NationStates Jolt Archive

I personally think that the United Nations is a wonderful, fabulous idea. However, it just doesn't work in this day and age. Leaders are still too corrupt to be interested in the common good, the United Nations does not have adequate funding OR support to actually be effective...

Again, I think that it just doesn't work, and is a waste of time, effort, and money right now. I personally think we should just forget about the UN(In other words, pull out) and wait until leaders are actually honest and truthful and there is more support to try and recreate the United Nations.

This is my opinion, and I could be wrong about a great deal of things... but hey, this is how I see it. What is your opinion of the UN?

I view it as an international dilomatic organization that your country is a member of, and that my country is a member of.

What- ?

*Edit: sure, fine go edit your lead question and make my dry, witty retort look stupid.

Killjoy.

I view it as an international dilomatic organization that your country is a member of, and that my country is a member of.

What- ?
I meant your opinion. :rolleyes:

i believe an international gathering of foreign diplomats helps a great deal towards creating peace and helping developing nations out. I believe the cold war would have been worse without the UN, I dont think South East Asia could have recovered as quickly from European pullout as it has with the UN. THe UN creates a body where the views of the other nations can be listened to rather than just pure guessing and lack of understanding. While the UN isn't as effective as it should be, its programs and purpose is well worth the costs.

Best American idea in a long time. Pity we aren't supporting it and keep sabotaging its efforts.

I personaly love the UN building in NYC and Unicef is one of my Fav charities. :upyours:

The United Nations is useless. A dictatorship is somehow on the same level as a democracy. Good job, you can go shoot yourself now, because you are so stupid you have no hope of intelligence.

Frankly, we should stop with the "Let's get everyone into it at once and it will all be OK!" and start with the "Let's start merging, one nation at a time."

And while your at it, screw off with the EU, as anyone with a brain can see it is designed to take down the American economy, not better the European economy.

- A Conservative Canadian

The UN is hideously corrupt. It disgusts me on every level that American tax dollars have gone to an organization that sends “peacekeepers” to Africa where they rape little kids instead of doing their job (whatever that is). The US should cut off all funding and convert the UN building into a homeless shelter.

The UN is a great idea but needs reform. It's just an outpost of the USA's, Britain's and other security council members' will on the world. (Cannae be bothered to list them all)

I think that the UN should scrap the security council, for a start, and be much more transparent and democratic.

It should have an 'upper house' where every democratic state has two votes, decided by that country's government.

Most power should be vested in the 'Lower House' which is elevted in a similar way to the E.U. Parliament, but dictatorships get far less seats than they should. Perhaps one third.

Hope Kofi Anan is reading this :D

Oh, and funding should be based on the GDP of that country.

Oh, and funding should be based on the GDP of that country.

Ah, of course. The US should donate the most money, but have the same say as a tiny farming island with five people. :rolleyes:

It's as about as effective nowadays as an amputated Leg. It's like the League of Nations ffs, and it's just getting worse. How the hell did the Rwandan genocides occur? And the US ignoring it and international law are the nails in the coffin. I dont have any faith in Koffi Annan tbh.

Ah, of course. The US should donate the most money, but have the same say as a tiny farming island with five people. :rolleyes:

1. Is it really fair that rich countries should pay the same as piss-poor countries that can't afford to run their own government, let alone the UN.

2. Most power should be vested in the 'Lower House' which is elevted in a similar way to the E.U. Parliament, but dictatorships get far less seats than they should. Perhaps one third.

I reccomend looking at how the EU Parliament works. Big countries have more seats. Little ones have less seats. Ta-daa!

A useful international forum.

But not more than that.

There should be no resolutions.
They imply international jurisdiction which the UN doesn't and shouldn't have.

I like how some of you gloss over the successes that the UN has had:
Korean War - South Korea was nearly overrun by the North when a US led UN intervention turned the tide.
Suez Canal Crisis - Britain, France, and Israel's invasion of Egypt to prevent the nationalization of the Suez Canal is condemned by the UN, at the US's behest and peacekeepers enforce that peace until they are ordered out of the country by Egypt
Operation Desert Storm was a UN backed venture. Kuwait was freed from Saddam.
The tsunami relief is being coordinated by the UN.
The UN does so many things besides react to political crises:
Land mines
Human trafficking
Drug trade
Human rights
Economic cooperation
Development

Its the first instance most nations go to when there's a conflict and its why there haven't been as many wars as there could have been.

I personally think we should just forget about the UN(In other words, pull out)
I agreed with you up to here

and wait until leaders are actually honest and truthful and there is more support to try and recreate the United Nations.
Honest leaders? Now here's where I'm skeptical
Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely
-Lord Acton

Korean War - South Korea was nearly overrun by the North when a US led UN intervention turned the tide.

