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The U.N. is useful for diplomatic purposes, for international treaties and charitable organizations like UNICEF. But the Security Council is a joke. The Security Council has always been a joke. Giving the U.S. and the Soviets each a permanent membership and a veto ensured it would be a joke throughout the Cold War. Now that the Cold War is over, the Security Council is only useful for rubber-stamping whatever foreign policy the U.S. can get the rest of the world to mostly agree with. Sovereign nations have always acted militarily however they wanted without U.N. approval: the Soviets in Afghanistan, the British over the Falkland Islands, and the French in the Ivory Coast right now. What we see now is how irrelevant the Security Council truly is to global security. But the U.N. remains a (somewhat) useful organization for non-aggressive purposes.

Deleted the triple post.

As to the UN- it still has many departments that are invaluable in providing foreign aid, humanitarian support, and useful information about all sorts of things to all comers.

I find the proclamations that the UN is dead quite amusing personally. They didn't want to go along with a war. Too bad.

I think that the UN will continue pretty much as normal. The problem for it is that "normal" means "completely ineffective." When you consider that the latest of its resolutions on Israel-Palestine call for NATO to keep the peace, instead of UN forces, and that it has never had any actual power to do anything, coupled with the outright flaunting of its authority by both Eastern and Western world powers, you realize that the whole of the United Nations has accomplished little.

I see the United Nations as analogous in all respects to Pandora's Box. You can't really put the international organization back in the box, once you let it out. It does nothing and needlessly complicates things for people, but it also presents the hope of a better future. To me, the legacy of the United Nations is the ideals that it stands for, rather than its actual effectiveness in seeing them through.

Eframepilot wrote:The U.N. is useful for diplomatic purposes, for international treaties and charitable organizations like UNICEF. But the Security Council is a joke. The Security Council has always been a joke. Giving the U.S. and the Soviets each a permanent membership and a veto ensured it would be a joke throughout the Cold War. Now that the Cold War is over, the Security Council is only useful for rubber-stamping whatever foreign policy the U.S. can get the rest of the world to mostly agree with. Sovereign nations have always acted militarily however they wanted without U.N. approval: the Soviets in Afghanistan, the British over the Falkland Islands, and the French in the Ivory Coast right now. What we see now is how irrelevant the Security Council truly is to global security. But the U.N. remains a (somewhat) useful organization for non-aggressive purposes.

There were other problems with the manner in which the Security Council was established from day one. For example, the Chiang Kai Shek government retained the Chinese vote (and veto power) for DECADES, even after it was blatantly obvious that the Communists were in control of the country proper, and helped push various measures through the body. The Soviet attitude towards the UN did not help much, nor did the American attitude of allowing the UN to tag along when it was convenient, but ignoring it for all other purposes.

The problem with the latest crisis as it pertained to the United Nations was not so much that the UN refused to go along with American foreign policy--the UN has been doing that by overwhelming majorities for years with regards to a number of issues--the problem was that it revealed the spectacular ineffectiveness of the body as a whole. The recent debates have made Resolution 1441--passed by UNANIMOUS decision just months ago--into a joke. They have shown that the "serious consequences" promised by all of the members of the Security Council would not materialize. Frankly, that's how the UN SC has always been. They can talk and condemn and recognize and condone and support as much as they want, but they have no actual power to step in and get things done on a national scale. Their humanitarian efforts are great, but what is needed is an international organization with the authority to actually establish foreign policy, rather than displaying the current policies of existing states. Frankly, in the latest crisis, the Security Council has seriously undermined its own authority by highlighting the wishy-washy nature of its decisions. By showing that it will ignore its own recent, unanimous decisions when the going gets tough, the United Nations has pointlessly and needlessly crippled itself.

I thought that the American handling of the ORIGINAL passage of Resolution 1441 to be an absolutely brilliant diplomatic display, because none of the other signatories to that resolution actually thought that the United States would do anything with it. The current crisis has since forced the Council to put its money where its mouth is, and it failed spectacularly in doing so.

If you want nothing done give it to a committee

The United Nations is imperfect; hardly worthless.

While it only functions to par in regions where no UNSC members maintain any vital security or overriding trans-state interests, the United Nations is, as Vympel pointed out, a rather necessary body. Quite useful when one wishes to find an utterly impartial source of assistance for the Third World.

The UN is useful when it serves the purposes of the US (I generally count Canada and Great Britain with the US).

RedImperator wrote:The UN has survived much worse than this. It failed to live up to its duty, and it deserves the black eye it's getting.

EXACTLY!

They failed in their duty to enforce the resolutions set against Saddam, and, they deserve all the flak they are catching.

I think that the UN will continue on as it always has. The UN has never done a thing to prevent wars, the individual members have.

Well, apparently France says that if Saddam uses any WMD, France is in it too. Let's see how it works out...

RedImperator wrote:The UN has survived much worse than this. It failed to live up to its duty, and it deserves the black eye it's getting.

What duty? Is it somehow the U.N.'s duty to kowtow to the neighbourhood bully everytime they have economic problems?

Nathan F wrote:They failed in their duty to enforce the resolutions set against Saddam, and, they deserve all the flak they are catching.

So exactly _how_ did they fail to enforce regulations that had no specifics on how they were to be enforced?

Wonderful another UN apologist.. After 12 years and 17 resolutions DO SOMETHING!!! Have some balls and stand up for the vote in NOV (must get duck tape head could pop off!)

How exactly _how_ did they fail to enforce regulations that had no specifics on how they were to be enforced?

One must wonder how sincere are these "allies" or "friends" of ours when they concoct resolutions without teeth. I've always scoffed at the notion of an "official condemantion." What, do their letters spitting in Hussein's face but not slapping his wrist come with a nice, wax seal? What does Resolution 1441 mean to these people at all if they don't even discuss "serious consequences?" They're searching for non-compliance, but when they find it, it's always, "See? We've got him in the palm of our hand!" rather than, "Hey! These weren't on the list! Is this indicative of a larger deception?"

Bush made the point last night. Both Resolutions 678 and 687 stipulate that forced disarmament is legal. Hell, the Gulf War ceasefirer gives full legal weight to the war.

Ted wrote:

Captain Lennox wrote:It's becoming a bloated carcas. It relied on NATO for brute strength and NATO is breaking apart.

It NEVER relied on NATO.

It relied on it's member nations to provide peacekeepers, if it needed force, and on the goodwill of nations.

Actually, once the UN Peacekeepers fucked up US NATO Force Troopers would arrive not under the UN flag, but of NATO. And it was NATO bombers that hit Kosovo. NATO is or was the muscle of the UN until the UN stopped peacekeeping missions.