Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Sebastian:
I tend to agree with you. While the UN does have some validity in the eyes of the world, they have essentially shirked their duties in many areas.

The most egregious example of this is their withdrawal from Iraq after their facility came under attack there. To simply pull out gives the image of running away, rather than working to better the situation.

A political body without any apparent desire, or perhaps ability, to enforce their positions ultimately becomes reduced to an ineffective position. This is where the UN stands now. Because they have been unwilling to enforce their decisions, they have shown themselves to be merely a paper tiger.

Gentlemen, your arguments fail when the U.N.’s participation and role in Afghanistan is raised. There has been no cutting and running there. And stability of the capital city has been maintained.

The U.N.’s mission is not to play errand boy for the U.S. and that would appear to be the thrust of your arguments. The U.N.’s role has always been to prevent war, keep peace, or enforce peace where international conflicts cannot be resolved diplomatically between the players.

Most of the rest of the world believes in the U.N. and its importance, and accepts the U.N.’s limitations. I know of only one great nation that balks at funding the U.N., paying its obligations to the U.N. and denigrates the U.N. when the U.N. won’t jump at their expectations, and that is the U.S.

It would seem the U.S. has no tolerance for power which is not directly under its control. That makes the U.S. a dangerous and paranoid country in the eyes of most of the rest of the world’s population. And all this negative view of America has occured after having won the sympathy of the rest of the world after 9/11. That is a dramatic statement about this Administration’s competence in managing its international relations.

I’ll concede it was a stupid thing to do, but the question is, why didn’t our representative vote such measure down? We are on that council, last I heard, and last I heard, we had a veto power as a permanent member of the council.

Is Bush too anti-UN to really care about preserving a council that was aimed at choking funds off to Osama?

Of course the UN will be of poor help to US in it’s efforts, if Bush refuses to participate in it, if Bush fails to ask for it’s help. As usual Bush fails to put his money where his mouth this.

Oh, have you heard about this?

Bush’s latest contribution to homeland security.

I don’t think stopping money transfers to Al Qaeda would qualify the UN as our errand boy.

Also re: “Is Bush too anti-UN to really care about preserving a council that was aimed at choking funds off to Osama?”

The panel had a limited term which was going to expire. US couldn’t use the veto to change that. Why we couldn’t have used the panel’s report as a club (oh, I mean diplomatic leverage) is beyond me. However, not everything is Bush’s fault. Your focus on Bush is blinding you to the pathetic nature of the whole situation. The rest of the Council moved to kill the panel. I suspect that the US decided that starting a new panel would be easier than fighting and losing over the old one. I’m not at all convinced that was a wise decision, but considering our recent diplomatic history with the UN it is an understandable decision.

“The U.N.’s role has always been to prevent war, keep peace, or enforce peace where international conflicts cannot be resolved diplomatically between the players.”

Really? And when has it done so? You have a 50 year history with more than 150 wars to choose from. I suspect you will be able to find South Korea (only because the Russians were gone at the time) and maybe 2 other good cases. I can name dramatic failures where the UN claimed to help but didn’t. Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Sudan, Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan, Tibet, the slaughter of Eastern Timor, Kosovo, Cyprus. And that is just off the top of my head. If that is its role, it is an awful failure.

Many of the wars you mentions were civil wars, wars often meddled in by the superpowers of the Cold War. If you really want a picture of the kinds of war the UN prevents, take a look at world history prior to 1950. Take a look at the entire nineteenth century, for heaven’s sake! Would you have Kashmir and the Occupied territories writ large on the world, especially with today’s military technology?

Even excluding WWI and WWII, more people died in wars in the 20th century than in the 19th, so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at.

Of course more people died this century than last, even without the World Wars. In case you failed to notice, it’s much easier to kill a large number of people in a short time span. Bombs and airplanes to drop them from will do that.