By US led you mean, almost entirely fought by the US.

Suez Canal Crisis - Britain, France, and Israel's invasion of Egypt to prevent the nationalization of the Suez Canal is condemned by the UN, at the US's behest and peacekeepers enforce that peace until they are ordered out of the

There is the US again.

Operation Desert Storm was a UN backed venture. Kuwait was freed from Saddam.

See above statement about Korea.

The tsunami relief is being coordinated by the UN.

Last I checked two of our former president’s were in charge of it and most of the money is coming from private US charities.

Land mines

I’ll give you that one, though the US employs its own mine sweepers in Afghanistan

Human trafficking

Yep. They do a good job of supporting it in Africa

Drug trade

The US has done far more to stop this than the UN, at least at our own borders.

Human rights

Then why be against the Iraq War?

Economic cooperation

Not necessary for the US. We can handle that on our own.

Development

Doubtlessly filled with corruption. One only needs look so far as the oil-for-food scandal.

Now let’s look at the some of the things they ignore:

Rwanda
Darfur (sp?)
Anytime there is a natural disaster in the US

I like how some of you gloss over the successes that the UN has had:
You would have been better off starting and ending with the WHO.

The UN is a great idea but needs reform. It's just an outpost of the USA's, Britain's and other security council members' will on the world. (Cannae be bothered to list them all)

I think that the UN should scrap the security council, for a start, and be much more transparent and democratic.

It should have an 'upper house' where every democratic state has two votes, decided by that country's government.

Most power should be vested in the 'Lower House' which is elevted in a similar way to the E.U. Parliament, but dictatorships get far less seats than they should. Perhaps one third.

Hope Kofi Anan is reading this :D

Oh, and funding should be based on the GDP of that country.

You think that a nation who slaughters its people for fun should have any say in World Politics at all, let alone that much power? Are you stupid? Dictatorships outnumber democracies by well over three to one. If we did it your way, the dictatorships would be the ones in control! The United Nations definately needs reform, but your idea would cause a global thermonuclear war.

The only way to 'fix' the UN is to remove individual vetoes. This will never happen, at least in part because the US would NEVER give it up.

It's all very well to criticize the UN, but lets face it: the US has done more than any other nation to build the UN, and to break it. The US ignores/vetoes it doesn't like. The US vetoes resolutions on behalf of its allies. The US repeatedly denies the validity of international law, but expects others to follow it.

Of course, the US is certainly not the only country to seriously damage the UN: however, it is certainly the most hypocritical about it.

If there is a 'credibility gap' at the UN, it's everyone's fault: but the American's more than most.

The only way to 'fix' the UN is to remove individual vetoes. This will never happen, at least in part because the US would NEVER give it up.

It's all very well to criticize the UN, but lets face it: the US has done more than any other nation to build the UN, and to break it. The US ignores/vetoes it doesn't like. The US vetoes resolutions on behalf of its allies. The US repeatedly denies the validity of international law, but expects others to follow it.

Of course, the US is certainly not the only country to seriously damage the UN: however, it is certainly the most hypocritical about it.

If there is a 'credibility gap' at the UN, it's everyone's fault: but the American's more than most.

You do know that nations can be expelled from the UN? You wanna know why America hasn't been expelled? Because without America, there is no UN!

America made an attempt and failed, and when they try to fix it, it backfires, that is the problem with UN - US relations.

The only people you can blame doing damage are the idiots who allow dictatorships to get in so easily.

If there is a 'credibility gap' at the UN, it's everyone's fault: but the American's more than most.
Syria. Human Rights. 'Nuff said. Now about the credibility of *your* rhetoric....

You do know that nations can be expelled from the UN? You wanna know why America hasn't been expelled? Because without America, there is no UN!


Also, America could simply veto a resolution to expell it.

Of course America is an integral part of the UN: no one is arguing that. In a very significant way, the US can make or break the international law agenda: so far the US has shown it is NOT interested in international law. This is evident in a plethora of unsigned/unratified treaties, a lack of willingness to abide by UN desicions (which is not really a bad thing: I'm certainly not saying the UN is perfect or anything like that), and a general refusal to participate on an equal level with the rest of the world's democracies.

America made an attempt and failed, and when they try to fix it, it backfires, that is the problem with UN - US relations.

What's the problem here? THe US did fail to present a convincing SECURITY case against Saddam. We should remember that when Colin Powel presented the case to the UN, he did not address human rights as such. Instead, he sought to prove that Iraq presented an immediate security threat. Human rights was NOT the point, nor did the administration argue that it was.

Given that we now know that the security threat was minimal at best, I don't see how the fact that the Security Council did not order action based on faulty intelligence can be seen as a failure.

The only people you can blame doing damage are the idiots who allow dictatorships to get in so easily.

