Fidel Castro, Evo Morales, and Julius Nyerere named official UN heroes

What did you expect from an anti-semite like Brockmann? Lybia is going to be a chair of the GA in the upcoming session. Doesn't this say enough about UN?

Somebody still cares about the UN?

I want to like the UN so very much. They just never give me a chance.

Duncan said:

Somebody still cares about the UN?

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Unfortunately.

I don't want to like them. I want them to go away. They are a waste of space.

semilargeintestine said:

Unfortunately.

I don't want to like them. I want them to go away. They are a waste of space.

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The idea behind both the League of Nations and the UN was a good one. A governing body formed by other governments - if there were repercussions for televised, government subsidized antisemitism, there'd be far less of it.

Unfortunately, that's a big if that's never going to happen.

What did you expect from an anti-semite like Brockmann?

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Expand on this, please, D. How does whether Brockmann may or may not be an anti-semite play into this?

Duncan J Macdonald said:

Somebody still cares about the UN?

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I do. It's not perfect but it's much better than the international anarchy that prevailed before WWI, and started it. That same anarchy came back into play when The League of Nations collapsed, and WWII started soon after.

Without international law and structure the only alternative for nations to remain safe is to form alliances with other nations. Those alliances become quite intricate very quickly. All it takes then is a minor incident, like the assassination of a minor political figure in the Balkans, to trigger all these alliances.

If we go back to that system the alliances will start to form again. They will become a complex web again. And some minor incident will trigger them again.

Next time every major player will have weapons of mass destruction.

So yeah, I care about the UN and the structure of international law it represents.

Williebee said:

Expand on this, please, D. How does whether Brockmann may or may not be an anti-semite play into this?

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It doesn't. Directly. But open anti-semites don't usually have long history of being reasonable. He, for example, was very chummy with Ahmedinijad.

Romantic Heretic said:

I do. It's not perfect but it's much better than the international anarchy that prevailed before WWI, and started it. That same anarchy came back into play when The League of Nations collapsed, and WWII started soon after.

Without international law and structure the only alternative for nations to remain safe is to form alliances with other nations. Those alliances become quite intricate very quickly. All it takes then is a minor incident, like the assassination of a minor political figure in the Balkans, to trigger all these alliances.

If we go back to that system the alliances will start to form again. They will become a complex web again. And some minor incident will trigger them again.

Next time every major player will have weapons of mass destruction.

So yeah, I care about the UN and the structure of international law it represents.

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We aren't in the 19th century. And we aren't in the mid 20th century. What you describe is unreasonable in the world of today. You already have alliances (always had). NATO the Arab League etc. And when there was a stand-off between NATO and the Warsaw pact, UN wasn't what prevented the war.
The whole idea that overwhelmingly non-democratic world is somehow really gives a crap about a supposedly democratic body like UN is rather absurd on its face. The idea is noble, but reality is entirely different.

*sigh*

I was seriously hoping that was un-heroes and not a declaration by the UN.

I'll quote myself from a while back

me said:

I think that UN in general is a sham. It gives good folks in the West the illusion of global community holding hands together and advancing into a better trans-nationalist world. In reality this is bs. The world is overwhelmingly non-democratic and couldn't give a crap about human rights. The only reason anybody listens to US and Europe is because they have power -- military, economic and technological. Once you take this away, you see countries pursuing their own agenda that has nothing to do with the stated objectives of the UN. Hypocricy and impotency in the face of real crisises are abundant.

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If it's a sham then it is a sham every nation in the world is participating in in. Whenever they perform an act of aggression they make sure they have someone of the Security Council to veto it or they know what they are doing is so unimportant to the big powers that they know no one cares.

The important point is that it brings into an existence the rule of law into international relations. Sure, it's broken all the time but what laws aren't? But now there is at least some way for nations to interact without going to war. And a nation knows it is doing wrong when it attacks their neighbors.

War is a luxury we can't afford any more.

Remind me, when was the last time UN intervened to stop a war or even worse a genocide? You words wouldn't sound so hollow if we didn't know what actually goes on around the world.

EDIT: ETA I didn't mean "sham" as a "hoax", but as "pretense"

Well, there was Kuwait. Korea was also a success.

The problem is the permanent members of the Security Council. They can veto any action the UN votes in favor of. That's why they didn't interfere when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. invaded Panama, Grenada or Iraq and Israel invaded Lebanon. The interests of the standing members meant any effort to interfere with these things would be vetoed.

On the other hand giving them the veto was the only way to get them to sign on. The people who founded the UN, mostly Americans, knew that if everybody didn't join the UN it would fall apart the same way The League of Nations did. And with the same results; a world war would probably happen soon after. After 60 million dead in WWII they really wanted to avoid that.

And the UN can't stop genocides. It cannot interfere inside a sovereign country unless that country asks for that interference. Since it is usually the sovereign government carrying out the genocide for some strange reason that request doesn't come.

I'm not saying the UN is a perfect institution, or that it often isn't ineffective, but it does change the context of international relations. Before the UN there was no law against aggressive war. If one nation felt like kicking the shit out of another they could and there was no opprobrium attached. Now there is international law and most nations at least pretend to live within it.

If we do away with the UN because it doesn't always work and that some people pay no attention to the law and structure it represents then we have to do away with countries because some groups and individuals within countries pay no attention to the law and structure the country represents.

