Is the UN a Joke?

The latest appointment seems to indicate as such:

Quote:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1782043.ece
ZIMBABWE may have left 700,000 of its citizens without accommodation by bulldozing their homes, caused millions more to starve after violent land seizures that destroyed farming and so mismanaged its own economy that it has the world’s highest inflation. But it has been chosen to head a United Nations body charged with promoting economic progress and environmental protection.

Western countries and human rights organisations were outraged yesterday by the choice of Zimbabwe to chair the UN commission on sustainable development. The British government condemned Zimbabwe’s election as “wholly inconsistent” with the body’s aims.

The chair traditionally rotates among regions of the world. It was Africa’s turn this year and the continent chose Zimbabwe as its candidate. “We really think it calls into question the credibility of this organisation to have a representative from a country that has decimated its agriculture, that used to be the breadbasket of Africa and can’t now feed itself,” said Daniel Reif-snyder, the US deputy assistant secretary for environment.

“For Zimbabwe to lead any UN body is preposterous,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organisation.

Not only has the regime of Robert Mugabe persistently used violence to repress all criticism, raping, torturing and beating opponents, but it has also turned development back by decades. Once the most affluent country in Africa, Zimbabwe now has the world’s lowest life expectancy. According to the World Bank no country has seen its economy shrink so much in peacetime.

Some people have proposed a "League of Democracies" to try and counter UN dominance of international affairs. Should America continue to fund the UN despite its blatant corruption?

Where's a picture of Picard resting his face in his hands in shock and disappointment when you need one? Congratulations, UN. You've made the American appointment of Bolton as representitive seem well thought out and apt by comparison.

I think it's been brought up a couple of times already, but the UN can only be as powerful as member countries want and allow it to be. Clearly, the US are pretty much opposing the UN wherever they can, so the UN's incompetence is at least partly a homemade problem.

Although in this very example, pretty much everyone is opposing Zimbabwe's nomination except for a few African member countries. Good job using this as an example for "blatant corruption". I'd also like to see examples of this corruption in the UN that aren't existent in every other political body.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...7/213527.shtml

Quote:

UNITED NATIONS -- In a scathing final report documenting massive corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program, investigators Thursday accused more than 2,200 companies, and prominent politicians, of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk the humanitarian operation of $1.8 billion.

The 623-page document exposed the global scope of a scam that allegedly involved such name-brand companies as DaimlerChrysler and Siemens AG, as well as a former French U.N. ambassador, a firebrand British politician and the president of Italy's Lombardi region.

It meticulously detailed how the $64 billion program became a cash cow for Saddam and more than half the companies participating in oil-for-food _ at the expense of Iraqis suffering under U.N. sanctions. It blamed shoddy U.N. management and the world's most powerful nations for allowing the corruption to go on for years.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-253es.html

Quote:

The United Nations is under increasing attack by critics in the United States and other countries. At the heart of the organization's mounting problems is an almost total lack of accountability, which gives rise to suspicions of wholesale corruption. Existing evidence indicates that corruption and mismanagement go beyond the routine fraud, waste, and abuse of resources that mark all public-sector enterprises.

UN budgets are shrouded in secrecy, and the actual performance of the myriad bureaucracies is translucent, if not opaque. There is no reliable way to determine whether the various and often competing specialized agencies (at least two dozen UN agencies are involved in food and agricultural policy) are doing their jobs, and many UN activities, even if they are of some value, can be carried out better and more efficiently by other groups. Other activities should not be undertaken at all.

Available evidence coupled with the United Nations' unwillingness to undergo a thorough audit raise serious questions about its mission and the means used to carry it out. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's rationale that the world body is accountable to all its 185 member-states is meaningless. Such an amorphous standard of accountability is akin to saying no one is responsible.