Oh, I don’t know, Sebastian- the Napoleonic Wars, the War in the Crimea, the Boer War, the War of 1812, The Franco-Prussian war, the Opium wars, our own war on the Barbary states, all the different little battles of the colonial powers.

Here’s a nice little sampling:
Wars of the 1800s.

I mean, it’s only the lower quality of technology that allowed these wars to be any less devastating. Also, you should keep in mind that WWI was fought with those kind of sensibility in place, and to a lesser extent, WwII as well. The UN was formed as a response to the devastating consequence of international warfare If you look at the next page, you see revolt and civil war more than any other designation, excepting the World Wars.

So lets be clear, how much of this great improvement, if it exists at all, do you attribute to the UN and how much do you attribute to other factors like—the Cold War balance that made it very dangerous for certain smaller powers to war, or the policing of international waters by the US, or capitalistic prosperity in Europe…..

After all is said and done, the people of most other nations believe in the U.N. and its mission. One had better have the highest of moral ground to oppose that kind of concensus. Bush’s war in Iraq has proved to have been based on a host of statements made to the world that turned out to be not factual. His high moral ground crumbled in months, and any hopes of bringing the world’s people back to a position of respect for American foreign policy can only be found in another President.

This President gambled and lost that respect and now everything he does, no matter how benevolent in appearance, will be suspect. His international capital has been spent, as is evidenced by Bush’s distancing himself from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Look, I would say the UN’s presence, the guarantee of international censure on wars of territorial expansion had done a lot to prevent the kind of chain reactions of conflict that we saw in the World Wars.

Think about the UN as a buffer for everybody else’s territorial ambitions. It worked for the first Iraq war. We put paid to Saddam’s ambitions to be the next big man on the world scene. We used the UN to keep the Russians in check, to further our economic policies. You can’t find any uses for the UN because you don’t have a real sense of it’s history. For you, it’s just an annoyance, an impediment to American interests. To me, it’s a good alternative to having an international war disturbing the peace every five seconds.

“After all is said and done, the people of most other nations believe in the U.N. and its mission.” This is not correct. Most of the countries in the world see the UN as a corrupt institution that they can take advantage of.

I don’t understand the Israeli/Palestinian reference. No president of whatever standing in the international community has been able to do much about the conflict. I don’t see why you would take a lack of progress or lack of engagement in it as saying anything about Bush’s standing in the international community.

The UN kept the Russians in check? When? Afghanistan 1979? Did it keep them from rolling the tanks through Eastern Europe in the 1950s? Did it keep them from funding disasterous revolutions in Africa? What in the world are you talking about? The only time it did anything like that was when the Russians had withdrawn from the UN temporarily and we therefore avoided the Russian veto of the authorization for the Korean war. That only happened because of a UN malfunction where the Russians were not present.

Well Sebastian,

I guess you might as well invade all those countries President Bush says have terrorism funding “program activities”, i.e. intention and/or capabilities to do so (just about everyone). That would indeed solve the problem.

And then, when things go awry, why not blame the UN? That toothless, clawless, wimp.

So thew UN shirked their responsibilities for evacuating Iraq? Maybe the UN would have had more capabilities during all these years of failures if the US had paid their dues with it (1/4 of its entire budget). Or maybe it’s the US’s responsibility to clean up the mess it created in Iraq, despite UN’s opposition.

But maybe you’re right, maybe the UN is good for nothing. And pre-emptive strikes will solve all of our problems, like you guys did with the huge “gathering threat” in Iraq.

Germán
Madrid, Spain

Sebastian, I can easily cite the Cuban Missile Crisis, where Adlai Stevenson told the assembly he would wait until hell froze over for his answer about the missiles, then ambushed the Russian Ambassador with charts and recon photos of the sites in front of the whole UN.

