Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7680

Speech
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/dsgsm287.doc.htm
Reaction
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/articl...2216040,00.html

Discuss.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 24302

Fuck the UN.

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Registered: Jun 2006
Location:
Posts: 72

Fuck the US.

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Registered: Apr 2005
Location: wool puller
Posts: 10256

All the UN is is a place for foreign politicians to tell the US where they would like US troops to operate.

Without the US, the UN is as flaccid as Simon's penne.

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Registered: Jun 2006
Location:
Posts: 72

irony police! arrest this man!

it's more like :
US is a place for american politicians that tell the UN where they would like the US troops to operate.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 24302

Ok, so let me recap: Fuck the UN.

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Registered: Jun 2006
Location:
Posts: 72

you.....Troll!

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
Posts: 9166

quote:

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Originally posted by PeristalticMove
irony police! arrest this man!

it's more like :
US is a place for american politicians that tell the UN where they would like the US troops to operate.

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haha, alas, no pernts to give

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 24302

quote:

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Originally posted by PeristalticMove
you.....Troll!

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: south afrika
Posts: 16487

its "NO U"

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Beringia
Posts: 5207

quote:

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Originally posted by Trenchant_Troll
Fuck the UN.

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: south afrika
Posts: 16487

wpww fuck yeah!

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Beringia
Posts: 5207

!

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

What's to say about the speech? His fundamental assumption--that a strong UN is and should be seen as desirable by the US--is false. The US doesn't support the UN a lot of the time. Often when we criticize the UN or draw lines in the sand, we do so with very good reason.

The consequence if this is that the UN is indeed less effective as a means for US purposes than it might be. It is also, however, less effective for other purposes that cross those of the US. And since the US is capable of pursuing its interests by its own means, we generally deem a weak UN to be better than a strong UN. In short: given the US's position, a strong UN is useful to us in fewer circumstances than it is potentially harmful.

A strong UN is desirable if you think the governments of a numerical majority of nations make good decisions the majority of the time. Not otherwise. I don't know why one should place any faith in the proposition that they do, given that a large minority of them don't speak for their citizens' views at any level and given that majorities are an ugly creature even under the best of circumstances.

Best to retain it as a forum for discussion and to do as much with it as we can without turning it into something with meaningful authority. Multilateral cooperation on issues like Sudan and HIV is better guaranteed through other means and organizations. Sadly, the Bush administration is not greatly skilled in these means either, but that doesn't justify the UN as an alternative; it means we should be picking up our soft power efforts elsewhere.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35561

The need for UN approval is rather clearer now, given the expense of length of the Iraq adventure, than it was beforehand.

But the UN's not a World Government. Some people on both sides of the debate seem to imagine that it's supposed to be more than it is supposed to be.

Action on AIDS or any health issue probably works as well through the UN as anything. The limitation on action against Sudan over Darfur isn't the UN or a failure to find agreement, it's that no one wants to put their troops into an enormous commitment with such an uncertain prospect of success. We can wave our hands and talk about sanctions, but military action? Not going to happen easily and that's not the fault of the UN, it's because no one really wants to get into it.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
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Do you think that UN approval would have made any difference where Iraq was concerned, Smug? I sure don't. The same buffoons would have been managing it either way, based on the same politically-driven calculations. Whether they'd been technically managing a UN force or a "coalition of the willing", the facts on the ground would not have been meaningfully different. All of which is irrelevant, of course, as the UN would never, under any circumstances, have approved the intervention.

The UN does not need to be a world government to be either a net boon or bane to the US. Its policies will be either beneficial at the margins or harmful at the margins. In fact, some will be beneficial and some harmful. The more authority the UN has, the more beneficial or the more harmful. The balance doesn't shift; you just add more weight to each side.

I don't think any argument can be made that the UN has been anything but a hinderance in Darfur, most particularly in the shameful, cowardly decision to classify the action as non-genocide in order to avoid the obligations such a decision would have entailed. Why the speaker would want to make that part of his case for a more US-supported UN I have no idea; it seems you and I both agree that that was a poor choice on his part. The UN has been OK on AIDS, but then, so has the Bush administration, really, and Brazil acting in concert with like-minded partners has been better than either.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35561

It absolutely would have made a difference, particularly in light of how things have turned out. Pakistani troops could have been particularly useful (being moslem) but lack of UN agreement held them back. Other nations (including India) were also awaiting UN approval. Furthermore, it's likely that some of the cost would have been defrayed had their been UN agreement.

The UN is irrelevant to Darfur. The failure to classify it as 'genocide' was precisely for the same reasons as no-one wants to get involved. The UN is a voting body and no one, including the US, wants to send troops there. I don't think that it was classified as 'non-genocide'; they failed to classify it as genocide, ie, nothing really happened. But that's because no one wants to back up words with force. And who can blame them? It's a morass.

