Can we trust the UN?

J-Rod, we've sold arms (weapons of mass destruction, no less) to Saddam Hussein in the past too. Granted that was before Kuwait but Saddam wasn't any better then than he is now.

Btw, are these actual weapons or spare parts? I understand that Saddam has obtained spare parts for tanks and airplanes, though I'm not aware that he obtained them from actual countries. Also, what do you mean by "UN members"? Are you talking about countries? If so, considering that just about every country in the world is a member of the UN I don't think that's exactly a fair statement to make.

 

we didnt let the weapon inspectors do the work....

Wrong. SADDAM wouldn't let the weapons inspectors do their work.

 

Saddam impeded the work.
I was meaning post war when it was decided that our troops would do the work.Why couldnt the inspectors come in and do it.Thats what they had been trained to do.

 

Jedi_Hood:
Wrong. SADDAM wouldn't let the weapons inspectors do their work.

I was not aware of this. All that talk of mobile weapons labs Sect. Powell brought up at the Feb. 5 2003 UN meeting was discredited.

 

Btw, are these actual weapons or spare parts? I understand that Saddam has obtained spare parts for tanks and airplanes, though I'm not aware that he obtained them from actual countries.

While, perhaps not a total "smoking gun" (as the popular term is being used), but here are some examples of more than just "spare parts:"

1)First link is pre-war, when missles which violated the UN restrictions were found in Iraq:

EXAMPLE 1

2)Next link details the missles that were found by Polish troops about a year ago.

Now, even though the missles are French, there was no evidence that France itself sold them to Iraq, although someone had to..

EXAMPLE 2

3)Another high profile example was when 30 Iraqi fighters were found buried in the al-Taqqadum desert.

Again, while not WMD's, several of the jets were ground attack versions which were prohibited by UN resolution.

EXAMPLE 3

Taken together, a pattern of clear deception emerges. How much of a justification those deceptions represent is open for individual interpretaion, I suppose.

At any rate, they are clearly more than "spare parts."

 

How many of their own people have Russia and China killed for political reasons? The UN turned a blind eye to evil communist practices for years and now they are inspecting Guantanamo Bay and Iraq and saying we need to treat captured terrorists better. They hate the US. They hate freedom.

How foolish of me. In my extreme naivity I had failed to realise that only communists/leftists killed people for political reasons. I had this fancuful notion that right wing death squads had been prominant in Central America during the latter half of the last century. I will acknowledge me error in this matter because clearly if I had been correct you would be condemning the UN for failing to act against such groups/governments and any outside government that supported, trained or funded them.

The UN members were selling arms to Sadam and stealing oil from the Iraqi people!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone want to finally comment on this?

Perhaps you are somehow oblivious to the fact that every nation in the world is a member of the UN. Therefore when any nation does anything wrong a UN member is automatically doing something wrong. The UN is the sum of it's parts not some magical entity that exists in it's own right.

 

What has the U.N. done to stop any type of tyrany? NONE! because they always have this Oil for Food thing for Saddam. Have they stopped Hatred like they are suppose to No. The U.N. just is needs new leaders and not Burracarts. Saddam had WMD because he used the on Kurds and the Irainans. Even if he did not have them he could launch IcBms and Regular Missle at the Oil Feilds in Saudi Arabia and he could case the Prices to go up. Plus I bet the WMDs are in Syria because Syria had a long time relationship with Saddam and so did we. I do infact belive that there is not link between Saddam and Osama. But there proof that Saddam is connected to terrorits groups.

 

Karde said...Perhaps you are somehow oblivious to the fact that every nation in the world is a member of the UN. Therefore when any nation does anything wrong a UN member is automatically doing something wrong. The UN is the sum of it's parts not some magical entity that exists in it's own right.

I'm talking about nations with veto power, France Germany, Russia, China. All weren't willing to support us and all have signifigant evidence of criminal abuse of the Oil for Food program.

The week Bagdad fell, we found evidence that France was still selling arms to Iraq 3 weeks before the war.

Wonder why they didn't want us in Bagdad and why the French led weapon inspectors didn't find these arms...

Hmmmmm...

 

Maybe France helped hide the WMDs to Syria.

 

Ain't saying that. I've seen no evidence to support that at all.

 

I'm talking about nations with veto power, France Germany, Russia, China.

Uh, Germany doesn't have veto power-- only the U.S.A., France, China, the U.K. and Russia do.

 

Ooops...my bad...

 

Quite frankly, I'm surprised to see how a topic like the UN can attract asinine comments and baseless accusations like elephant feces attract dung beetle. I mean, it would be really nice if some of these conservatives could explain why they hate the UN so much without having to distort historical facts and ignore political realities.

