The UN

[aegyptos]

Then what's the alternative?

The alternative is no UN.

 

[tecoyah]

I see the U.N. as the unifying entity it should be. Though it fails miserably at many of its proclaimed functions, it serves the larger purpose of a forum for international dialogue, and a podium for consensus building that is truly needed in the world. If the United States were to leave the U.N. we would be very naive in my mind, as ANY chance to further diplomacy between nations is a good thing in general...if pointless at times.

 

[WI Crippler]

I think there needs to be UN reform. Having 5 permanent members with drastically different stances regarding humanitarian issues is the biggest road block to humanitarian effort. One person mentioned that 9 times out of 10 the humanitarian effort is lacking. I would say more like 4 times out of 5.

 

[Billo_Really]

The alternative is no UN.

No UN = No respect for sovereignty of any nation

No UN = might makes right

No UN = WWIII

 

[Slainte]

on whats it is supposed to do. Stop wars, stop crimes against humanity, and help third world countries in need.

To expect "the UN" to deal with any of these problems is to credit the organisation with an authority it doesn't possess.

If member states of the UN actually had a serious desire to stop all of these things then the UN is IMO a decent enough institution through which it can be attempted. Maybe you could reform certain parts of it, although right now I couldn't lay out a structure which would be any more effective.

The UN can't create political will from member states. If the UN was a supranational organisation like say the EU then it might be appropriate to expect them to solve global problems, as has been pointed out, the people bitching about the UN being unable to solve major problems would also be totally against giving it the neccesary power to do so.

 

[Gipper]

No UN = No respect for sovereignty of any nation

No UN = might makes right

No UN = WWIII

What makes this so funny is that I truly believe you said this with a straight face.

 

[Billo_Really]

What makes this so funny is that I truly believe you said this with a straight face.

What makes you think this wouldn't happen?

 

[Gipper]

No UN = No respect for sovereignty of any nation

Did the United Nations prevent an invasion of Iraq? No, because they couldn't.

No UN = might makes right

Does the United Nations stop any nation from invoking its will in any way it can? No, because they can't.

No UN = WWIII

Will the United Nations stop nations with immense mutual hatred, to the point of war, from killing each other? No, because they can't.

You want the truth? Do you know what will change with a dissolution of the United Nations? Not a damn thing. If you think otherwise, you may as well start believing in Santa Claus again.

 

[Edify_Always_In_All_Ways]

The UN will not be effective until it contains basic human rights requirements for member nations.

 

[Kandahar]

Did the United Nations prevent an invasion of Iraq? No, because they couldn't.

Like I said, it's impossible to prove that a war WOULD have happened without UN interference. This is one example where failure is much easier to detect than success.

Does the United Nations stop any nation from invoking its will in any way it can? No, because they can't.

That is not the purpose of the UN, and even suggesting it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of why the UN exists. Are you CRITICIZING the UN for this? If they were able to do this, would it make you more likely to support it? Or would it horrify you?

Will the United Nations stop nations with immense mutual hatred, to the point of war, from killing each other? No, because they can't.

Probably not in most cases. However, the UN may have been effective at preventing/minimizing civil wars in certain countries.

You want the truth? Do you know what will change with a dissolution of the United Nations? Not a damn thing. If you think otherwise, you may as well start believing in Santa Claus again.

What will change? The world will cease to have the only global forum for nations to air their grievances and set up agreements.

 

[Kandahar]

The UN will not be effective until it contains basic human rights requirements for member nations.

Well it has the Declaration of Human Rights. Do you mean *enforceable* human rights requirements? Why does it need those to be effective? Are China, Russia, and Iran not important actors on the world stage?

 

[Gipper]

Like I said, it's impossible to prove that a war WOULD have happened without UN interference. This is one example where failure is much easier to detect than success.

This sounds like worst case scenario "contingency planners" who like to explain things happening with cliches like "well, hindsight is 20/20".

