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United Nations

I heard a good one this Sunday...What do you think of the United Nations...is it still effective or should we level it and use it as a parking lot ?

What do you feel needs to change in order for it to get back to it's original state.

mark the shoeshine boy
 
mark the shoeshine boy said:
I heard a good one this Sunday...What do you think of the United Nations...is it still effective or should we level it and use it as a parking lot ?

What do you feel needs to change in order for it to get back to it's original state.

mark the shoeshine boy
Its not effective, I think that is apparent to anyone who pays any attention at all. Perhaps a better question might be whether it could ever be effective. I tend to think it can't. I also would question whether it ever was effective. Bias and corruption are rampant from the top down, and the security council is set up so that nothing significant can happen because any proposed action will be vetoed by one or more of the permanent members. The peacekeeper forces are a joke. Why should we pay membership dues to an organization that is intent on thwarting our every policy and initiative?
 
That's a lot of good office space to tear down for a parking lot . . . Give it to Donald Trump. He can do something with it.
 
olkev said:
That's a lot of good office space to tear down for a parking lot . . . Give it to Donald Trump. He can do something with it.

Lord save us all no. :eek: I don't so much care what you do with it, just NOT THAT. This city already has way too much of his hideous, guady, tasteless pink and gold excuse for architecture. Hell, as I remember there is already one right across the street....
 
Maybe just mix Trump and the U.N. into a new show "The Diplomat" they have to do challenges and what not or Trump tells them they're fired. Make everyone do some actual work for a change. Maybe they could get something done then.
 
guenron said:
The UN? Has lasted a bit longer than the League of Nations hasn't it?:blink:

Yes, and I'm sure Teddy Roosevelt is rolling in his grave. :glare:

At any rate, the U.N. is a useless bureaucratic debating body that has long since lost positive reason for it's existance. Day by day, it continues to show it's obsolesence and it's continued dependency on the U.S. Government's *** for all of it's corrupt social programs. By it's continued leadership by people of the likes of Kofi Annan, who are as crooked as question marks, the U.N. further sinks into the sea of insignifcance. Frankly, it's high time we tell, not ask, the U.N. to remove itself from our country. I'm sure there's some nice land available in Dijibouti for it's relocation.
 
What I find useless about the UN is that the winners of WWII (US, GB, France, China, & Russia) have permanent veto power of any measure. Why should those five nations have such prominance 50 years afters the end of that particular conflict. Especially when one takes into consideration the current politics of the losers of WWII (Germany & Japan), both of whom seem to be doing at least as good a job at maintaining peaceful relations (if not better) than those five veto nations. Overall though I think the UN is little more than a smokescreen.
 

ouch

Stjynnkii membörd dummpsjterd
I wonder what rights the losers of WWII would have conferred upon us had they been victorious.
Glad we'll never know.
 
fuerein said:
What I find useless about the UN is that the winners of WWII (US, GB, France, China, & Russia) have permanent veto power of any measure. Why should those five nations have such prominance 50 years afters the end of that particular conflict. Especially when one takes into consideration the current politics of the losers of WWII (Germany & Japan), both of whom seem to be doing at least as good a job at maintaining peaceful relations (if not better) than those five veto nations. Overall though I think the UN is little more than a smokescreen.
But just think what the results would be if that veto power wasn't there. The poor countries of the world far outnumber the wealthy. You might as well just sign over your paycheck to Somalias and North Korea's of the world. It would be mob rule.
 
kozulich said:
But just think what the results would be if that veto power wasn't there. The poor countries of the world far outnumber the wealthy. You might as well just sign over your paycheck to Somalias and North Korea's of the world. It would be mob rule.

And in that case if the poor nations tried to take every once of money they could from the rich nations, I'm sure the richer nations would jump ship. Not to mention the UN has no enforcement capabilities. If the UN told the US to give half it's income from taxes to Somolia, well, I can see Congress just getting a good laugh. I mean if the poorer nations actually tried something like that without the veto power being present it isn't like now where they could send in so called "UN troops" to enforce it. UN troops come nearly exclusively from the richer nations and no rich nation is going to set foot in another just to force that nation to send money to some developing nation. After all, who knows when the tides would turn and it would be the other nation doing the same.
 
Not sure if this is still true, but for a while, Pakistan actually supplied the majority of UN troops.
 
This is only my opinion,
but I do feel the U.S. funds far too much of the UN's programs (it is a huge percentage) considering the somewhat anti-US lean the UN has had for the past 10 years or so. As for who supplies the most troops, wouldn't surprise me about Pakistan, considering the enormous population ratio. It may have to do also with what area an applicable conflict is in; for instance US and British forces assigned to the UN during the reindeer games in Kosovo probably outnumbered Pakistani. I honestly don't know how the troop strengths are decided.
Why do the WWII victors have the veto? Just personal opinion, but I think it is one of the "we made the club so we'll make the rules" kindof things, but I could be wrong. War is never generally good for the wishes of the losers, question is to see who makes the most of what they are then given.
I think the UN has a purpose, but with the amount of funds and power the UN has, it needs to give us more "bang" for our buck, and as a global organization, needs to be if anything, MORE honest, fair, and "straight and narrow" than even any of its member nations.
Just my opinion.
John P.
 
It was definitely a "we won, we made the club, we get to make the rules" kind of thing. Which is all very well, but that was then. This is now, and it is worth asking whether that system is still either productive, or justified by any higher logic than the above statement.
 
fuerein said:
And in that case if the poor nations tried to take every once of money they could from the rich nations, I'm sure the richer nations would jump ship. Not to mention the UN has no enforcement capabilities. If the UN told the US to give half it's income from taxes to Somolia, well, I can see Congress just getting a good laugh. I mean if the poorer nations actually tried something like that without the veto power being present it isn't like now where they could send in so called "UN troops" to enforce it. UN troops come nearly exclusively from the richer nations and no rich nation is going to set foot in another just to force that nation to send money to some developing nation. After all, who knows when the tides would turn and it would be the other nation doing the same.
Which is a good example of why I think it cannot work, no matter how much the system is "fixed" or improved:sad:
 
fuerein said:
What I find useless about the UN is that the winners of WWII (US, GB, France, China, & Russia) have permanent veto power of any measure. Why should those five nations have such prominance 50 years afters the end of that particular conflict. Especially when one takes into consideration the current politics of the losers of WWII (Germany & Japan), both of whom seem to be doing at least as good a job at maintaining peaceful relations (if not better) than those five veto nations. Overall though I think the UN is little more than a smokescreen.

Actually, France wasn't one of the winners of the War. The French were defeated and they unconditionally surrendered in 1940 after one of the biggest military catastrophes in modern history. In 1945 a couple of leftover french tanks did indeed cross the Rhine well after Patton did... The french 'victory' in WWII is just a national myth made up to compensate for the humiliation the nation had suffered. Even as we speak, french military power is part of this effort to forget about '40. But my real point is: the security council is indeed partially an artificial thing. Permanent seats for Germany and Japan! (which would actually increase the weight of the West - I mean Japan has changed as well since '45 hasn't it?)
 
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