Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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Former Congressman Livingston (Rep) from Louisiana was interviewed this morning on Fox and I heard him say that he reccomends the US withdraw from the UN and maintain only an observer role in UN and that we cease all contributions to UN (we are already quite far behind in dues I hear). Mr. Livingston says that he is starting a private lobby to act on behalf of this action with Congress. nHe says that he has had no contact with the Whitehouse concerning this.

As some of his reasons Livingston mentions:

1. The UN has been totally ineffective in the Israel-Palestine matter.
2. The UN was ineffective in preventing genocidal slaughter in Rwanda.
3. The UN has not only been ineffective it has been a major cause of trouble in our problems with Iraq.
4. The UN was of minimal assistance in the Afghanistan fight with the Taliban and al Qaeda.
5. The UN has a dismal civil rights correction record and virtually no successes.

As a result of all that Livingston says trash 'em.

Just to remind you who Livingston is. He is the Congressman who was supposed to replace Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House and declined the position and resigned from Congress because he knew a scandal was about to break about his marital infidelity. So Dennis Hastert was elected to take the place that Livingston declined. He is not without considerable influence on Congress even today.

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quote:

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Originally posted by oxsan
1. The UN has been totally ineffective in the Israel-Palestine matter.

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What the Hell has Louisiana ever given to this Union of States?

I saw we demand that LA withdraw itself from the US. All ye who wish to attend Mardi Gras must first bring a valid passport.

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They are basically Frenchies, too. Or 'freedomites', as you may wish.

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I believe that I am correct in saying,Talarohk, that the US has never used its veto in the security council. Even if I am wrong and there was one or two vetos I don't think "we vetoed most of the resolutions concerning restraint on Israel".

Congressment Livingston stressed that he saw no use for an organization which issued sanctions it was unwilling to support for twelve years of multiple violations. He frurther pointed out that the UN Security Council voted unanimously in support of Resolution 1441 as a last opportunity for compliance .

I notice Talarohk that you did not address Congressman Livingstons last two points--only his first three.

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What the hell has Louisiana ever given to this union of states?

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Originally posted by oxsan
I believe that I am correct in saying,Talarohk, that the US has never used its veto in the security council. Even if I am wrong and there was one or two vetos I don't think "we vetoed most of the resolutions concerning restraint on Israel".

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Now if I can just get the blood out of the keys herf7m-9kl'wv/"LKJ
\--There I think that did it. Now back to what the State of Louisiana has given to this union of states:
mosquitos, muskrats, mudcats, black folk songs' piney woods,
the rest of the states all the way up to the Pacific Northwest (remember it was THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE), Huey Long, Vieux Carre iron scrollwork unmatched anywhere, the strongest Roman Catholic Diocese in the United States, the cajun patois that is a language in itself, chicory in your coffee which we Texans call Louisiana Mud, shrimp boat Captains, riverboats, roux, Cajun girls,
and mmmsivarT if you have never been in bed with a Cajun girl you have missed the experience of a lifetime and would not understand why we think that our good neighbor to the east is one of ther best places in the world. If we didn't have Louisiana as the place for us to go sin we would do it at home and despoil; our own fair womanhood and get thrown outa church.

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BTW, most of those good things I listed about the Louisianans
above we have mostly because the Limeys didn't know a good thing when they saw it and drove the Acadians out of the Laurentine area of Canada and they came down to live in the swamps and bayous of Louisianan as Longfellow describes in his epic poem "Evangeline". So here is a toast to the Limeys for giving us all those good things!

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Sorry Talarohk, you were right and I was wrong on the question of veto. I was amazed when I read the link that you posted and have no excuse for not knowing that other than ignorance.

And it may be that the US veto was used in matters of restraining Israel. It is a hard struggle for me but my sympathies in the Israeli-Palestine fighting rests with the Israelis. I freely grant that early Israel literally stole Arab land and killed Arabs in much the same way that we Americans occupied Indian lands and killed them. It was not a simple thing however---nor was it in America for that matter. I have a few very good Palestinian friends mostly living in Saudi Arabia in Riyadh. I have sat in George Abend's office in Riyadh and literally cried when he described the day the Israeli's came and took away his family's farm and killed his father.
George is a good , kind and intelligent man and I can't expect that he will ever erase the memory of that day from his mind.
I have even more very good friends in Israel who tell me of the days when they were in holocaust camps and just barely survived and arrived in Israel as the promised land looked upon it as their return from the great dispesion of 70 AD. The emotions between those peoples were so strong and tyhe pressures were so great that I could ever sort them out.

I do know that you can stand in Israel and look around you and everything that is green , and clean and functional and happy is Israeli and everything that is brown, and wasted and sere and drab is Palestinian. My first trip to Israel was in 1968 and my last was about 1976 and in between tose dates I was there and in Saudi or Lebanon or Egypt seven or eight times and I always had much more respect with the way the Israeli's lived their lives than I did with what the Palestinians exhibited--even those Palestinians that I came to like much.

I suppose that is njot a valid basis on which to choose sides in a conflict between nations but it is the basis on which I did so.