Anarchy is not much fun on either a world or individual level.

ETA: Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand on the UN

Romantic Heretic said:

Well, there was Kuwait. Korea was also a success.

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Did the allies go to Kuwait under UN peace keeping auspices? Am I missing something here? What function did UN play at all? US wanted to go after Saddam and hammered out an allience. Are you saying that this wouldn't happen without the UN? Obviously it did in Cosovo and in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

What exactly are yu talking about with regards to Korea?

Romantic Heretic said:

The problem is the permanent members of the Security Council. They can veto any action the UN votes in favor of. That's why they didn't interfere when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. invaded Panama, Grenada or Iraq and Israel invaded Lebanon. The interests of the standing members meant any effort to interfere with these things would be vetoed.

On the other hand giving them the veto was the only way to get them to sign on. The people who founded the UN, mostly Americans, knew that if everybody didn't join the UN it would fall apart the same way The League of Nations did. And with the same results; a world war would probably happen soon after. After 60 million dead in WWII they really wanted to avoid that.

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So, I'll repeat, what exactly did UN do (do try to stay in the last 50 years)that wouldn't be otherwise done?

And the problem isn't just the UNSC states having a veto. If you took this away the UN would become a farce even faster. Just look at the GA resolutions and bodies like UNHRC.

Romantic Heretic said:

And the UN can't stop genocides. It cannot interfere inside a sovereign country unless that country asks for that interference. Since it is usually the sovereign government carrying out the genocide for some strange reason that request doesn't come.

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So, basically you are saying that the thing it was supposed to prevent -- wars and genocide, it doesn't do. Glad we agree.

Romantic Heretic said:

I'm not saying the UN is a perfect institution, or that it often isn't ineffective, but it does change the context of international relations. Before the UN there was no law against aggressive war. If one nation felt like kicking the shit out of another they could and there was no opprobrium attached. Now there is international law and most nations at least pretend to live within it.

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The "law" against agressive war is the Geneva Convention ratified by states, not the UN charter. And as you yourself pointed out, the wars of today (even agressive ones) boil down usually to whether the state is powerfull enough to block any action against it or nobody cares enough. And since you used "pretend", I think we are mostly in agreement.

Romantic Heretic said:

If we do away with the UN because it doesn't always work and that some people pay no attention to the law and structure it represents then we have to do away with countries because some groups and individuals within countries pay no attention to the law and structure the country represents.

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This is strange. I thought that replacing a corrupt ineffectual organisation that doesn't have any teeth or will to implement its own mandate with something better would be a good thing.

There was just an article about Arabs trying to resettle in other countries. The ones who go through the UNHRC have had nothing but problems and have yet to be successfully resettled, while the ones going to an Israeli organisation who helps them get to countries with no UNHRC involvement have had no issues at all.

The UN has its own agenda. It attacks countries it doesn't like with accusations of violating international law, but completely ignores violations committed by others. My favourite example of UN hypocrisy was their racism convention. They hold a conference on racism and then proceed to spend three hours discussing why Zionism is racism. Good job.

Don said:

.

I think it's way past time to tell the U.N. to take their dictator-loving and Bill of Rights-hating attitude (and sculpture) and GTFO.

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I did that years ago. Where have you been? I figured you'd have done that even before I did.

But yeah, the UN is a sham. I wonder how long before Chavez makes the list (he'd may as well since his puppet Morales did). Speaking of Chavez, i wonder how Sean Penn and the rest of the dictator's fanboys feel about his recent closing of media outlets. I guess that's ok when it's the name of "the revolution" right, Sean?

Romantic Heretic said:

I do. It's not perfect but it's much better than the international anarchy that prevailed before WWI, and started it. That same anarchy came back into play when The League of Nations collapsed, and WWII started soon after.

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Is it? Is it really better? Now instead of having no world body, you've got a world body that just doesn't care. I'd call what happened in Rwanda anarchy. What did the UN do about that? without the UN, yes, you'd have evil tyrants. But with the UN, you get evil tyrants who also get credibility from the UN which really makes them even worse tyrants than before.

I'd rather have no UN at all than a UN that glorifies tyrants. I've often wondered what would have happened had the UN existed in the late 30s. Would they have really stopped WW2? After all, they'd have been made up almost entirely of the powers of Europe. The same powers who mostly bowed down to Hitler and let him walk right into their countries. Now instead of them kneeling to lither individually, they'd have simply done so as a group.

nOT A BETTER ALTERNATIVE, i DON'T THINK.

They probably would have condemned the Jews for taking so long to walk to the gas chambers.

Eh. I have more to say but why bother?

Because it's fun?

Joking aside, I understand the feelings people have as to why they think UN should go on and how it is helpful etc. But you yourself pretty much nailed it. There are three types of conflicts that get to UN (you mentioned two). One is where the powers that be (specifically UNSC) don't care enough about to do anything (maybe pay some lip service). Second is where the large powers are involved either directly or indirectly -- and then UN can't do anything even if it wanted to. And third -- conflicts where the participants are small enough to be bullied and where the big guys care enough to do anything.

If this isn't the exact opposite of universal justice UN is supposed to represent, I don't know what is.

Bottom line, it is a political body in which most of the articipants don't really care about the stated goals of the body, but regularly use the language to berate those members that actually do care. It isn't international law like some people try to claim and it slowly becoming even more irrelevant and decadent than it ever was.