That is not the purpose of the UN, and even suggesting it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of why the UN exists. Are you CRITICIZING the UN for this? If they were able to do this, would it make you more likely to support it? Or would it horrify you?

I'm not criticizing it. I'm just stating it as a point-counterpoint to Bill thinking that "might makes right" doesn't exist because the U.N. stands now.

Probably not in most cases. However, the UN may have been effective at preventing/minimizing civil wars in certain countries.

Please. A CNN film crew could prevent and minimize more than a U.N. force could. And that's if they even show up. They sure seem to turn a blind eye to Darfur and Monrovia.

 

[Slainte]

Please. A CNN film crew could prevent and minimize more than a U.N. force could. And that's if they even show up. They sure seem to turn a blind eye to Darfur and Monrovia.

Argh, MEMBER STATES turn a blind eye to those situation. The UN is dependant on the political will of it's member states, especially the big ones. If the Chinese want a stable government in Khartoum who'll sell them oil they'll force the UN to ignore the situation there, ditto Burma. To a similar extent Europe, the US, hell everyone really, want a stable government in Saudi Arabia so we let the Saudi's have a terrible human rights record. This isn't the "UN's" fault. Such a situation would exist without the UN and probably be even worse as there wouldn't even be an institution available to discuss those problems.

 

[FluffyNinja]

Argh, MEMBER STATES turn a blind eye to those situation. The UN is dependant on the political will of it's member states, especially the big ones.

Then the UN is a waste of time, money, energy and real estate in New York and should be disbanned. Open up an art museum there or maybe a theater. A shopping mall might not be a bad idea either - at least we could get a few more American jobs out of the deal - albeit low-paying.

 

[Billo_Really]

I'm not criticizing it. I'm just stating it as a point-counterpoint to Bill thinking that "might makes right" doesn't exist because the U.N. stands now.

I didn't say it doesn't exist.

 

[Gipper]

Then where's the benefit of the U.N.?

There is none. If I want to hear a collection of hot-headed jackasses arguing about a bunch of nonsensical bullshit without doing much of anything, I'll go to a Congressional meeting.

 

[MSgt]

.............................................................Need I state anything here?

 

[Billo_Really]

.............................................................Need I state anything here?

Can you do it without being condescending, arrogant and long-winded?

 

[MSgt]

Can you do it without being condescending, arrogant and long-winded?

........Doubtful.

 

[Billo_Really]

........Doubtful.

What the hell, go for it.

If you didn't, I'd surely miss it.

Now, once again, brought back by popular request, what is wrong with the UN and what should we do about it?

 

[tecoyah]

Then where's the benefit of the U.N.?

There is none. If I want to hear a collection of hot-headed jackasses arguing about a bunch of nonsensical bullshit without doing much of anything, I'll go to a Congressional meeting.

Yup....you're right, the U.N. has no purpose, and has done absolutely nothing.

Sarcasm Off/

UNITED NATIONS ACCOMPLISHMENTS
-------------------------------

1. Deploying more than 35 peace-keeping missions. There are presently 16 active peace-keeping forces in operation.

2. Credited with negotiating 172 peaceful settlements that have ended regional conflicts

3. The UN has enabled people in over 45 countries to participate in free and fair elections

4. Development - The system's annual disbursements, including loans and grants, amount to more than $10 billion.

5. UNICEF spends more than $800 million a year, primarily on immunization, health care, nutrition and basic education in 138 countries.

6. UN Human Rights Commission has focused world attention on cases of torture, disappearance, and arbitrary detention and has generated international pressure.

7. UN Conference eon Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, resulted in treaties on bio-diversity and climate change.

8. Has helped minimize the threat of a nuclear war by inspecting nuclear reactors in 90.

9. Over 300 international treaties, on topics as varied as human rights conventions to agreements on the use of outer space and seabed.

10. The International Court of Justice has helped settle international disputes involving territorial issues, diplomatic relations, hostage-taking, and economic rights.