I'm not sure what you mean here: are you saying dictatorships shouldn't be allowed into the UN? Doesn't that kind of defeat the point, especially when you look at the history of the UN- how much worse would the coldwar have been if the USSR had no access to the UN? I would say it could have been catastrophic. Generally speaking, dictatorships have very little power in the UN: the permanent security council is almost entirely democratic, and that is where the real power is.

Syria. Human Rights. 'Nuff said. Now about the credibility of *your* rhetoric....

I don't think you understood my point. The US has (arguably) by far more power than any one other nation in the UN. However, the US has consistently acted to ignore or undermine the UN. This causes a big problem: the US talks international rights, but walks a different path all together. There is no consistency in the US actions within the UN, nor is their any particular devotion to human rights or international law. This has been blatantly obvious over the last 20 years or so.

Now it is certainly true that Syria has incredible law violations: however, it does not project itself as a shining beacon of democracy, as it were. Nor does Syria have much influence within the UN. So it is hard to say that the minimal participation of Syria has a deep impact on the UN.

Now it is certainly true that Syria has incredible law violations: however, it does not project itself as a shining beacon of democracy, as it were. Nor does Syria have much influence within the UN. So it is hard to say that the minimal participation of Syria has a deep impact on the UN.
You appearently don't read page 16 of the international section. Sudan, North Korea, and Syria served on the human rights commission in the UN. And you talk about US credability? Sorry. You've got more rights in US prisions than you do if you're unfortunate enough to be in one of those countries. Knowledge of this makes a joke of the point you'd like to make. Could the US be better? Absolutely. No one denies it, who isn't currently employed by the US administration. But it's far far better than the UN, which you're ignorant of. That's pretty brutal condemnation of your case. North Korea where whole families are imprisioned and tortured to death for the slighted imagined disloyalty of even comparitively distant relatives, where there are reports of the populace turning to cannibalism for want of food, they should be helping set the UN agenda on human rights. That's not a greater hypocrisy than the legal hair splitting the US engages in. Or is it just less important because it's done out of sight, and with complete ubiquity? I guess not all people are deserving of your consideration. Just the ones that suffer at the hands of Americans. Good to know.

You appearently don't read page 16 of the international section. Sudan, North Korea, and Syria served on the human rights commission in the UN. And you talk about US credability?
I don't see why this matters. It's not like they alone set the agenda, nor did they have any actual power. They served purely as part of a commitee.
No one is saying these nations should be lauded. However, their participation in a commitee exercise does not reflect on the UN one way or another, as I see it anyways.

Sorry. You've got more rights in US prisions than you do if you're unfortunate enough to be in one of those countries. Knowledge of this makes a joke of the point you'd like to make.
I don't understand what you're saying here. I never said ANYTHING about those countries; I completely agree with you that they are to be looked down upon.

But it's far far better than the UN, which you're ignorant of. That's pretty brutal condemnation of your case.
I don't know what you're trying to say here either: how can you compare the US and the UN? One is a country, the other is an NGO. It's apples and oranges, esepcially because one is part of the other.

North Korea where whole families are imprisioned and tortured to death for the slighted imagined disloyalty of even comparitively distant relatives, where there are reports of the populace turning to cannibalism for want of food, they should be helping set the UN agenda on human rights.
Uh, they are, and there have been several resolutions against NK. Part of the reason that nothing is happening is because years of vetoes have ground down the 'teeth' of the UNSC.

However, if the US sees NK as an immediate threat, it is up to them to bring it to the SC. Only then can action be taken.

That's not a greater hypocrisy than the legal hair splitting the US engages in. Or is it just less important because it's done out of sight, and with complete ubiquity? I guess not all people are deserving of your consideration. Just the ones that suffer at the hands of Americans. Good to know.

I don't think you understood my point at all: I am not arguing that human rights abuses are good, or are to the credit of the UN, or something. I'm arguing that the failure of the UN to react coherently and consistently to these abuses is due, at least in part, to the fact that the cetnral player, the US, is not interested in international law, does not want to take a firm stand on human rights, and does not consistently comdemn or take action against human rights abuses.

You think that a nation who slaughters its people for fun should have any say in World Politics at all, let alone that much power? Are you stupid? Dictatorships outnumber democracies by well over three to one. If we did it your way, the dictatorships would be the ones in control! The United Nations definately needs reform, but your idea would cause a global thermonuclear war.

Splitting and expelling nations from the UN is more likely to cause a global thermonuclear war. It would end up with rich nations in and poor ones out, which would not be good PR by rich nations.

And if there is a 3:1 ratio of dictatorships to demoicracies surely they are already in control since all nations are equal in the general assembily?

Oh, and I don't consider myself stupid either.