As for the the invasion of Eastern Europe, a number of things apply. First, it was over by the end of WWII. The reason Berlin ended up inside East Germany is that the Russian Army got their first. The limits of the Soviet bloc were defined by the limits of the Red Army’s advance into Eastern Europe. 1950 was a clamping down of control, control that couldn’t be legitimately attained. When the smoke cleared, The Soviets had puppet governments speaking up for “their” peoples, and at that point, what could be done?

It’s funny that in the same breath you’re telling me that the UN is useless, you’re telling me that we invaded Korea with their help, admittedly without the check of the Soviets against us on the security council. I mean, if one hotheaded general hadn’t screwed things up and stuck his nose into China, Korea could have been a free and unified nation.

I find it hard to believe that our government, during the last fifty years would not make full use of the resources a diplomatic body like the UN would provide. It’s only recently, with a fundamentalist president, that you get such a acrimonious relationship with the UN.

But if you believed the UN would turn into the one-world-government under the Antichrist, then maybe you’d take such a tack towards them yourself. As for the Isreali-Palestinean conflict, Bush entered office reported trying to find ways to drop that hot potato, and only became more interested after 9/11, and after Sharon imitated Bush’s war on terror stance. I think as long as nobody tries to invade Isreal, he’s happy to let the violence go on.

The UN deserves credit for much of its work, especially in the health and social aspects through organisations such as WHO and UNICEF. After all, this appears to be the goal of most sensible leaders. But politically, I feel it is somewhat limited. In any tricky political situation, it’s power is limited by the collective power of the countries in support of that particular measure. Ultimately, for political situations, it depends on the power plays of all the countries with stakes. World peace and prosperity under the benevolent guidance of the UN looks unlikely… with so many powerful countries (the five major nations) and a whole lot of less nations, the world is going to become schizophrenic.

I gave you Korea, even though it only happened because the Russians weren’t participating in the UN, because it is arguably one of the UN’s only real successes. The fact that you guys don’t come up with more only illustrates my point—that when the UN has everybody, very little gets done.

The Cuban Missile Crisis shows the opposite of you claim it shows. It was another example of unilateral US action voiced initally at the UN. We told the world how we were going to act, and did so. Unless you are arguing that the UN is merely a forum for the US to dictate its wishes, and I suspect you are not, the Cuban Missile Crisis does not help your argument.

German, I don’t understand what you are saying. I am saying that the UN doesn’t do much that is useful with respect to war and peace. I am suggesting that this fact is due to its makeup which was designed not to allow changes or flexibility. I’m not saying we should invade Switzerland. I am saying we should not pretend that the UN is dealing with the issue of terrorism effectively . We should also not pretend that the UN is good at keeping peace. Perhaps the UN is good at things other than junket meetings. But keeping peace in the world is not one of the things it even arguably might be good at.

If all you guys think the UN is good at is semi-autonomous projects like WHO, you won’t get an argument for me. But an organization which runs the WHO well doesn’t get to claim that it bestows ‘legitimacy’ on military actions.

I also want to note that thus far in this thread, no one has suggested that the UN act which I document is appropriate.

Sebastian. The Oil for Food program was effective; it made a lot of people a lot of money.

And Sebastian,

And what is exactly the issue with Terrorism? Can you tell me?

Can you tell me how on Earth you plan to end terrorism by invading countries? Especially the WRONG countries? Did the militarisation of Northern Ireland help uproot the IRA? (you can imagine what would have happened if they had militarised SCOTLAND instead, get it?)

Exactly what unilateral US measures will uproot terrorism? Can’t you see that terrorism was the PRETEXT, not the reason, for the invasion of Iraq? What the hell did Iraq have to do with terrorism?

Do you have any idea how much humiliation, frustration and hate Iraq’s invasion have created among Arabs? On top of the existing humiliation from so many previous grievances, of course.

I may agree with you that the UN is not especially good at keeping peace, but it’s the best peacekeeper we have. And the only one with the entitlement.

German, for my own thoughts on terrorism and Iraq I wrote this a couple of months ago. This is a link to the third part, on Iraq specifically, but the first two parts have an explanation of what I think a response to Middle Eastern terrorism will entail.