The WHO is, I would say, pretty good. It's on issues like the use of force that the UN is limited by the opinions of its members; it's not to blame for them.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
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quote:

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Originally posted by Smug Git
It absolutely would have made a difference, particularly in light of how things have turned out. Pakistani troops could have been particularly useful (being moslem) but lack of UN agreement held them back. Other nations (including India) were also awaiting UN approval. Furthermore, it's likely that some of the cost would have been defrayed had their been UN agreement.

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Last edited by CHiPsJr on 06-09-2006 at 11:50 PM

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
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I'm not saying that insurgents wouldn't attack moslem troops (I don't know where you got that idea from). The point is that moslem troops would have caused far less offence in certain situations. Not to mention that more troops of nearly any sort, so long as they were competent, would have been a great boon given that the scarcity of US troops appears to have played a major role in allowing the insurgency to develop (along with other errors).

Financial cost certainly is an issue. Deficits may not bother Dick Cheney, but they bother a lot of other people. Unwillingness to 'engage the enemy' wasn't so much a problem as 'failure to put troops guarding the infrastructure)'. They didn't have to be blowing chunks out of civilians to achieve that (and in the early chaos, civilians were the problem).

I think that the UN was in danger of becoming less relevant, but Bush has gifted it with relevance by demonstrating the cost of operating in its face. Anyone concerned about the UN and whatever infringement of sovereignty they think that it represents, has another reason to lambast the President. The troops wouldn't have been under 'UN control' (they weren't, for example, in the first Gulf War). Whatever command structure was in place would have been agreed by contributing nations.

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Registered: Aug 2000
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Some news coverage:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/09.html#a8651

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: I cant say I buy this completely,
Posts: 2506

Wait...does no one remember how the good people of the UN tucked tail and ran the second they got hit in Iraq? Way to fucking cave there you pussies...that was a big win for ye olde insurgency and the faggy UNers spooked like a Spaniard and just handed it to em.

By the way, the General Assembly can eat shit and fucking die for all I care. Most powerless and inept body of babbling retards ever to assemble on this planet.

On Darfur, the US has called it genocide, publicly...many times and at many levels of government(DoS, Congress, etc.). We cant say this for a lot of nations. Sadly we have bigger fish to fry and no time to get hung up in some African shithole the world obviously doesnt even care enough about to do anything but try to work the AU in there...so why the hell do we owe these people the effort? Oh yeah, I remember now...cause everything is our fault.

And lastly, this is something that everyone completely missed for some reason, even the news networks have dropped it for the most part but the God damned poster child for UN we-will-save-your-sad-fucking-country-from-you-the-idiot-residents-missions in E. Timor...the same year the UN force is removed...it all falls to shit...again. Get off your fat ass Kofi, you can save them all over! Thats progress baby, yeah!

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
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Colin Powell was the US official that called it genocide, I think, although there was concern that that meant that the US then had to do something about it. But that's OK, because they can just carry on talking about it like everyone else, it turns out. But that's how it is; as the UN, as the nations that make up the UN, so also the US. No one apparently wants to put themselves into a civil war to stop arab moslems from killing black moslems. And who can blame them?

East Timor is indeed fucked. But would you have preferred that Indonesia (who presided over the death of maybe 1/3 of the population) stayed in? Australia and over intervening countries wanted to remove their troops, I thought (although I believe that they, amongst others, have sent troops back). In any event, the UN can't command nations to send intervening troops; all it can do is permit them to operate under their aegis. If it works well or not has a lot more to do with the troops than the UN, it seems to me.

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: I cant say I buy this completely,
Posts: 2506

Not just Powell...multiple levels of government...like I said. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3918765.stm

And we tried to do something about it(Sudan), we are still trying...Im not even going to tell you where the resistance is coming from cause it doesnt matter. Put it simply, we arent doing this alone because we know we will be blamed for everything, and no one else wants to help us...par for the course. Pretty cool how its all stalled up on the AU getting in...cause white troops, oops, I mean UN troops is unacceptable to the Sudanese govt but brown troops are ok...not like theyre fucking racists or nothing...oh yeah, but now even brown troops arent good enough...its like, its like, its like they want to kill them all and keep everyone out while they do it.

Aussies are still there(E Timor), so are a few others. It has nothing to do with the troops. Do you know they dont even have arrest powers? Do you know that they capture gangs or rebels or however youd like to classify these non-government fighters and then they have to release them a few hours later? I bet you couldnt even begin to take a guess at what sort of ROE they have to work under.

Im no expert on E Timor as I never liked the place but it was policy that failed...not the troops or what little enforcement they were allowed to do.

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