Real World Event Discussions

The U.N.: Threat or Menace?

POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Saturday, March 28, 2026 17:52
VIEWED: 3813
PAGE 4 of 6

Wednesday, September 6, 2006 9:45 PM

Signym

I know two people who worked for the UN, in a pretty high capacity, and I know them well. I have many stories of the inner workings of the UN. Things like the african rape story happen for a reason. The UN is far far from what it was intended to be. It should not be playing world cop, if only because it does so worse than Bush/Clinton, who do it terribly. It's possibly a job which should not be done at all by anyone.

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Wednesday, September 6, 2006 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kaneman:
Quote:

Originally posted by SimonWho:
Just to point out that the U.S. actually owes the UN about $1,246,000,000.

I expect they accept cash.




You guys are so full of sh*t. The US pays 23% the UK 5.5%, Japan 19%, Canada 2%, Germany 9% of the UN funding. This does not even factor in voluntary funding in which the US pays more than the rest of the world combined. These are facts. Just ask Africa(AIDS). We won't even get into the WTO and other bullsh*t "International Orgs". Well, it's true(Google it). Carry on with your nonsense. Must be fun to have found a place were every one has their heads in their asses, and are to busy to notice that yours is also. Well, that is SO true. TaTa...Enjoy your Liberal circle jerk. Remember wash your hands when finished!!!!!



*BUMP* What's going on you testosterone tool lickers...SimonWhat?, Shitizen, Sleezer, DooRue, Chickisall, Underthedeskhippie, . I'm all troll?....Argue against my post...Can't? That's because....Well, it's true... Eat sh*t you arrogant asses.

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RUE
Thursday, September 7, 2006 1:03 AM

Just a couple of replies:

DT
which is why you have things like oil for food
Please note that it was a US-designed program. If you want to talk about corruption, please point your accusations in the right direction!

Geezer
But the UN can only send peacekeepers if the Sudanese government invites them in, which isn't happening.There is a recently passed UN resolution (I forget the number) which gives countries the opportunity to allow the UN in but doesn't require their consent. So now you will have to decide if you have a greater issue with the UN having too little power to do any good, or too much power over 'sovereign' nations. Can't have it both ways.

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Thursday, September 7, 2006 1:33 AM

Read my last post....Again...I am to busy on boards that matter...Well, it's true

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Thursday, September 7, 2006 5:43 AM

Rue,

If I recall, it was joint designed, but this really misses the point. The UN is a disaster. Not saying the US as it is now is NOT a disaster. But the UN, all by itself, if the US would disappear tomorrow as an institution, the UN, as an institution, would still be a disaster.

Here's a little my uncle henry story.

A close personal friend of mine was one of the delegates to the UN mission in Bosnia. It was his job to be the english speaking arm of a team which carried out the logistics of implementing decisions which were made at a higher level.

His mission was to take an abandoned town, and fill it with muslims, extracting them from mixed communities where civil war was expected to break out. So they took 15,000 men women and children, and populated this town, which had been completely depopulated earlier in the war. The then set up tanks in a circle around the town.

Afterwards, my friend and his team were ordered off to elsewhere in the world to address some other issue. A year later, the UN decided to withdraw from the bosnian conflict, and pulled out its tanks. This left the town of 15,000 muslim civilians undefended. The Serb socialists marched on the town, and killed every man woman and child, which took them a day.

Which is just one anecdote. There are countless stories of UN botches world cop job. The UN should not be the world cop, it was never meant to be. It was meant to be a table at which people could discuss differences on neutral ground, a job which it is also failing miserably at. They completely failed to get the serbs and the muslims to talk.

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Thursday, September 7, 2006 12:19 PM

DT- I think I addressed all of your objections. One thing to note: THe UN has offices all over the world, and many of its best programs seem to be based elsewhere. So I'm just gonna repeat myself:

Quote:

No books but hey, a little Inet sleuthing can dig up info on their polio, TB, and fresh water programs. Also, their monitoring and certification of various elections around the globe where they seem to be quite useful. Their mine-clearing program.

Personally. I think the UN is so hobbled by competing interests that it's almost impossible for them to get anything done- good OR bad. But where they seem to have an edge is in health programs and in blessing political processes- almost like one of the many international standards organizations (ISO, IEEE etc) but for governments.

SO, to retierate- prolly not a "world military" organization.


---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Thursday, September 7, 2006 1:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rue:
There is a recently passed UN resolution (I forget the number) which gives countries the opportunity to allow the UN in but doesn't require their consent. So now you will have to decide if you have a greater issue with the UN having too little power to do any good, or too much power over 'sovereign' nations. Can't have it both ways.



True. The UN also has a resolution stating they'll prevent genocide. So they're now in the situation of asking, "Excuse us. Can we come into your country and prevent you from killing all your population that aren't what you consider the right religion (race, tribe, political party, etc.)? No? Well, just thought we'd ask. Call if you change your mind."

This part of the UN doesn't work. Not only doesn't it work, but it prevents individual countries or groups of countries from taking action in obvious genocide situations, because they're bound to wait for the UN to do something.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, September 7, 2006 7:02 PM

Signym

No one was nitpicking the WHO, which is fine. But pay attention to geezer's points, because he has some good ones.


Geezer,

good point. This is exactly the problem. It's not that the UN has bad intentions, I don't think anyone is saying it does, but it's not very effective, and often makes the problem worse.

We have the same problem here, btw, with our own congress. I noticed that over a quarter million civilians have been slaughtered mercilessly in Darfur since last year's resolution passed in the US senate condemning the genocide in darfur.

I think this method of foreign policy could be called: "Talk very big and carry no stick at all"

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RUE
Thursday, September 7, 2006 7:26 PM

Geezer, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just haven't kept up with the news. The UN will try a while longer to get voluntary cooperation from Sudan. They are already preparing to go to the next step, which is to intervene without agreement.

Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:

Originally posted by rue:
There is a recently passed UN resolution (I forget the number) which gives countries the opportunity to allow the UN in but doesn't require their consent. So now you will have to decide if you have a greater issue with the UN having too little power to do any good, or too much power over 'sovereign' nations. Can't have it both ways.



True. The UN also has a resolution stating they'll prevent genocide. So they're now in the situation of asking, "Excuse us. Can we come into your country and prevent you from killing all your population that aren't what you consider the right religion (race, tribe, political party, etc.)? No? Well, just thought we'd ask. Call if you change your mind."

This part of the UN doesn't work. Not only doesn't it work, but it prevents individual countries or groups of countries from taking action in obvious genocide situations, because they're bound to wait for the UN to do something.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, September 7, 2006 7:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
No books but hey, a little Inet sleuthing can dig up info on their polio, TB, and fresh water programs. Also, their monitoring and certification of various elections around the globe where they seem to be quite useful. Their mine-clearing program.


And their gender work. Stuff like CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women). The United States is one of a few countries not party to this convention (along with Iran, Nauru, Palau, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan and Tonga). At the least, we could become a party and not submit reports, like 32 countries. Other work on gender equality and and empowerment of women which can be found through Women Watch. And UNIFEM (the United Nations Development Fund for Women).

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