“Do you have any idea how much humiliation, frustration and hate Iraq’s invasion have created among Arabs?”

Yes, as a matter of fact I do. And one of the serious problems in the Arab world has been its inability to turn repeated and self-imposed humiliations into constructive change. Much of the humiliation was caused by seeing exposed the destructive myth of Saddam’s power to stand up to the US. Much of the humiliation was caused because the Arab street was willing to give Saddam a pass on gassing his own people so long as he was a symbol of Arab might.

He turned out to be the perfect symbol of Arab impotence. That humiliation doesn’t go away with a US withdrawal. That humiliation only goes away if some Arab countries get their acts together.

“I may agree with you that the UN is not especially good at keeping peace, but it’s the best peacekeeper we have. And the only one with the entitlement.”

No and no. It isn’t a peacekeeper AT ALL. The US forms the backbone of all major UN military action. The US is the peacekeeper or not. The idea that the UN keeps peace is a dangerous fantasy, unhelped by rational analysis of the facts. If the UN really did have the entitlement to keep the peace, it has done such an awful job that it ought to be disbanded. Fortunately that was never its real function. The UN is a diplomatic forum. Not the most important one. Not the most crucial one. But an occassionally useful one.

“No and no. It isn’t a peacekeeper AT ALL. The US forms the backbone of all major UN military action”

WRONG AND WRONG.

The UN has currently over 45,000 troops -Blue Helmets- deployed worlwide, of which less than 1,000 are US troops. Talk of an Army stretched thin! That includes 2,500 troops in East Timor -no Americans- an operation reasonably successful.

This is a question of resources. The UN can be given the necessary resources -both political and economical- to become an effective peacekeeper. We only lack the political will to do so.

A UN-mandated intervention may be debated, Sebastian. A unilateral invasion causes outrage.

(Sebastian, your link doesn’t work, can you please re-post it?)

“This is a question of resources. The UN can be given the necessary resources -both political and economical- to become an effective peacekeeper. We only lack the political will to do so.”

As if ‘only’ lacking the political will to do something was a handicap easy to overcome with respect to the UN. The organization is designed not to have the will to do practically anything. One might as well say that there would be no war if only everyone could agree about everything.

And ‘can be given’ is a cute way of ignoring the fact that it would have to be given by the US. The non-US military power available to the UN is pathetic.

The fact that you count Eastern Timor as a success is truly frightening. Talk about defining success downward, I used it above as an example of failure. I hardly think that overseeing elections leading directly to a massacre counts as success. Also you confuse the existance of peacekeeping forces with an actual keeping of the peace. The UN is great at putting ‘peacekeeping’ forces in different places. They just don’t keep the peace very well, or they don’t show up until situations have been mostly resolved by other parties.

My link is here. The links to the first 2 parts are contained within the post.

Sebastian,

“And ‘can be given’ is a cute way of ignoring the fact that it would have to be given by the US. The non-US military power available to the UN is pathetic. “

So you guys deny them the means, then accuse them of being useless?

So Timor was a failure? Is it reasonable to expect the UN to bring people back from death? The killing stopped, elections took place, East Timor seceded… all 24 years late because Indonesia, a staunch US ally, flouted resolution 384 (1975). Why? Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then US ambassador to the UN declared that “the Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success”

No inconsiderable success. Could that by chance explain why the UN “don’t keep the peace very well”?

So you shoot someone in the foot, then complain he limps. A nice, constructive attitude. You then choose which resolutions should be enforced, and claim you did it on behalf of the United Nations (despite their howls of protest!)

Sebastian, that link leads to a frigging encyclopedia. I’ll try to locate the right article(s) tomorrow. I’m in the GMT+1 zone.

I can’t believe I said frigging!

Someone plese edit it out!

“So you guys deny them the means, then accuse them of being useless?”