The United Nations is in dire need of reform, starting with a comprehensive, independent audit. Even if a complete audit were performed, however, there is no guarantee anything would be done about the problems identified. And radical change may not be possible, no matter how obvious the need. Given all the earlier, failed attempts to put things right, even on a limited basis, optimism about meaningful reform may be an exercise in wishful thinking.

http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomli...management.htm

Quote:

An entire chapter of the Volcker committee’s interim report is dedicated to a review and analysis of the U.N.’s internal auditors (IAD) and their work on the Oil for Food program. The findings were unsurprising:

“The Committee finds that the resources committed to audit the Programme were inadequate. … The Committee finds that several important aspects of the Programme were not reviewed by IAD. These include many elements of the oil and humanitarian contracts, including price and quality of goods. The Committee finds that the view held by IAD staff that the contracts were beyond their purview was erroneous. IAD had the means and duty to examine these contracts… A thorough audit of these aspects could have uncovered or confirmed the various kickback schemes employed by the Government of Iraq in relations to the Programme.”

So explain to me why anybody should front the bill for an organisation that propagates crap like placing Libya on the head seat for Human Rights and Zimbabwe for Sustained Development. Regardless of the opposition by several member states, the fact that so many of them are willing to delegitimise the whole shebang is proof enough to me that we shouldn't be tolerating their bullshit.

To be frank, the UN was a joke the moment they decided to create it without its own standing army. No nation or international organization can hope to have any real power in global politics without one (unless Costa Rica is a superpower...?), and the decision to have the UN supported by nations' armies just tips the balance of power widely in favor of the US and other powerful nations.

It also doesn't help that its real power is concentrated solely on the security council, where it is impossible to pass sanctions against the permanent members thanks to their veto power.

Any organization that is going to have the teeth to be a significant influence on *all* nations in the world without being a puppet of a select few powerful countries needs to have a more balanced and viable form of government, and needs its own standing army. Unfortunately, it's more or less impossible to reform the system, and those in power would loathe a new organization with an army that they cannot control.

The UN's here to stay, but that doesn't mean I like it. Its methods of forcing itself on other nations are ineffective at best, and that's even if you can get around the security council's 5 automatic vetoes.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

The UN's here to stay

Im sure they said the same about the Leauge Of Nations, right?

The point of the UN is to allow people's thoughts and nation's ideas without deligating to a military answer. The idea that the UN should have an army is like saying the Red Cross should have Gunboats.

"Red Stick Diplomacy"

Originally Posted by LeHah

The point of the UN is to allow people's thoughts and nation's ideas without deligating to a military answer. The idea that the UN should have an army is like saying the Red Cross should have Gunboats.

That's actually the reason why a lot of ignorant people think the UN is a joke - they just don't grasp its concept. And given the circumstances, they're actually doing a decent job. If certain countries would accept the UN as the thing they're supposed to be, it would certainly suck a lot less.

I still agree that there needs to be massive reforming, though. Too bad this Korean caricature of a diplomat is incompetent as fuck. We want Kofi back!

An organisation like the United Nations is a fine idea in principle, but these recent actions do seem to suggest that it has outlived its usefulness, and should be replaced by a new organisation which would actually deliver on the stated agenda of the UN.

It happened before. Not for these reasons, but as LeHah pointed out, the League of Nations gave way to the United Nations at a time when change became necessary, and the world has changed almost immeasurably since 1945.

It's time for a change.

I really do not undersand why the US keeps funding the UN. We pull out our funding, they go in the hole, and there's really nothing bad in it for us. I don't know how much we give them, but I'd imagine it's a pretty massive portion of their funds. With stunts like this, they've basically turned themsselves into a huge practical joke. I think we are perfectly well able to provide humanitarian aid to other countries without the use of the UN.

Originally Posted by LeHah

Im sure they said the same about the Leauge Of Nations, right?

Not really. The League of Nations only had a few small successes - border disputes for the most part. And depending on how you read the inter-war period, either as part of a Thirty Years War or as a period of peace, I don't think many people thought that it would last long, let alone that it would be relevant to global relations. The U.N is just facing what the League of Nations faced 80 years ago - plenty of resolutions being put through, and noone willing to use their political capital to meet their responsibilities. After all, no population wants to see their troops dying in a country they can't place on the map.

