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Aventinian · Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject: UN Impotent?

(Hoping to add some meat to the Global Politics forum)

Looking for some views - Is the United Nations now impotent when it comes to preventing conflicts (considering the situations in Lebanon, Iraq etc)?Could a new structure, possible a more democratic one than the state-focused and superpower-run body which exists now would be better at attaining the end of global peace?

What's the general opinion these days?

Avatar · Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:05 pm Post subject:

Yes basically. I dont see the UN becoming any less impotent untill we start to see more of the larger countries (USA, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Russia etc) breaking up into smaller states and we do away with old alliances like NATO, which imho undermine the entire point of the UN.
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sandmountainslim · Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:52 pm Post subject:

Pointless debating society and apologist for dictators.
WP
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RFM · Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:00 am Post subject:

As Dag Hammerskjold put it, the UN was not intended to bring heaven to nations on earth, but to save them from hell. If you accept the notion that discussion and compromise are a preferable alternative to war, the UN serves a much needed purpose in world affairs. If you believe, as does Douglas Boulton and John Wayne (former movie star and darling of the right wing) that kicking some people around is the way to resolve the world's problems, naturally you will see the UN as an obstacle. Consider how America got itself into the present mess in Iraq; it decided to go ahead and invade even though they were unable to obtain the slightlest concession from the UN that invasion was warranted or justified in any degree. Now the discussion is how do we get our tail feathers out of the fan and our butt out of Iraq. Considering the fact we have squandered the lives of over 3,000 young Americans, countless Iraqi's and truly enormous sums of money, all to no purpose or result, Yes a little more debate would certainly have been a more intelligent alternative.

sandmountainslim · Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:55 am Post subject:

RFM · Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 2:15 am Post subject:

No not at all. Hammerskjold was a man of religious convictions; I don't think anybody would say that about Waldheim.
See: udate.unu.edu, the newsletter of the United Nations University, Issue 42, June-August 2006, by Ramesh Thakur.

sandmountainslim · Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 2:34 am Post subject:

SLG · Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:20 am Post subject:

RFM · Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 5:27 pm Post subject:

I guess nobody remembers the old League of Nations, where every little country had an equal vote and say about the League's business. One of the main reasons attributed to the League's demise was just that factor; a little nation of a few thousand inhabitants lecturing Engalnd, France or Germany. The lesson that was drawn was that national soveriegnty can easily be lost on important issues that matter a great deal to your citizens at the exercise of another nation's whim.

Avatar · Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 6:11 pm Post subject:

Aye the LoN was doomed to failure.
_________________
"Quite simply, Labour have been caught red-handed so often that no-one believes a word they say any more."