Only a leftist would pretend that the US is the only possible source for such funds and military force. There is a whole world out there. If the UN wants US power it comes with the US getting to do what it wants.

Nope, the US already subsidies the UN too much. (1/4 funding I believe). If the UN is so important to Europe perhaps Europe could pony up some more money and military. But no, I think they would prefer to whine rather than put their money where there mouth is. Yet further proof to the thesis that the UN is all about talk.

“the US already subsidies the UN too much.”

It’s called “funding”, not “subsidising”. Everyone else is funding it, too.

Let me think, 28% of the world’s GDP, 25% of UN budget… is that too much?

“Only a leftist would pretend that the US is the only possible source for such funds and military force”

Am I dealing with Karl Marx here? You previously said that “The non-US military power available to the UN is pathetic” It doesn’t take a “leftist”, what a terrible insult, to know that only those resolutions the US decides to enforce are enforced (Morocco, Indonesia, Israel -over 60-…).

The UN should be relevant. If it’s not, it’s because the US has been trying to keep it irrelevant all the time. How can you then complain that no-one is doing the job?

The UN needs a reform, but that doesn’t mean you can go around invading countries without their approval.

“The UN needs a reform, but that doesn’t mean you can go around invading countries without their approval.”

Empirically you are incorrect. Ask Kosovo, the Ivory Coast, Tibet, Afghanistan in the 1970s, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Iraq.

“The UN should be relevant. If it’s not, it’s because the US has been trying to keep it irrelevant all the time. How can you then complain that no-one is doing the job?”

You are too reliant on the US for meaning for the UN. If Europe really cared it could make something of the UN. It doesn’t care to put forth the money needed because it prefers to free ride off of US expenditures. I wouldn’t really mind, if only Europeans wouldn’t pretend they were doing as much. Actions speak louder than words. I don’t see any actions.

Your 25% analysis is hugely flawed. We spend a vast portion of our own money on the military that you want the UN to be able to use whenever it wants. I don’t believe you are counting that in your analysis. If Europe wants to be influential in a postivie way perhaps they could come up with a similar level of non-military expenditures for the UN to use from time to time? Or perhaps they prefer whining about US influence instead of actually making a similar level of commitment.

Sebastian,

I’m not talking about funding. I’m talking about the US actively undermining UN activities. That is what the US has been systematically doing to this day. See Moynihan quote above.

As for funding: in 2001, the U.S. covered 22% of the UN budget. Other big contributors: Japan (19.6%), Germany (9.8%), France (6.5%), the U.K. (5.6%), Italy (5.1%), Canada (2.6%) and Spain (2.5%). Oh, it seems that Japan (half US population) contributes almost as much as the US. It seems that the European Union contributes some 150% of US contribution! Is that fair enough for you?

I completely agree that Europe has sinned by ommission too many times. But that doens’t mean every US intervention is right.

France and Germany are working -despite US vociferous opposition, by the way- to create a European Army capable of intervention abroad. But don’t expect we’ll be spending nearly as much as you do fighting imaginary enemies all over the planet.

Wow you guys are having a good one. Let me dump some gas on it for both or you.

The UN is a “used” organization. Countries use it whenever it is in their best interests. The European countries do that, the Russians, the Chinese, the dictators use it for legitimacy, and certainly the U.S. uses it. It all sounds great when that perfect storm comes along and all UN participants can agree, but it does not deter nations from acting in their own interests when that perfect storm does not happen. Not the U.S., not the Russians, not the French and Germans, not the Israelis, you get the point.

Do I advocate the John Burch solution? No, I think that the U.N. does have some meaningful role in the international community. Do I think the U.S., or for that matter any other member country, should turn their foreign policy over to the U.N.? No way.
The only thing that hurts the status quo is the budget, but Congress never really worries about spending money. So, let’s keep the U.N., but let’s understand what it is.

I completely agree with you on the “used” thing, but I would add the UN is infinitely better at conflict resolution than pre-emptive strikes (you know, division by zero)!

