I don’t even know where to start.

True the US does not pay it’s “legally required debts”. Of which I am quite thankful. As far as not paying for peace-keeping…I think as a whole, again, I’m rather thankful that we do not. We seem to get a very poor return on such expenses.

As for post-colonial democritization of the UN, I’m not sure by what metric you’re using for declaring it a democracy. One-vote/One-nation in the GA has some serious problems. (See the bi-cameral compromise in the US for example.) Also, I absolutely refuse to recognize anything even remotely resembling sovereignty for nations that are not representative democracies. Furthermore, is it a bit of bad humor that Libya was given chair of the human rights commission? Libya? I don’t know if should laugh or weep.

I’d continue…but really, I’m not doing anything other than verbal masturbation. I won’t be persuaded by your rants, nor you by mine. I have other things to do. Good luck in your advocacy for the UN.

Certainly, if our interest is to betray the blood of the patriots who won our independence, and throw our constitution out the door in favour of slavery.

The UN is simply the seed of a global socialist government. It’s intentions, clearly indicated in many speeches, policy proposals and charters is the enforcement of trans-national socialism, the disarming of free citizens, the regulation of every aspect of the individuals life including the enforcement of leftist political correctness, centralised control over currently free media (the UN wants control of the internet in order to make it fulfill socialist goals) and so forth.

A strong UN is not only NOT in the interests of the US or any other free nation, it is an active threat, a clear and present danger to freedom everywhere.

With airplanes and such, nobody can be isolated in any sense anymore. Even if you keep to yourself, somebody might poke with a stick to see what you’re up to and what you’re made of.

And the islamists have very sharp and potent sticks, plus even less deterrance to use them.

TWG

In December 1987, the United Nations passed its major resolution condemning terrorism in all its forms, and called on all countries of the world to do everything they could to stamp out this terrible plague. It didn’t pass unanimously. One country abstained, namely Honduras, and two countries voted against it, namely the United States and Israel. When the US votes against a resolution, it’s not reported and it disappears from history.

And the two negative voters explained why. There was a paragraph in the resolution which said that “nothing in the present resolution could in any way prejudice that right to self-determination, freedom and indepedence, as derived from the Charter of the United Nations, of peoples forcibly deprived of that right… particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation or other forms of colonial domination, nor… the right of these people to struggle to this end and to seek and receive support.” Both the United States and Israel had to vote against that. They both understood that the phrase “colonial and racist regimes” referred to South Africa, which was a valued ally, while the African National Congress was one of the “more notorious terrorist groups” in the world. So obviously they didn’t have a right to struggle against apartheid. And “foreign occupation or other forms of colonial domination” referred to the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which was maintained precisely for the same reason it is now, by unilateral US intervention.

The US has been blocking a diplomatic settlement of the Israeli occupation for more than 30 years now. The process of preventing a diplomatic settlement has a name. It’s called “the peace process.” The peace process refers to whatever the US happens to be doing, very often preventing political settlement, as in this case. And in this case, it’s unilateral. It’s not a pretty regime, it’s harsh and brutal, and has been from the beginning. Still is. And therefore the US and Israel had the vote against that qualification.

The United Nations is in a very hazardous position.

The United States might move to dismantle it. I don’t really expect that, but at least to diminish it, because when it isn’t following orders, of what use is it?

There would be great strength for a place for the UN, if the United States would allow it, but the United States is destroying the UN. It’s been attacking the UN for 30 years. Ever since the decolonization, when the UN became more democratized, the US has turned against the United Nations, has tried to eliminate it.

The US is way ahead of any other country in refusing to pay its legally required debts. It doesn’t pay for peacekeeping forces or for anything else. The US has already virtually dismantled UNESCO. It’s now trying to — It is now eliminating the UN development office. It’s attacking the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization. It’s going to eliminate UNCTAD because UNCTAD is giving independent economic analysis which is critical of the IMF/World Bank consensus.

For the people of the United States, a strong UN is very much in their interest. For the top sector of privilege and power, of course, it’s not in their interest, unless it’s their tool. And to the extent it’s not their tool, they want to destroy it.

“atone for past misdeeds”

I really, really wish things are really that simple and innocent, nice and rosy. The problem is, we’ve ridden the world of a terrible dictator (so that’s great), but did the US and Britain really invade Iraq for this purpose? Really, these days, you just read the newspapers and you know only a fool would think so. If the US and Britain wanted to be the world’s liberators, they could have done it a long, long time ago and removed Saddam. Why wait until now?

The Bush administration’s original reason for going to war in Iraq was to save the world from a tyrant developing weapons of mass destruction and cultivating links to terror. Nobody believes that now, not even Bush’s speech writers.

The new reason is that we invaded Iraq to establish a democracy there and, in fact, to democratize the whole Middle East.

Sometimes, the repetition of this democracy-building posture reaches the level of rapturous acclaim.

David Ignatius, for example, the Washington Post commentator, described the invasion of Iraq as “the most idealistic war in modern times” – fought solely to bring democracy to Iraq and the region. Ignatius was particularly impressed with Paul Wolfowitz, “the Bush administration’s idealist in chief,” whom he described as a genuine intellectual who “bleeds for (the Arab world’s) oppression and dreams of liberating it.”

Maybe that helps explain Wolfowitz’s career – like his strong support for Suharto in Indonesia, one of the last century’s worst mass murderers and aggressors, when Wolfowitz was ambassador to that country under Ronald Reagan.

As the State Department official responsible for Asian affairs under Reagan, Wolfowitz oversaw support for the murderous dictators Chun of South Korea and Marcos of the Philippines.

