**** the UN

[Last Roman]

Now, this might go against the typical American liberal school of thought, but I don't much care for the UN anymore. A nation being placed under international laws goes against national sovereignty, something I support. I mean, I'm all for international cooperation and aid, but really, the UN doesn't really seem to be doing much, unless someone can show me otherwise.

[Da Skinna]

It would be hard to show otherwise. Lack of cooperation and personal agendas and the prospect of getting away with money are the reasons why the UN is so bogged down. Oh and people within the UN don't even believe it exists either!

Yeah, had to get Bolton in there somewhere.

[gigagaia]

Now, this might go against the typical American liberal school of thought, but I don't much care for the UN anymore. A nation being placed under international laws goes against national sovereignty, something I support. I mean, I'm all for international cooperation and aid, but really, the UN doesn't really seem to be doing much, unless someone can show me otherwise.

Well are you talking about the General Assembly and Security Council?

Or are you talking about UNESCO ?
Or UNICEF ?
Or how about the WHO ?

Also you have the major treaty-monitoring bodies, and ECOSOC. The UN does a lot of work behind the scenes which we don't see and take for granted. Even the GA provides a forum for diplomacy in the lobbies and negotitations for states who can't afford to send an ambassador to every country.
You'll also find that a lot of work that the UN does isn't really noticed because it is overshadowed by the Security council (war being the sexy thing it is), which is tragic because the Security Council is only one part of the UN. You are right to be skeptical, but being fed up with something because it has flaws isn't really a good thing, after all...

[Tom Paine]

How about Peacekeeping operations in various nations around the globe such as the forces enforcing the ceasefire in Lebanon? There are, as gig says, many examples of benefit from the UN; to dismiss it as useless and wasteful is dismissing the fact of its continued utility.

[Freddie]

Now, this might go against the typical American liberal school of thought, but I don't much care for the UN anymore. A nation being placed under international laws goes against national sovereignty, something I support. I mean, I'm all for international cooperation and aid, but really, the UN doesn't really seem to be doing much, unless someone can show me otherwise.

The UN is only as strong as the parts that make it up. Basically everything that goes through the UN nearly always has to backed by the USA because they are the ones with all the money, military muscle and power, if the USA doesn’t want to get involved then it's unlikely the UN will be unable to do anything about it.

[Syron]

congratulations......

[Tom Paine]

The UN is only as strong as the parts that make it up. Basically everything that goes through the UN nearly always has to backed by the USA because they are the ones with all the money, military muscle and power, if the USA doesn’t want to get involved then it's unlikely the UN will be unable to do anything about it.

Like forcing a ceasefire on Israel, getting peacekeepers into Lebanon? In the main, you are right, but sometimes people can get things through the UN against the US's wishes, just about.

[harm]

Many US citizens think the UN is worthless because they don't respect it.They leave it powerless because they never want the UN to have power over the US.

The problem with the UN might be a problem with yourself. IF we would only respect it, there wouldn't be a problem worldly, just in the sense that the US wouldn't always get their way. :/

[Freddie]

Like forcing a ceasefire on Israel, getting peacekeepers into Lebanon? In the main, you are right, but sometimes people can get things through the UN against the US's wishes, just about.

Israel is a law onto its own. Your right thought if the rest of world wants to do somehitng aginst the US's wishes they can get things done but it's a lot easier when you the US backing you up.

[vikrant]

its matter of perception
i beleive un is quite a sucessful international organisation.
it has performed better than anyone would have thought of.
after all its not a superpower what do u expect from an international organisation which was formed by vicotreous nations .

anyway here are some of achievements
http://www.una-usadanecounty.org/abo...tegory_id=1550
http://www.un.org/Overview/achieve.html

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

Now, this might go against the typical American liberal school of thought, but I don't much care for the UN anymore. A nation being placed under international laws goes against national sovereignty, something I support.

One of the key principles the UN Charter was designed to uphold is national sovereignty. For example, the Charter forbids the invasion of another nation, even if that nation is considered "evil" because all nations' sovereignty are to be respected. Which isn't surprising since the Charter was drawn up after a war which showed the disaster which can follow when certain nations decided to prove that "might is right".

Strangely, I don't see those who claim to reject international law having any problem with the extradition of wanted criminals or the prosecution of known war crimes perpetrators. International law seems fine to them in those circumstances for some reason. :hmmm:

I mean, I'm all for international cooperation and aid, but really, the UN doesn't really seem to be doing much, unless someone can show me otherwise.

Well, apart from deploying troops to over 50 peacekeeping operations, negotiating 170 peace settlements, overseeing about 50 free and fair elections, financially supporting several thousand development programs, the establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, helping to end Apartheid, maintaining the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the UN Development Fund for Women, providing sources of safe drinking water for over 1.3 billion people, moving child immunisation levels from 5% to 80% worldwide over 30 years, establishing UNICEF and the WHO, helping millions of victims of natural disasters through the World Food Program, helping millions of refugees, clearing millions of land mines in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, Rwanda and Somalia, saving the ozone layer, establishing the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to cut through a tangle of disputes over maritime law, doing the same for international intellectual property law and winning the Nobel Peace Prize eleven times, no - it's done nothing at all.

Reg: All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

For all its many faults, inadequacies, bureaucracy, corruption and inherent contradictions, the UN remains - above all else - the primary international forum whereby nations in conflict can at least try to work towards a negotiated settlement, either before or after actual bloodshed. Of course it doesn't work perfectly, but that's hardly surprising given that it only could work perfectly if all nations always chose to put aside their individual objectives all the time - which is never going to happen.

But anyone with a clear understanding of what the UN does manage to achieve despite this inevitable flaw would know that they'd prefer to live in a world with a UN than without one.

