Thread: The US & The UN
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Old 04-26-2003, 06:57 AM   #13 (permalink)
Liquor Dealer
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dragonlich
The UN is not perfect. They do nice work in some cases, and fuck up massively in others. The main problem they have is actually *doing* something.

But unfortunately, unless anyone else has any ideas, it's the best we've got. Just don't expect miracles from the UN, and don't expect them to do the right thing. They cannot fight wars, they cannot stop wars, they can only clean up afterwards; and there they usually do a good job.
I think that perhaps the issue that causes much of their do nothingness is that many nations look at the organization as being nothing more than an interantional debating society where one goes to show the flag. I don't think that any type of reorganization could help this organization. Eliminating the Security Council might make the rest of the organization more functional. The concept under which it operates doomed it to nothingness from the beginning. I do not claim to be an expert on anything - muchless the United Nations, but anyone with one good eye and half a brain can see that this concept simply doesn't work, has never worked, and will never work in the future. At its very best it has resembled a camel - an animal designed and built by a committee and at its worst it is like the story of the blind men describing an elephant. I have never been able to determine exactly what the whole concept behind the security council is but one can see, if one only looks, that the power of the veto is used in this body in much the same manner as that in which a drunk selects his favorite woman for the evening at two in the morning. Being willing to settle for anything whatsoever just as time runs out is most often far worse than nothing at all.

Perhaps two changes might make the thing work:

1. Get it out of the United States.
This physical location has caused it to become the location for nation bashing. Locate it somewhere in Europe - preferably in Switzerland or Belgium. Put it in a nation that is neutral at least in appearance. Do not put it in any nation that sees itself as a world power or has ambitions to become one.

2. Eliminate the Security Council

The idea of allowing a small group of unequal nations with absolute veto power to control the actions of the entire organization are what has doomed the thing from its very conception. Set it up like it was a demcratic government - I don't know which form it should take - they all have their own good and their own bad points but it does need to be a form of government that is capable of saying what it means and meaning what it says - not just a mouth in the talking head of a spindoctor as it its now.

Your turn
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