I thank Mr44 with providing actual information; while it troubles me to see such things it doesn't change my mind about either the Iraq war or the UN.

At any rate, I hope that this thread may serve as a catharsis of the right-wing hysteria and falsehoods about the UN.

black_saber:
Maybe France helped hide the WMDs to Syria.

See what I mean? Even J-rod, who has himself made paranoid comments in the past (that "socialized medicine" rant sticks out especially ) has come out against this, to his credit.

What makes you think this is a possibility? That France sold weapons to Saddam Hussein? Even if that is true, how does that connect with France helping to hide the WMD's in Syria? That's three accusations right there: 1) There were WMD's to begin with 2) The WMD's are in Syria 3) France helped.

Have they stopped Hatred like they are suppose to No.

I'm curious; where does it say the UN's job is to "stop Hatred"?

The U.N. just is needs new leaders and not Burracarts.

I'm tempted to mock the spelling and grammatical errors in this sentence, but I'll try not to. Regardless of how much you think the UN is run by mindless "Burracarts", what new leaders do you think should run the UN, and how would that make a difference either in how the UN works or your already well-ingrained opinion of it?

Even if he did not have them he could launch IcBms and Regular Missle at the Oil Feilds in Saudi Arabia and he could case the Prices to go up.

First of all, Saudi Arabia is right next to Iraq so I doubt Saddam would need ICBM's to hit it.

Second of all, PPOR that Saddam had ICBM's, at least after 1998.

rogue_wookiee:
You want proof? Wars for Communist expansion they did nothing about.

Chinese Civil War 1945-1949
Korean War 1950-1953
Vietnam War 1957-1975

I don't know about the others, but I'm surprised you put the Korean War up there because it was the UN that drafted a near, if not completely, unanimously-supported resolution condemning the invasion and calling for an international coalition to repel the North Korean invaders.

As for the Chinese and Vietnam Wars, those were civil wars and while the UN can work to establish peace, it cannot take sides on either Communism or anti-Communism (since the anti-Communist forces in both China and Vietnam were anything BUT democratic).

And Mao would have never taken over if the UN and President Truman didn't turn a blind eye and allow the freedom loving Chinese under kai-Shek to be forced to Taiwan.

I'm a big fan of Generalissmo Chiang Kai-shek but that doesn't blind me from the fact that his government was a martial dictatorship. By 1949 most of the Chinese people supported the Communists. No amount of military aid from the UN or the USA would have changed that.

That is one reason I hate democrats. They have a long history of siding with the UN and betraying our real allies.

Real allies? If you're talking about the Republic of China, President Truman sent an envoy to China to try to negotiate a peace; the envoy failed because neither the Nationalists nor the Communists were willing to budge. The USA sent some aid to the Nationalists; maybe it wasn't enough but it wouldn't have mattered one bit because the Chinese people were already overwhelmingly backing Mao. Maybe you support the USA's policy of propping up unpopular, brutal right-wing autocrats (one of which would have been Chiang if he had somehow beaten Mao) but the Chinese people wouldn't have and after hearing Mao they wouldn't have ever supported Chiang.

IMO it was better to let the Chinese Communists take over and demonstrate how the

 

First of all, I didn't know that the UN weapons inspectors were "French led". PPOR.

...Hans Blix...French! More to come as time allows!

 

Alright. Time to see if I can make links.
From cnn.com

Now where did this money come from? Where was it spent? OK,to get the rest of the story, I have to go to Foxnews.com. Now I know you guys think Fox is EEEVIL, but I promise I feel at least as strong about CNN, but unless I can find info that discredit's a CNN link, I accept on the basis of the thread if for nothing else. I ask for the same respect. Now it is alot of reading but it is complicated and we know from CNN that 10 billion was illeagaly generated for Saddam.

From Foxnews.com

 

First of all, I didn't know that the UN weapons inspectors were "French led". PPOR.

...Hans Blix...French! More to come as time allows!


loller bloody skates man.

French eh? Trick pleaze. clicky this link

You can retract now

EDIT: Thanks to fido, another link, this time from the UN's own page.

 

OOOOps...my bad again...
That's twice in one night...must be tired.

 

I don't know about the others, but I'm surprised you put the Korean War up there because it was the UN that drafted a near, if not completely, unanimously-supported resolution condemning the invasion and calling for an international coalition to repel the North Korean invaders.

That was a list of wars that at least tried to expand communism they failed to prevent. And the UN only told the North Koreans to withdraw they did nothing to enforce it until the US stepped in.