11. The UN was a major factor in bringing about the downfall of the apartheid system.

12. More than 30 million refugees fleeing war, famine or persecution have received aid from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

13. Aiding Palestinian Refugees with free schooling, essential health care, relief assistance and key social services virtually without interruption. There are 2.9 million refugees in the Middle East served by UNRWA.

14. Alleviating Chronic Hunger and Rural Poverty in Developing Countries, providing credit that has benefited over 230 million people in nearly 100 developing countries.

15. The Africa Project Development Facility has helped entrepreneurs in 25 countries to find financing for new enterprises. The Facility has completed 130 projects which represent investments of $233 million and the creation of 13,000 new jobs, saving some $131 million in foreign exchange annually.

16. Promoting Women's Rights *have supported programs and projects to improve the quality of life for women in over 100 countries, including credit and training, marketing opportunities, etc.

17. Providing Safe Drinking Water * Available to 1.3 billion people in rural areas during the last decade.

18. Eradicating Smallpox * through vaccinations and monitoring. Helped wipe out polio from the Western Hemisphere, with global eradication expected soon.

19. Pressing for Universal Immunization of polio, tetanus, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria and tuberculosis * has a 80% immunization rate, saving the lives of more than 3 million children each year.

20. Reducing child mortality rates, halved since 1960, increasing the average life expectancy from 37 to 67 years.

21. Fighting parasitic diseases, such as saving the lives of 7 million children from going blind from the river blindness and rescued many others from guinea worm and other tropical diseases.

22. Promoting investment in developing countries *promoting entrepreneurship and self-reliance, industrial cooperation and technology transfer and cost-effective, ecologically-sensitive industry.

23. Reducing the effects of natural disasters *early warning system, which utilizes thousands of surface monitors as well as satellites, has provided information for the dispersal of oil spills and has predicted long-term droughts.

24. Providing food to victims of emergencies * Over two million tons of food each year. 30 million people facing acute food shortages in 36 countries benefited from this assistance last year.

25. Clearing land mines - The United Nations is leading an international effort to clear land minds from Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, Rwanda and Somalia.

26. Protecting the ozone layer & global warming*highlighting the damage caused to the earth's ozone layer. As a result there has been a global effort to reduce chemical emissions of substances that have caused the depletion of the ozone.

27. Preventing over-fishing

28. Limiting deforestation and promoting sustainable forestry development *in 90 countries.

29. Cleaning up pollution *encouraged adversaries such as Syria and Israel, and Turkey and Greece to work together to clean up beaches. As a result, more than 50% of the previously polluted beaches are now usable.

30. Protecting consumers' health *have established standards for over 200 food commodities and safety limits for more than 3,000 food contaminants.

31. Reducing fertility rates * Family planning programs. Women in developing countries are having fewer children * from six births per woman in the 1960s to 3.5 today. In the 1960s, only 10% of the world's families were using effective methods of family planning. The number now stands at 55 percent.

32. Fighting drug abuse *Reduce demand for illicit drugs, suppress drug trafficking, and has helped farmers to reduce their economic reliance on growing narcotic crops by shifting farm production toward other dependable sources of income.

33. Improving global trade relations * The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has worked to obtain special trade preferences for developing countries to export their products to developed countries with fair prices.

34. Promoting economic reform * Together with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations has helped many countries improve their economic management, offered training for government finance officials, and provided financial assistance to countries experiencing temporary balance of payment difficulties.

35. Promoting worker rights *worked to guarantee freedom of the right to association, the right to organize, collective bargaining, setting worker safety standards, the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples, promote employment and equal remuneration and has sought to eliminate discrimination and child labor.

36. Introducing improved agricultural techniques and reducing costs *Resulted in improved crop yields, Asian rice farmers have saved $12 million on pesticides and governments over $150 a year in pesticide subsidies.

