The UN is a complete waste of time...
Discussion
...and arguably has been since Dag Hammarskjöld snuffed it. No particular reason to post this as the UN debacle drags on without resolving anything or being newsworthy, just prompted by the UN being mentioned in the Falklands thread.
A useful demonstration of the organisation's crapness is the 35 years of strife suffered by the people of Western Sahara. An uneasy ceasefire has existed since 1991, but the UN has demonstrated no interest in doing anything more meaningful than asking the protagonists to have meetings.
The indigenous populace has variously fought Mauritania and Morocco to a stalemate(impressive when you consider they were up against the French and Moroccan Airforces armed with what they scrounged from the Algerians plus 'booty' acquired on raids; David Stirling would be proud.)
A useful demonstration of the organisation's crapness is the 35 years of strife suffered by the people of Western Sahara. An uneasy ceasefire has existed since 1991, but the UN has demonstrated no interest in doing anything more meaningful than asking the protagonists to have meetings.
The indigenous populace has variously fought Mauritania and Morocco to a stalemate(impressive when you consider they were up against the French and Moroccan Airforces armed with what they scrounged from the Algerians plus 'booty' acquired on raids; David Stirling would be proud.)Ozzie Osmond said:
Make yourself two lists,
list 1 - things the UN has done which might be very bad, leading to death and suffering.
list 2 - things the UN has done which might be good, having prevented deaths or alleviated suffering.
Then decide whether the UN is a waste of time.
OK - so the full UN is a waste of time, and could survive as a humanitarian concept, rather than an exceedingly expensive talking shop?list 1 - things the UN has done which might be very bad, leading to death and suffering.
list 2 - things the UN has done which might be good, having prevented deaths or alleviated suffering.
Then decide whether the UN is a waste of time.
HundredthIdiot said:
The UN is supposed to be a talking shop. That's its entire purpose, as I understand it.
Indeed - my understanding has always been that the UN provides a forum for the "big boys" to talk to each other without getting annoyed and doing something silly like using a nuclear weapon. If it also resolves some smaller conflicts along the way then that's also good, but it's not really a world police force...HundredthIdiot said:
Jimbeaux said:
HundredthIdiot said:
The UN is supposed to be a talking shop. That's its entire purpose, as I understand it.
They sure tie up some of the world's most prime real estate doing it. DanL said:
HundredthIdiot said:
The UN is supposed to be a talking shop. That's its entire purpose, as I understand it.
Indeed - my understanding has always been that the UN provides a forum for the "big boys" to talk to each other without getting annoyed and doing something silly like using a nuclear weapon. If it also resolves some smaller conflicts along the way then that's also good, but it's not really a world police force...The reason the west hasn't had a war is because after WW2, many countries (the UK and US included) decided that the way to avert war in the future was a) to have enough food to feed people, b) to bring down trading barriers so countries were more intertwined than ever before.
Rwandan and Congolese rebels gang-raped nearly 200 women and some baby boys over four days within miles of a U.N. peacekeepers' base in an eastern Congo mining district, an American aid worker and a Congolese doctor said Monday.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5...
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