[SigniferOne]

One of the key principles the UN Charter was designed to uphold is national sovereignty. For example, the Charter forbids the invasion of another nation, even if that nation is considered "evil" because all nations' sovereignty are to be respected.

I think you're confusing "sovereignty" with "borders". The Charter helps prevent the borders of a nation from being invaded, but it also works towards undermining national sovereignty, i.e. its capacity to make independent decisions. That is the key distinction. In a nutshell, UN tries to protect all of its member countries by making one super country from all of them. This may or may not work (it is debatable), but one thing is for certain: protection of national sovereignty is not UN's priority. This is why you see UN "international law" try to acquire supremacy over American Constitutional law, why UN felt it had the right to invade Congo in the 60s and topple governments based on whatever reasons it wanted.

Strangely, I don't see those who claim to reject international law having any problem with the extradition of wanted criminals or the prosecution of known war crimes perpetrators. International law seems fine to them in those circumstances for some reason. :hmmm:


[...]

For all its many faults, inadequacies, bureaucracy, corruption and inherent contradictions, the UN remains - above all else - the primary international forum whereby nations in conflict can at least try to work towards a negotiated settlement

I seem to remember that two party talks, embassies, ambassadors, diplomats working quite fine for the last 5,000 years, don't you? There's nothing UN has that is somehow superior in efficacy to two-party talks, except that UN wields military force and has the power to impose its decisions upon nations (something the League of Nations did not have). And it is this military power that is precisely the vice of the UN, rather than a virtue. League of Nations was the best the world could do. UN is against national sovereignty.

[alman9898]

I just dislike how the UN likes to put so much blame on Israel, and did absolutely **** about Rwanda (until there was massive death already) and now Darfur.

It's a noble ideal, but it ****s up big time. It needs reform -- and by that I mean, there needs to be a minimum requirement of human rights record for a nation to even get any voting rights. No damn way should Sudan be on the Human Rights Council.

[happyho]

I just dislike how the UN likes to put so much blame on Israel, and did absolutely **** about Rwanda (until there was massive death already) and now Darfur.

It's a noble ideal, but it ****s up big time. It needs reform -- and by that I mean, there needs to be a minimum requirement of human rights record for a nation to even get any voting rights. No damn way should Sudan be on the Human Rights Council.

The UN doesn't put an unfair blame on Israel, if Israel would stop it's violation of international law the UN wouldn't need to TRY to censor Israel. Reason I say 'try' is because the US almost always vetoes any motion that even partially attempts to condemn Israeli actions. As they have done again today in regards to their bloody encursions in the Gaza strip.

"This resolution does not display an evenhanded characterization of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace to which we aspire and for which we are working assiduously," he told the Security Council." John Bolton today at the UN Security Council.

It is unfair to say the UN failed Rwanda. It was the entire world that failed Rwanda. Romeo Dallaire the UN Commander at the time in Rwanda tried desperately to get the UN to give him a more robust mandate to engage the enemy and to protect civilians. He was so traumatised by the experience that he fell in to major depression and was forced to retire soon after the conflict and battled clinincal depression and alcoholism for many years. So it was the world that lacked the will and courage to act or they didn't care for whatever reason.

As far as your assertion that Sudan has no place on the Human Rights Council it is a very true one and I completely agree with it. As far as Darfur is concerned situation is different than Rwanda, unless the Sudanese permit the UN to create a strong task force the UN can't do anything without Sudanese permission because of Sudan's sovereignty.

[Sétanta]

The UN is a joke. Kofi Annans "Oil for Food" is more like "Money for dictators." This joke includes, in a group supposedly sacntioning peace, any and every dictatorship. It is one of the most egregious examples of the sanction of the victim. If the US leaves, it reveals how corrupt the UN is.

[Ahiga]

The UN is a joke. Kofi Annans "Oil for Food" is more like "Money for dictators." This joke includes, in a group supposedly sacntioning peace, any and every dictatorship. It is one of the most egregious examples of the sanction of the victim. If the US leaves, it reveals how corrupt the UN is.

I would bring up America's support of dictators. While you claim Kofi's is done underhandedly, I'd like to imagine that the attempt to give the poor food through this money for dictators maneuver is at least a little more noble than our support of Dictators.

I'd agree that the UN is not perfect, but while I'm not a real fan of it, I really think we ought to not pull out. It would encourage other nations to, and well, to pick on my beloved country once more - Instead of pulling out of the UN because we were made fun of by Chavez and Ahmenejad, or because we think they all hate us, maybe we should ask why some of them do. Not that we should abide by their criticism - some is definitely hateful BS which we should ignore. But the more moderate nations who might be a little or quite a bit unhappy with us have reasons for it, beyond that of Ahmenejad's Anti-semitism and hatred of the Big-devil, and Chavez's craziness.

[Tom Paine]

Such things as negative rep giving are not meant to be discussed here; please, discussion of rep is for PMs or to be taken to the Q&S.

[Tom Paine]

The US is one of the main weakening forces in the UN; it strips many areas of the UN of efficiency and efficacy, such as the Security Council, by use of the veto. An attack on the UN by the US for uselessness and hypocrisy does not only attack the UN but also the US.

[Sétanta]

The US is one of the main weakening forces in the UN; it strips many areas of the UN of efficiency and efficacy, such as the Security Council, by use of the veto. An attack on the UN by the US for uselessness and hypocrisy does not only attack the UN but also the US.

Without the US, the UN doesn't have any basis for existance. The US doesn't support the UN's corrupt programs. That might seem like holding the UN back from doing what it wants, but in the grand scheme of things it is really better for the USA to do that.

[Last Roman]

@Thiudwhatsyourname

thanks for the examples, though you could've held back on the biting sarcasm

Maybe the just the US should remove itself from the UN. It might do both parties some good.