37. Promoting stability and order in the world's oceans *global agreement for the protection, preservation and peaceful development of the oceans.

38. Improving air and sea travel *Setting safety standards for sea and air travel, making air travel the safest mode of transportation.

39. Protecting intellectual property *Protection for new inventions and maintains a register of nearly 3 million national trademarks. artists, composers and authors worldwide.

40. Promoting the free flow of information *free of censorship and culturally unbiased, aid to develop and strengthen communication systems, established news agencies and supported an independent press.

41. Improving global communications * Regulated international mail delivery, coordinated use of the radio spectrum, promoted cooperation in assigning positions for stationary satellites, and established international standards for communications, thereby ensuring the unfettered flow of information around the globe.

42. Empowering the voiceless *recognize the needs and contributions of groups usually excluded from decision-making such as the aging, children, youth, homeless, indigenous an disabled people.

43. Establishing "children as a zone of peace" * From El Salvador to Lebanon, Sudan to former Yugoslavia, provide vaccines and other assistance desperately needed by children caught in armed conflict.

44. Generating worldwide commitment in support of the needs of children *more than 150 governments have committed to reaching over 20 specific measurable goals to radically improve children's lives by the year 2000.

45. Improving education in developing countries *60% of adults in developing countries can now read and write, and 80 percent of children in these countries attend school.

46. Improving literacy for women *Raise the female literacy rate in developing countries from 36 percent in 1970 to 56 percent in 1990.

47. Safeguarding and preserving historic cultural and architectural sites *protected through the efforts of UNESCO, and international conventions have been adopted to preserve cultural property.

48. Facilitating academic and cultural exchanges encouraged scholarly and scientific cooperation, networking of institutions and promotion of cultural expressions, including those of minorities and indigenous people.

 

[MSgt]

Now, once again, brought back by popular request, what is wrong with the UN and what should we do about it?

Sweet....

What even is the UN? It's an organization where nations can deal with their issues without resorting to bloodshed. That's it. It has evolved into an organization where people think it is supposed to be an arena for human rights and decency since it has done a small part for some, but in the end it fails miserably. And why should it succeed? Just look at its membership.

After the poorly named First World War, the West saw the need for an organization where diplomacy would trump other desires. The League of Nations was born. It wuickly proved incapable of carrying out its mission by the '30s and fell apart a decade later. The new organization, the United Nations was formed and this time America sat at the head table with an invite extended to China and Russia. Despite the UN's existence, wars continued and superpowers engaged.

We can clearly see how the end of WWI led to the inevitable beginning of WWII. We can clearly see how the failures of the League of Nations led to the inevitable beginnning of the United Nations. WWII ended in perfect clarity. We knew who won, and the losers knew that they had lost and had to submit. But we refuse ourselves the acknowledgement that failure commenced with this new global organization almost immediately. The UN blessed our intervention into Korea with notions of modulation and fantasies of diplomatic nuance alien to what we knew. Korea made Vietnam inevitable. America remains chained to a sliver of Asia to this day. Focused mightely on the Soviet Union (a UN council security member) and ever fearful of another Vietnam, the American military looked away as nations decayed and slaughters spread. And with the dictators and thugs represented in the UN by nations like China and the Soviet Union, why would the UN have been anything other than apathetic? SO what we have here is:

1) The League of Nations was considered as necessary in the wake of WWI (despite it's ultimate failure in the end)...

2) The United Nations was considered as necessary in the wake of WWII (despite its ultimate failures upon humanity and sparing us of wars)

Why in hell is it considered unthinkable in the wake of the Cold War? Today we are in a new era where the free world reigns above all other ideologies. We are in a troubled, hate-filled era, where we will witness more civil wars, more state and regional dissolutions, more fragmented borders, and more factional strife than people can imagine. We seem to acknolwedge that new eras mean new organizations in the past, but refuse to acknowledge that this new era requires a new organization as well. Does the UN stand for human rights and decency? No it most certainly does not. It stands for individual nation gains and backroom deals that continue to strand entire populations in oppression.

