A United Nations committee has voted overwhelmingly to begin work on
drawing up an international arms trade treaty... Only the US - a major arms
manufacturer - voted against the treaty, saying it wanted to rely on existing
agreements.... A total of 139 states voted for the motion. There were 24
abstentions.
The US also been the most frequent (ab)user of the veto power in the UN Security Council...
The majority--more than half--of all vetos in the history of the Security Council were exercised by the Soviet Union. Since shortly before the fall of the USSR, the United States has been the most frequent user of the veto.
Between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of 2004, vetoes were exercised on 19 occasions. For that period, usage breaks down as follows:
9 comments:
the UN is a pretty much a defunct organization, politically speaking, isn't it?
i think the UN ought to just focus on the humanitarian aspect of its work - and try to pare down the bureaucracy involved in that department - than even pretend to have any political clout. not cause it shouldn't. but just cause it can't.
we see the US as a bully in the organization, evidenced by the promiscuous use of vetoes. that be true. that be true. and sure it is the biggest bully. any more on the self-righteous and totally uncivilized US actions and speech here is probably just going to be like "showing the lantern to the sun". but before we confuse unilaterism with american arrogance, let's think about this whole notion of veto-power. or just the threat of the use of one. every country has their pocket-book issues.
china vetoed (or threatened to veto, not much difference there) any action against n. korea and were amply rewarded by the nuclear test. (ironically, but this turn of events has strengthed china's hand vis-a-vis nKorea. but for how long? - is all i ask.) china also vetoed against sending peacekeeping troops to guatemala because that country officially recognizes taiwan as a sovereign nation. (although the great communist leaders see no apparent contradiction in selling goods to the US, and then loaning the proceeds back to the US - engaging is a capitalist tete-a-tete with the premier defender of taiwan in the world. and here's the clincher - they loan the dollar back purportedly to make its own currency look weaker by propping up the dollar!) by the way, china has also threatened vetoes against any strong proposal that seeks to rebuke (verbally or physically) the genocidal regime in sudan.
russia threatens to veto any proposal that just seeks to condemn the atrocities committed in chechnya. i was cheered by the obstinacy russia and france produced at the UN (with the threat of vetoes, what else) by refusing to be rolled-over by US demands that the UN give it the blessings on its iraq-attack. well, what do you know, turns out they were profiting from the whole oil-for-food scam the most. i did not see wisdom in the sustained sanctions against iraq, and it is kinda heartening that there was some underhand thing going on that the US simply could not prevent. some rebellion. what troubles me is that the expenses of the rebellion was paid by the iraqi and rewards reaped by veto-weilding members of the UN. it would have been human to bring a resolution to end the sanctions. it would have been understandable if these two countries openly, and loudly, flouted the UN sanctions. but to support the sanctions on the one hand, cause they can profit from the under-the-table deals (if sanctions were absent or at least weak, the iraqis would not have to resort to these ignominious deals)? now that is just twisted.
well, so it goes. and on it goes. veto bad. veto bad. US very bad, but veto bad.
btw, all the info on vetoes above generated with a quick internet search.
you mean UN security council is defunct. the rest of the UN is pretty vital I think, like the UNICEF and the UNDP.
sabai wiki ho... viva wiki!
UNICEF, UNDP adi ityadi ta "humanitarian work" ko scope bhitra parihalchha ni.
mero bhannu ke bhane UN le kehi political kaam gari khaadaina. tyai bhera, UN "world government"ko chhalaa odeko bheda matra ho. yadi tyastai ho bhane, kina acting garne? khali humanitarian workmaa matrai focus gare bhayena ra?
mate, i see your point but gotta say i do not quite see it the way you do.
1.
from my perspective, the amurkans did not try to get the UN on board, not at all. "going Alone" is at the heart of the neo-conservative doctrine, the single most influential thought that shaped US foreign policy in the aftermath of 9/11. in fact, that isn't even true altogether. that makes it sound like 9/11 made the US foreign policy neo-conservative. as far as i can tell, the advent of the first bush term marks the beginning of neoconservative influence on US foreign policy. 9/11 merely provided these mudafukas the impetus they so desired, it proved to be the proverbial 2nd pearl harbor they needed. or at least they packaged it that way.
going to the UN was part of an elaborate amurkan ruse. ok, here, i have to draw a distinction. when i say "amurkan", i do not refer to a homogeneous blob of north american excess. because, as much as you and i may dislike it, amerika is a very diverse place. and although, it may be dying, a faint odor of "democracy" (whatever the fuck that means) still lingers in the air. what i do refer to when i say "amurkan" is the current executive (and to some extent, the legislative) section of american government, mostly. of course, you will have to throw in the movers and shakers behind the (2) bush administrations, as well as the people who support their policy (wittingly/unwittingly/deliberately/blindly).