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I've never been to Israel or anywhere else in the area, but your description matches what I've heard from others who have been there. And I am absolutely sure that you know much more about the history of the area than I do, so I will happily defer to your assessment thereof. As to how to judge whose side to take, I suspect that most nations cannot be fairly evaluated on the behavior or likeability of any one individual citizen, as as far as I have been able to tell, most individuals of all nations are good folks most of the time. Basing it on how a nation's government treats its land and its citizens, and how it encourages its citizens to live, though, seems as good as any.

It seems to me that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is too deep-rooted to be solved by anything less than the application of combined wisdom from around the world--if it can be solved at all--and thus I have hopes that the UN can do it. Someday.

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I have been to Israel and Arabia (although nowhere near as often as oxsan), and there isn't much doubt that the Israelis have done well for themselves (up until recently; their economy is in a parlous state (they are also socialists, although that isn't the sole reason for their economic meltdown) and they were after some US$10 billion of aid and loan guarantees from the US last November; I don't know if they got it). However, Israel has been subsidised by the US; at the moment to the tune of somewhere between US$400-800 per person in Israel per year (figures are hard to get hold of exactly as they are through many channels; some of that money must be spent within the US, other is free aid).

I think that the problem with Israel is that they have rather squandered their legitmacy. Although the large number of civilian deaths that they inflict in their battle against palestinian terrorism is disturbing (and the fact that the US vetos condemnatory resolutions is not very admirable), for me the real problem is the settlement program; the landgrab isn't bad, it makes the problem much harder to solve, because returning land that was allegedly taken for reasons of national security isn't easily possible when it has fundamentalist hardline jews living on it. The large displacement of palestinians has also contributed to Israel's problem.

One good thing about the US bankrolling Israel is that it does put the US in a powerful position as far as imposing a solution on Israel is concerned. The arab world needs to be persuaded to do something similar to the palestinians, although as far as the terrorists go, the big power and influence on them is Iran, and they probably aren't going to play ball. I agree with Talarohk that the UN is going to be be very necessary in achieving all this; I can't see that a whole load of bilateral agreements is going to be enough (although clearly the US and the arab nations are the major players) and that in fact is why the UN is important in many other cases too.

Rather than looking at UN failures, if the question is one of 'should the UN exist', this seedy frenchie from Louisiana should consider what things would be like without it. If one is trying to make the UN better, then you look at its failures, but if one is considering taking the UN away altogether, then you consider what things would be like without it. A return to the days of bilateralism (not that it doesn't happen anyway, but you know what I mean) isn't something that I would enjoy.

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"...if you are considering taking the UN away all together"

I never heard Former Congressman Livingston talk about eliminating UN from the earth and from the memory of man but rather of pulling the US out of UN and letting the US role in UN
be as an observer rather than an enforcer or contributor.

Of course I don't deny that some people could see that as tatamount to destruction of the UN. Also Livingston was loud in his denunciation of Libya's position as head of the Civil Rights Committee and something about Sierra Leone which went over my head because I was suddenly confronted by a tractor and hay teddar on the road.

You can't really dismiss "this seedy Louisianan" as a rank boor. Livingston has a pretty strong following in the US as a result of his long service in the Senate and he is a bit gruff--not a silver tongue devil such as yourself, Smug, but nevertheless articulate.

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If the US is out of the UN, then it is gone as far as I am concerned and the US will have killed it.

I only called him seedy, incidentally, because he was unfaithful to his wife.

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I can't resist asking, Smug, do you call Clinton "that seedy New Yorker" or "that seedy Arkansan"?

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I prefer, "That slimy bastard"

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Israel's fucked anyway. Hamas states that it is looking for an independent Palestinian state in 2022-23. By then, demographic pressures will be counting so heavily upon Israel (average palestinian family numbers 8, and growing, not to mention that 50% of Arab's in that region are under the age of 15) they won't know whether to shit or go blind.

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quote:

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4. The UN was of minimal assistance in the Afghanistan fight with the Taliban and al Qaeda.

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quote:

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"...the US didn't want UN help in Afghanistan"

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quote:

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Originally posted by oxsan
Sorry Talarohk, you were right and I was wrong on the question of veto. I was amazed when I read the link that you posted .

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quote:

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Originally posted by oxsan
I can't resist asking, Smug, do you call Clinton "that seedy New Yorker" or "that seedy Arkansan"?

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Skalie, you express surprise at my ignorance with regard to US vetos. Let me assuren you that there are many facts in this world that I am ignorant about and that there have been periods in my life that I was so utterly absorbed in what I was doing as a vocation that my attendance oin current events may have lapsed. In my old age I am trying to remedy at least a part of that deficiency by venturing forth into the wilds of this forum and interfacing with more knowledgeable persons such as yourself.

Arkansan is pronounced ar-CAN'-zan and is the accepted designation for citizens of that state even though you may occasionally hear Arkansawyer so used.

We have a saying here in Texas, Skalie that "even an old blind pig finds a few acorns". Perhaps I will thus stumble some day upon a fact or facts that you are unaware of. If that happens you may rest assured that I will let you know.

New Zealand incidentally is one of the few places on the globe
that I wanted to visit but never had the opportunity to do so. I understand it is a virtual paradise but circumstances will probably
preclude my seeing it.

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