In America, we suffer under the arrogance of those (in both parties) who have not worked for wages or served their country in uniform, but who are convinced they unfderstand the workplace and warfare. Their ideas of visiting other cultures is a trip to Paris or London. In the same manner, the UN is full of delegates who care more about securing their financial trades and preserving their own corruption than they are about oppressed populations and abuse. They seem absolutely inconvenienced to acknolwedge any sort of suffering other than a statement or two that absolves them of any real care. Nations like Russia and China will never move against a tyrant or a corrupt regime while they continue to practice their own design of oprression upon their own (and who ever falls under them).

A new organization can't simply replace the UN. But it can exist beside it as it slowly strangles itself and holds only those nations that have earned it, membership. This organization should be an exclusive club that is not restrained by the negative votes of Russian and Chinese like states. It should be of democratic nations who strive to pull their share in this world so as not to over burden a single country. It should concern itself with human decency and basic rights of all people and not just to what exists within their borders.

Our history has brought us to this point in time and we refuse to free ourselves from the stagnate, stale, and apathetic morality of an expired global organization that caters more to its membership than to the people abused under them. We may as well have re-instated the League of Nations.

 

[MSgt]

Yup....you're right, the U.N. has no purpose, and has done absolutely nothing.

Sarcasm Off/

UNITED NATIONS ACCOMPLISHMENTS
-------------------------------

Is this straight from the UN web site? Looks to me like a whole lot of talking points to preserve their existence. Any mention of the real successes of the UN? Sitting by and taking credit as events naturally occurred? Being the benefactor of a capitalistic juggernaught like America as more and more nations became free through enterprise over the last fifty years? Watching others struggle for independance and democracy and taking more credit than they should for what many people did for themselves? Patting themselves on the back for promoting women's rights, which the entire free world does anyway? Taking credit for positive change despite nations like America pushing it past the Chinese and Soviet prescription of the world?

The UN is an image. It is not an organization that can ever do anything substantial. You ever wonder why U.S. Marines do not wear UN blue, but the U.S. Army does?

 

[Kandahar]

Is this straight from the UN web site? Looks to me like a whole lot of talking points to preserve their existence. Any mention of the real successes of the UN? Sitting by and taking credit as events naturally occurred?

As I mentioned before, it's difficult to prove that any event did or didn't "naturally occur," as historical events are always attributable to many immediate and historical causes. However, it's worth noting that the proportion of humans who die from war is at an all-time low, and has been steadily declining since the UN was formed. Coincidence? Perhaps. Correlation? Most likely. Causation? Well, that's hard to prove.

Being the benefactor of a capitalistic juggernaught like America as more and more nations became free through enterprise over the last fifty years?

So?

Watching others struggle for independance and democracy and taking more credit than they should for what many people did for themselves?

The UN, like any organization, likes to take credit for anything in which it had a minimal role. That doesn't mean that the UN has done nothing.

Patting themselves on the back for promoting women's rights, which the entire free world does anyway? Taking credit for positive change despite nations like America pushing it past the Chinese and Soviet prescription of the world?

Well the whole point of the UN is for *member states* to discuss their positions on the issues. If *member states* want to promote women's rights, then it will happen. If *member states* don't want to promote democracy, then it won't happen.

The UN is an image. It is not an organization that can ever do anything substantial.

Well the point of the UN is to be a forum for discussion, not to be a one-world government. Of course it won't have any accomplishments that are separate from the accomplishments of its member states. That's because it's merely a collection of member states.

 

[Infinite Chaos]

--snip-- We may as well have re-instated the League of Nations.

Let's see... League of Nations couldn't prevent WW2 (its primary duty being to prevent future wars). No such event during UN existence....

Anyone care to remind me why UN is based on US soil? Always tickles me when americans complain that it's on their soil.