ok, before i digress too much. going to the UN was part of an elaborate (was it even that?) amurkan ruse. they did not send colin powell to get the UN blessing. they knew that was never coming. not with france and russia ruling the roost with their seemingly ethical stance. you also have to remember syria was (perhaps, still is?) a very active member of the security council then. and with the ever-"non-aligned" chinese posture, there was no way in hell the UN was going to acquiese to US "demands" of support (military or moral) for the iraq invasion. most of us know this in hindsight, but i am fairly confident the crooks in the white house knew this before they scape-goated powell.
the use of rhetoric to turn a DESIRE for "pre-emptive, go-alone, show-of-force to the rest of the world" into a NEED to "fight extremism (insert whatever babble came out from the amurkan mouths)" was the only way the neo-cons could sell the iraq-invasion to the american people. remember the "odor of democracy": people are important. politicians may not do what people want, but they are loathe to be one-upped by other politicians among the people. well, this "NEED" spiralled into a supposed "national concensus" to "do whatever it takes to defend amerika", once the public bought the rhetoric.
too many words i have used but my point, distilled, is: sending colin powell to the UN was not designed to garner support from anyone else in the world - it was merely a political step to sell the iraq invasion and the neoconservative rubbish to the american people. it was a political step to silence all the foreign policy conservatives (including colin powell) and liberals WITHIN the amurkan body politic. here is a counterfactual - if amurka really wanted international support (again, military or moral), why did it go ahead when seemingly the whole world was against such an attack? and here is a sad addendum - if YOU failed to see colin powell, the man and the idea, behind and beyond the ridiculous powerpoint presentation and you think he is never to be trusted again, perhaps, you too have been blindsided by the neocons into believing foreign policy conservatism and foreign policy liberalism is and (more importantly) should be dead.
2.
i do see that the UN could/does mean different things to different countries. perhaps, the poorer countries value it a lot more (as it should be, IMHO anyway) than richer sons-of-bitches. and that it is seen as a "neutral" force by some. but, the neutrality of the UN is over-rated, and our whole discussion of veto underlies this particular over-rating. smaller alliances and coalitions can sufficiently act as the required "neutral" force, were the UN to be absent. no great loss there even if the UN ceases to exist. we have seen NATO peacekeepers in serbia and some pan-African peacekeepers in parts of africa. granted some of them may not have worked well, but i can't say they have worked less well than UN endeavors.
3.
the UN is not going to gain more legitimacy in the future as long as there is a "super-power" left. that we agree based on the discussions on veto power. however, if there is not "super-power" left, then the UN is just going to be a masturbatory organ, which may ejaculate every once in a while but can hardly impregnate (bark but no bite). ken arrow's impossibility theorem (which i am going to horribly misquote and flagrantly misuse here) speaks to the incongruity of a democratic system with a multitude of agents assuming rational action. that is unless there is a dictator. so, (more blatant twisting of arrow's work) choose your evil - a dictator, an undemocratic system, an irrational body or a reduction of agents/viewpoints (this occurs through consolidation via coalitions).
all political limbs of the UN are pathetically impotent. the ICC is an idea that is as good as dead. the US does not recognize it. so we cannot treat the amurkan war criminals as such. indeed, even when the US finds that it can unilaterally redefine the geneva convention statutes, the UN is silent - where the fuck is the ICC? the general assembly allows the venezuelan apparatchik to spew verbal venom on the amurkan demigod, but that is some more masturbation. yasser arafat appeared in front of the general assembly decades ago, with a gun in his holster to showcase the plight of "his" people. where have we gotten on that? and lest we forget, the podium in front of the general assembly is but a theatre. arafat's pistol had all the bullets taken out - bloody drama.
and the rise of any extraneous multi-lateral body like the WTO just speaks of the uselessness of the UN channel. btw, the WTO is another big session of mass masturbation. we've been stuck on Doha since 2004 - and we're gotten no where. and doesn't seem like anything gonna happen.
globalization empowers people. many of them. and excited molecules mean just one thing - instability. which is not necessarily bad. it has the power to bring untold wealth and power to the poor of the world. it's just that the poor and weak have to be ever more guarded and realize NOW that it's a jungle out there - there is no ethical/righteous/powerful UN looking over their shoulder to protect or defend them from the big bad(s); there never will be.
Dysfunction is not the only criteria. Even if UN did not have all the imperfections you list, it'd prbably still be unable to solve all the problems of the world. new conflicts are inevitable.
BUT to say that UN is meaningless and impotent and therefore should be liquidated is a bit unfair. if might not be helping as much as it should, but i don't see how it's harming. other than giving a false sense of security in your jungle out there. kind of like a victim of high expectations, it's not really UN's fault that people put too much faith in it, is it?
that harm is that it is a waste of resources - the political arm of the UN.
why not divert those resources to the the "humanitarian" work that the UN does?
anyway, all that was just rant. i never called for a liquidation of the UN. a modification to give it more focus, yes, but no wholesale liquidation.
and in any case, that was just an opinion of a speck of the dust in the vast universe. it is meaningless.
Post a Comment