, the United Nations majority is composed of Third World nations ruled by dictators and authoritarian regimes. This majority has formed a resolution/voting bloc which has resulted in the organizational marginalization of democratic nations.

Although the United Nations boasts of an international legitimacy and claims a moral high ground, it is now viewed by many democratic nations as an irrelevant tower of Babel that has substituted moral equivalence for moral clarity. The track record of the UN in addressing moral crisis is on the whole quite appalling... Israel/Palestine, the Uganda of Idi Amin, Cambodia, Eritrea, Bosnia/Kosovo, Rwanda, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and now Sudan. It is failing in efforts to address the critical issue of nuclear prolifferation with India, Pakistan, Libya, North Korea, and Iran as prominent examples. Criminal activity such as child prostitution by UN troops in areas under its juristiction has been reported, and organizational corruption such as the Iraq Oil For Food Program is being investigated. Authoritative and despotic regimes such as Syria and Sudan have been promoted to the UN Security Council and the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Has the time now come for the democracies of the world to disengage from the United Nations and form a new international agency such as the Community of Democracies?

When they put Syria on the SS I lost what little respect for the UN I had left. But I'm not if doing away with it is the answer. Could it be saved by demanding better from it? I really don't know. But I know when you have terrorist states on the SS- things don't look too good for the future.

If you did do away with it then what? Would you have anther org. created to take it's place?
 
Pacridge said:
If you did do away with it then what? Would you have anther org. created to take it's place?

I would envision a new global organization composed of democratic nations. As all members would share an intrinsic basic ideology and overarching global agenda, it would move beyond being a mere international debate society.

It would utilize political, trade, and economic initiatives to advance the resident principles of freedom and democracy. This organization would also possess the assets to assist those in need of humanitarian assistance and if necessary... use military force to quickly end hostile situations before they degenerate into human catastrophe.

Certain benchmarks (such as those required of NATO candidates) would have to be initially established to define organizational composition and parameters. I don't have all the answers, just an idea that I have been considering for a while. It's now up to the Debate Politics membership to vote and comment on the merits or de-merits of this proposed initiative.

My thanks to all DP participants!
Tashah

 
The opening statement says it all. The UN is broken and has been for a long time. I don't see any reforms coming forth in the near future. Bolton was chosen because of his organizational ability and he recognized the UN needed fixing. The fact that his nomination is being blocked shows an unwillingness on the part of some, not to make the changes necessary to make the UN an efficient body. It should definitely be disassembled and a new agency started to take its place.
 
Bolton is not a good choice because he doesn't seem to believe in diplomacy nearly as much as a US ambassador to the UN should. In his foreign relations, he is noted as being pushy and rude, not something you want in an ambassador. Someone in the UN ambassador position should be noted for their willingness to compromise and work with other nations. Bolton also has accusations against him witholding information from our government. I feel Bolton's comments about the UN wouldn't make him the best choice because a good ambassador should be willing to cooperate and realize that other nations besides the US have something to offer the world. Shouldn't his main concern be with working with other nations? The UN may not be very effective on some issues, but it has done much for human rights. Ths UN needs to be reformed, Bolton is not the best man for the job. I believe he would alienate the rest of the world and make it an organization where he does his best to force other nations to take our side or beware of the consequences. I'm not saying we need to cooperate with other nations on everything, but the ambassador representing the US should be someone is much more into making compromises.
 
I voted for the supplemental organization, which would constist of republics. (Excluding "fake" republics like the Democratic Republic of Korea).

However, I think we still need a big room for ambassadors from all countries to sit down and talk things through. We just should just take away most of their other powers.
 
It's called the United Nations. If we are "United" we need to compromise and work towards majority consensus. Just because the U.S. disagrees with something the majority of the U.N. has approved, the U.S. should go with it. Otherwise we are not United. If the U.S. wants to go it alone, then we are not United. A fourth grader could figure this out.

:doh
 
So let's say a genocide is occuring in... ohh, I don't know... the Sudan. If the UN doesn't do anything about it, we should ignore it(THAT'S WHAT WE'RE DOING ANYWAY)?

Should we just go with it?
 
If everyone always had to be "United" with what the UN says, we'd have a tyranny of the majority in the most literal sense of the term. The majority of the UN is made up of tyrannical governments.
 
WiseRufus said:
It's called the United Nations.
In its initial inception it was indeed the United Nations (nations united against the regimes of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan).

With the current majority composition, perhaps a more apt sobriquet would be the *Dysfunctional Nations*

 
My only problem with forming yet another international democratic conference is the fear that it would simply devolve back into some twisted form like the U.N. of today, I would vote for independence until diplomacy is needed, since that wasn't a poll option I did vote for the above idea of democracies leaving the U.N. and forming their own independent global council. To wrap it up, the U.N. is worthless and must be thrown away.
 
Tashah said:
Established in 1945, the United Nations is the stepchild of the failed League of Nations. Initially, the United Nations only accepted membership from the Allied Alliance nations who had declared war on the Axis Powers. This caveat meant that the original UN members shared a basic common cause and moral clarity. UN membership was eventually opened to all nations of the international community... regardless of political or moral stance.

In its current formulation, the United Nations majority is composed of Third World nations ruled by dictators and authoritarian regimes. This majority has formed a resolution/voting bloc which has resulted in the organizational marginalization of democratic nations.