Originally Posted by DarkLink2135

I really do not undersand why the US keeps funding the UN. We pull out our funding, they go in the hole, and there's really nothing bad in it for us. I don't know how much we give them, but I'd imagine it's a pretty massive portion of their funds. With stunts like this, they've basically turned themsselves into a huge practical joke. I think we are perfectly well able to provide humanitarian aid to other countries without the use of the UN.

If your point is that the U.S would do a better job funding humanitarian aid by itself than through the U.N, I don't think it would work. The U.S's reputation is down the shitter at the moment, and while governments wouldn't mind the money, it's kind of hard to brand yourself as being responsible when you're basically a pariah.

Secondly, when hasn't someone regarded the U.N as a huge practical joke? For example, the oil-for-food scandal with Iraq - 2200 companies have been noted for cheating the Iraqi people. The head of that program, Benon Sevan, someone supposedly above suspicion, bilked the program, as did numerous other officials and the Iraqi goverment. What I'm saying is, no matter how we go about trying to better the world, human stupidity and greed isn't just going to go away. And if the answer to this current issue is to just make a new organization, I don't think people are thinking enough about the problem.

I don't understand why Zimbabwe would be chosen to chair anything in the UN given the track record of its old ass president who would do anything to stay in power including torturing his political opponents. And this isn't some crime he committed decades ago if that's ever an excuse, it's happening now since the 2008 elections are coming.

Originally Posted by DarkLink2135

With stunts like this, they've basically turned themsselves into a huge practical joke. I think we are perfectly well able to provide humanitarian aid to other countries without the use of the UN.

This is funny since the United States, on numerous occasions, has aided and abetted regimes that use torture, rape and murder. See: Pinochet's Chile. It's also hilarious coming from a country that enacted Operation Condor. While that was "in the past", we still torture people in Guantanamo and countries abroad. We (the US) are the huge practical joke around the world.

I think even before these 'stunts' and problems the UN's reputation as being a joke had already been firmly established. The UN can pass all the resolutions (which takes weeks and weeks while the problem just gets worse and worse) they want against an aggressor country or whatever but if that country doesn't listen then what? Its a toothless tiger.

Originally Posted by DarkLink2135

I really do not undersand why the US keeps funding the UN. We pull out our funding, they go in the hole, and there's really nothing bad in it for us.

Dissolving the UN like that won't help. After all it is in the UN where we give all those small relatively insignificant countries the illusion that they have some kind of voice in the world. It also serves as tool to keep them under control, we just tell them to voice their problems at the UN where we know pretty much nothing will be done.

So do you guys who are calling out an "impotent, joke-empowered" UN really want an international body with the legal, and perhaps military, power to force your countries to do things it didn't want to do?

I could personally get behind that in the right circumstances, but I'm betting most of the users criticising the weakness of the UN would go livid over such a thing. And you'd never even coax some of our "troublesome" countries to that kind of table. Whereas the UN can get people together and occasionally do something.

Just be honest and don't call for a stonger UN; say you don't think it's worth money we could be shovelling into more practical matters.

Originally Posted by How Unfortunate

So do you guys who are calling out an "impotent, joke-empowered" UN really want an international body with the legal, and perhaps military, power to force your countries to do things it didn't want to do?

Considering that my country is currently a sick joke, and the people who live here are the unwilling butt of that joke, I'd say that they can't possibly make us do anything worse than our own government do.

Originally Posted by Brady's Article

said Daniel Reif-snyder, the US deputy assistant secretary for environment.

"So, what exactly does a deputy assistant secretary do?"

"I make the coffee, empty the trash bin in the conference room and, sometimes, I'm quoted in major news publications."

"Oh."

Originally Posted by Devoxycontin

This is funny since the United States, on numerous occasions, has aided and abetted regimes that use tortur