All this is irrelevant because of the convenient doctrine of change of course.

So, yes, Wolfowitz’s heart bleeds for the victims of oppression – and if the record shows the opposite, it’s just that boring old stuff that we want to forget about.

One might recall another recent illustration of Wolfowitz’s love of democracy. The Turkish parliament, heeding its population’s near-unanimous opposition to war in Iraq, refused to let U.S. forces deploy fully from Turkey. This caused absolute fury in Washington.

Wolfowitz denounced the Turkish military for failing to intervene to overturn the decision. Turkey was listening to its people, not taking orders from Crawford, Texas, or Washington, D.C.

The most recent chapter is Wolfowitz’s “Determination and Findings” on bidding for lavish reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Excluded are countries where the government dared to take the same position as the vast majority of the population.

Wolfowitz’s alleged grounds are “security interests,” which are non-existent, though the visceral hatred of democracy is hard to miss – along with the fact that Halliburton and Bechtel corporations will be free to “compete” with the vibrant democracy of Uzbekistan and the Solomon Islands, but not with leading industrial societies.

What’s revealing and important to the future is that Washington’s display of contempt for democracy went side by side with a chorus of adulation about its yearning for democracy. To be able to carry that off is an impressive achievement, hard to mimic even in a totalitarian state.

Iraqis have some insight into this process of conquerors and conquered.

The British created Iraq for their own interests. When they ran that part of the world, they discussed how to set up what they called Arab facades – weak, pliable governments, parliamentary if possible, so long as the British effectively ruled.

Who would expect that the United States would ever permit an independent Iraqi government to exist? Especially now that Washington has reserved the right to set up permanent military bases there, in the heart of the world’s greatest oil-producing region, and has imposed an economic regime that no sovereign country would accept, putting the country’s fate in the hands of Western corporations.

Throughout history, even the harshest and most shameful measures are regularly accompanied by professions of noble intent – and rhetoric about bestowing freedom and independence.

An honest look would only generalize Thomas Jefferson’s observation on the world situation of his day: “We believe no more in Bonaparte’s fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain’s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.”

As to poison gas attacks, both the Iranians and the Iraqis used gas. The Halabja attacks occurred during a battle in the area with Iranian troops, initial reports from “our side” (the Iraqis) indicated that it was the doings of the Iranians. Subsequent reports indicated otherwise, but can critics of US policy now agree that “intelligence” is often contradictory, unclear and sometimes just plain wrong.

It is immature to suggest that because Saddam was bad the US should have ignored the threat of Iranian expansion. It is also immature to simply look at the negative results of consequences without taking into account contemporary context and what the likely results would have been from inaction.

Yes, China and France are twisted, though in different ways.

France “a strong record on personal freedom ” ?? No, France has a strong record of centralized, bureaucratic government, and restricted freedom, though it is not a dictatorship, and yes, there is freedom.
But they are twisted in other ways. They always had a totally amoral foreign policy, of doing business with the worst murderers like Saddam, and even supplying him (in the late 1970ies) with the Osirak nuclear reactor, because, you see, Iraq was very energy deprived. And the hatred of America has turned them total nuts.

Maybe you’re right about France, she isn’t “twisted”, very much, her behaviour is par for the course, some nations behave worse. Still Bush-Blair were mistaken in trying too hard to please her. She makes trouble far beyond her real weight, she is fickle, unreliable, and impotent. Don’t count on her when something needs to be done. Just ignore her.

Why should you care anyhow, she brought it on herself.

You so called peace lovers are such a heartless bunch of people.

A_T nicely summed up why the UN isn’t evil. As to the Israel/Palestine thing, you are wrong on all points, though I’m not sure its worth my time refuting all your points in a lengthy manner…

You said:

1) There is no “military occupation” of Palestine
2) Israel is not following a policy of “collective punishment
3) Curfews and checkpoints do not “encourage terrorism

Maybe we should just leave it at the fact that millions of Palestinians would disagree with you, on all your above points.

You find it odd that I seem “unconcerned about the human rights of the Israeli citizens who are routinely murdered by Palestinians”. I am concerned, but I feel that Israel brings it on herself insofar as her policies are unjust and oppressive. Likewise, I find it odd that you seem so unconcerned about the violations of human rights of Palestinians by Israel as evidenced by your previous post.

I don’t recall the UN doing either of these things either! Firstly, it’d be hard to prosecute civilians when you have none; you’re talking about the member governments… & sure some of them are evil. The question is, would you rather there was somewhere central everyone who holds power (not *should* hold power in some ideal world) can discuss things, or not.

As for taking bribes from Iraq… is there evidence that the UN was doing so at an organisational level?

The main point of my earlier comment was obviously not to pretend that the US government are evil, but to point out the ridiculousness of saying “evil” when what you mean is “big, inefficient beaurocracy with some corrupt elements in it”… Find me a big beaurocracy, from Oil companies to national governments, which doesn’t have some corrupt elements. Doesn’t mean the entire institution is fundamentally flawed, let alone evil. This “find a few flaws & denounce the whole enterprise” thing is used on all sides; Anti-capitalists can easily dig up a few ruthless executives, a few weak souls who took bribes, & use this as evidence that the entire capitalist system is riddled with corruption (it probably is), evil & in danger of collapse (it definitely isn’t!).

Oh, & Jacob, I dig the way you place a parliamentary democracy with a strong record on personal freedom & the biggest oppressive dictatorship in the world together in one “twisted” category. Good to know you’ve got your perspectives straight!