Although the United Nations boasts of an international legitimacy and claims a moral high ground, it is now viewed by many democratic nations as an irrelevant tower of Babel that has substituted moral equivalence for moral clarity. The track record of the UN in addressing moral crisis is on the whole quite appalling... Israel/Palestine, the Uganda of Idi Amin, Cambodia, Eritrea, Bosnia/Kosovo, Rwanda, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and now Sudan. It is failing in efforts to address the critical issue of nuclear prolifferation with India, Pakistan, Libya, North Korea, and Iran as prominent examples. Criminal activity such as child prostitution by UN troops in areas under its juristiction has been reported, and organizational corruption such as the Iraq Oil For Food Program is being investigated. Authoritative and despotic regimes such as Syria and Sudan have been promoted to the UN Security Council and the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Has the time now come for the democracies of the world to disengage from the United Nations and form a new international agency such as the Community of Democracies?




Let us say the UN could be reformed.
How long would it take?
How long would it be before crises intervention could be implemented?

It appears Sudan will be waiting quite a while for relief if it comes at all......
 
Gandhi>Bush said:
So let's say a genocide is occuring in... ohh, I don't know... the Sudan. If the UN doesn't do anything about it, we should ignore it(THAT'S WHAT WE'RE DOING ANYWAY)?

Should we just go with it?

By the way G. Happy belated 18th birthday. Sudan? Yea, they are on our list. You might not like the way we do it but...it will get done. Maybe you should go there and march............Ignore it? What dude, you can't have it both ways. But in that country when the time comes I think we can bend them to our will without military presence, the threat of such, yea. Afterall they allready had democracy that has been suspended by martial law. That place just needs a little superpower tweaking, then back to the way they were. What's your point anyway?
 
Memos: U.N. Knew Saddam Violated Sanctions


UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council had detailed knowledge of how Saddam Hussein was violating U.N. sanctions, but was so divided that many violations went largely unchecked, according to documents released Tuesday by a congressional panel.

Saddam "cleverly exploited" sanctions in a variety of ways, granting "oil and humanitarian supply contracts to those willing to bend the rules in Iraq's favor." Iraq's supporters on the Security Council included Russia, China and France until mid-2001 when it backed a U.S.-British sanctions proposal. Other supporters included Iraq's neighbors - Jordan, Syria and Turkey - who received smuggled Iraqi oil.

"Washington and London eventually succeeded in getting the sanctions committee to set the price of Iraqi oil at the end of every month - rather than the beginning - to prevent Iraq from taking advantage of fluctuations in the oil market to impose the surcharges.
The two countries said the policy cut illegal payoffs to Saddam's government. But U.N. officials and council members, including Russia and France, demanded an end to the retroactive pricing policy because it led to a sharp drop in oil exports, which meant less money for the oil-for-food program."



Quite a few hands in the cookie Jar as they say. Guess who?
China,Russia, and france. Big surprise.
Maybe Bolton will get in there and start cleaning some of this up.
 
Bolton is not a diplomat. Full Stop. You can't get reform from other countries if you p**s them off.

UN was set up to prevent another World War, so far so good. But I agree that the UN needs reforming, but not because the US says so and not necessarily a model the US wants.

This is a global oragnization, not an american one. We need the top five to work together for this one. I wouldn't call Bolton a team player would you?
 
galenrox said:
Yeah dude, you're pretending like these are a whole bunch of countries that love America, and are just waiting for us to come in and clean house, when instead it's a whole bunch of countries that hate America, and will only develop a worse opinion of us if we send an asshole as an ambassador. At a time when we're supposedly trying to fix the broken relationships from Bush's first term, sending some dickhead who looks like he hangs out in porno houses and molests children who's gonna go in there and start yelling about how they have to do whatever America wants or America's gonna leave and withdraw its funding, how much good is that gonna do? I think it would be on the level with every single one of us taking a hammer, and then simultaniously hitting ourselves in the forehead.

As far as the UN goes, it's really important. It provides a forum where people of the world can discuss issues, and potentially avoid wars through diplomacy. Since our current administration seems to like war and hate diplomacy, I can see why he wants to ruin the UN, but I think that we need it now more than ever.


The previous US ambassadors do not appear to have done any better so why not send a reformist?
 
i agree totally with galenrox, bolton would simply do more harm then good. What benefit can America get by sticking their middle finger up to the rest of the world its simply going to anger us, cause more rifts and lead to more hate. Believe it or not public opinion does matter in the rest of the world. The UN does need to reform, not be replaced there is no group that could be formed which would be better then a UN reform. Scrapping the UN would only lead to a league of nations scenario and cause unrest. The UN needs to expand to take on policys of trade, assume some of the roles of the world bank and force reform on to groups like the EU. It most definetly needs to encourage free trade amongst the deveoped countries and less so towards the LDC's.
 
matay_brit said:
The UN needs to expand to take on policys of trade, assume some of the roles of the world bank and force reform on to groups like the EU. It most definetly needs to encourage free trade amongst the deveoped countries and less so towards the LDC's.
I have my own opinions of the U.N. but this one we will have to disagree on, I think the U.N. is currently trying to gain too much power over other nations sovreignity and that is probably the scariest abuse of it's charter and intended purpose. If we must keep the U.N., it really needs to stay on course.
 
This is a global oragnization, not an american one. We need the top five to work together for this one. I wouldn't call Bolton a team player would you?
The team players to date haven't done their job, so why would you want another person in there who would say "Corruption where?" :yawn: Team players tend to go along to get along.
 
matay_brit said:
bollocks, absolute bollocks! the UN does not have enough power at all. The American Government THAT has too much power!
I disagree, the U.N. is trying currently to assume some political power over U.S. policy, I don't care who the hell they think they are, but we have existed for much longer then they have as a sovereign nation, if they don't like the fact that we think independently, then #$%^ 'em.
 
Actually, LaMidRighter is right, matay_brit. The Global warming Koyoto Treaty and World Court are meant to do exactly that. So far our leaders have rejected both, but the day will come.
 
Also, don't forget that they wanted to monitor our elections on Democrat intitiative. They also released a report on what gun control measures the U.S. should take within our borders, among other things. Once again, none of their business.
 
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