“I completely agree that Europe has sinned by ommission too many times. But that doens’t mean every US intervention is right.”

Who said it was. I was arguing that the UN isn’t taking the war on terrorism very seriously as evidenced by its dismissal of its own panel. I was arguing that this is a systemic problem.

Your analysis on expenditures continues to ignore the fact that the UN can’t take decisive military action without using the US military, which costs a huge amount of money, which is paid by the US. So I find your percentages completely unimpressive. Factor in even 1/10th the US military budget and suddenly your whole analysis falls apart.

The proposed EU army isn’t being funded, and that is France and Germany’s fault. You don’t have to blame the US. Unless you expect us to pay for that too?

Of course I expect you guys to pay for the European Army. How about my mortgage, too? This debate is sliding down to new intellectual depths, Sebastian, (comment deleted by WB manager)
But consider this…

Maybe the US has taken the War on Terrorism TOO seriously? Maybe you’re slightly paranoid?

And maybe the rest of the world…

…has lost interest in your “war on terrorism”, since your President has shamelessly invoked it to invade an oil-rich country

…is unconvinced that the right approach on terrorism is “War”, that is, invading other countries that may or may not harbour terrorists

…is quite aware of the shameless utilisation the Bush administration is making of the 9/11 events in the internal and external fronts

…realises how little the US is willing to do to remove the main cause of tension in the Middle East: Israeli occupation and settlements

…realises how little effort the US makes to really understand the phenomenon of terrorism, oversimplifying it with terms such as “Evil”, and proposing simple -and bloody- solutions to it

…is dismayed at the way the US stirs Arab nationalism and muslim fundamentalism by continually applying double standards in the region and the world

…is unsympathethic for a country that shows total disregard for everything but its own strategic interests

…feels contempt for a country that continually resorts to violence as a means of resolving disputes

…does not cherish arrogance?

[Before you “shock and awe” me, I’m just stirring debate, not expressing opinions of my own]

“And maybe the rest of the world…

…has lost interest in your “war on terrorism”, since your President has shamelessly invoked it to invade an oil-rich country”

Except that the lack of interest predates the invasion of Iraq—see the link in the post which started all this.

“…realises how little the US is willing to do to remove the main cause of tension in the Middle East: Israeli occupation and settlements”

Classic European dodge. Hate to inform you but Israeli ‘occupation’ didn’t cause Lebanon to become a Syrian client state, didn’t cause economic disaster in the Sudan, didn’t cause Egypt to become infested with fundamentalists, didn’t cause Afghanistan to blow up ancient statues, didn’t cause sharia to let raped women get stoned to death, and didn’t cause Saudi Arabia to herd school-girls back in to a burning building because they weren’t properly dressed. The Middle East has far more serious problems than its own successful non-oil economy: Israel.

“…is dismayed at the way the US stirs Arab nationalism and muslim fundamentalism by continually applying double standards in the region and the world”

Double Standard? You mean the double standard that whines about Israel killing dozens of Palestinians but sat idle while Syria leveled a city and slaughtered tens of thousands of Palestinians? That ignored Palestinian expulsion from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Do you mean the kind of double standard where we have to ask why indiscriminate terrorists hate us, while simultaneuosly the most careful Armed Forces in the world get lambasted for ‘war crimes’ by Amnesty International for blowing up the official Iraqi Television Station which was being used by Saddam? What double standard do you want to talk about?

“…is unsympathethic for a country that shows total disregard for everything but its own strategic interests” and “…does not cherish arrogance?”

I thought we were talking about the US not the French. Why change topics midstream?

German, you said: please quit making silly remarks. You know better than that.

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Oh, I apologise to all readers of my very silly remark, of course. By “silly” I meant he made a slightly über-sarcastic comment about Europeans wanting the US to pay for our army.

I certainly hope Sebastian took no offense. I apologise to you Sebastian anyway.