As for the Chinese and Vietnam Wars, those were civil wars and while the UN can work to establish peace, it cannot take sides on either Communism or anti-Communism (since the anti-Communist forces in both China and Vietnam were anything BUT democratic).

The lesser of two evils. Communists are far worse than usual dictators.

I'm a big fan of Generalissmo Chiang Kai-shek but that doesn't blind me from the fact that his government was a martial dictatorship. By 1949 most of the Chinese people supported the Communists. No amount of military aid from the UN or the USA would have changed that.

I never said that he had most of the country's support. But he was in the right. Look at Taiwan today. Their economy is much, much better per capitia than China's. I heard that the Chinese government is fining a family some $94,000 (in US dollers I don't know about Chinese money) because they had twins after they already had a child and boarded up their house. About 40 million died under Mao. Do you really think things could be worse under the Nationalist government?

Real allies? If you're talking about the Republic of China, President Truman sent an envoy to China to try to negotiate a peace; the envoy failed because neither the Nationalists nor the Communists were willing to budge. The USA sent some aid to the Nationalists; maybe it wasn't enough but it wouldn't have mattered one bit because the Chinese people were already overwhelmingly backing Mao. Maybe you support the USA's policy of propping up unpopular, brutal right-wing autocrats (one of which would have been Chiang if he had somehow beaten Mao) but the Chinese people wouldn't have and after hearing Mao they wouldn't have ever supported Chiang.

And the envoy, Gen. George Marshall, placed a trade embargo on the Chinese Nationalists.

IMO it was better to let the Chinese Communists take over and demonstrate how they couldn't run the country for beans, than to place the Chinese people under Chiang. Don't get me wrong; I admire Chiang as a military leader and a soldier of conviction, but his government was hardly democratic.

What was so bad about Kai-shek? The fact that he refused to form a coalition government? That would lead to the communists slowly gaining control until it was complete.

And what other "real allies" have the Democrats betrayed?

Woodrow Wilson (and other world leaders) allowed those who opposed communism in Russia to fall to the communists in 1917.

John F. Kennedy. In 1961 he lied to anti-communist forces in Cuba promising that he would continue with a plan the Eisenhower addministration had in place to oust the communist dictator Fidel Castro. At the last minute he called off air support and allowed them to be slaughtered.

I suggest you do some research before making such absolute (not to mention false) statements.

What the **** do you expect from the Israeli military? They aren't perfect. They are sick of terrorism.

Palastinian civilian deaths = casulties of war.

Israeli civilian deaths = terrorist victims.

And don't try to excuse it by saying the Israelis were trying "to minimize civilian casulties". In this instance, it was so obvious that civilians would be hurt or killed.

Did you read the whole article or just the fact that soldiers shot civilians? They have legitimate reasons. It's their country. The Arabs keep pushing. The Israelis have no problem pushing back as the have proven in the past. Look at the Six Days War. They aren't people you want to push over the edge. I personally wou

 

Isreal targets the terrorists. They don't care too mush about civilian casualties addmittedly, but their targets are terrorists.
The palestinians target civilians exclusivly.

Neither are desirable situations but there is a big difference.

 

I was not aware of this. All that talk of mobile weapons labs Sect. Powell brought up at the Feb. 5 2003 UN meeting was discredited.

What are you talking about? I'm referring to the fact that for years Saddam refused to let UN weapons inspectors into the country.

It's their country.

Now THAT could be debated....

 

Well I've got to admit it, the conservative peanut crowd is definitely shaping up some good arguments that have me beat.

Note: This post, with the exception of my response to J-rod, is mostly off-topic.

J-Rod:
Now where did this money come from? Where was it spent? OK,to get the rest of the story, I have to go to Foxnews.com. Now I know you guys think Fox is EEEVIL, but I promise I feel at least as strong about CNN, but unless I can find info that discredit's a CNN link, I accept on the basis of the thread if for nothing else. I ask for the same respect. Now it is alot of reading but it is complicated and we know from CNN that 10 billion was illeagaly generated for Saddam.

Well I've seen Robert Greenwald's documentary Outfoxed, which shows memos from FOX's CEO, Roger Ailes, telling anchors and commentators what to say - and it's always the Republican party line. In fact, every day there's a "theme" that anchors and commentators are expected to adhere to, and again it's conservative and Republican, i.e. attack Kerry on this, praise Bush on that.

But I'm not going to beat the dead horse of media bias. IMO there's not much bias in either direction on the media's part, at least not when it comes to political leanings. Rather, the media has a bias towards the cheap, the juicy, and the sensational. Anyway, this belongs in another thread, and for now I'll just give FOX the benefit of the doubt.

I read all the FOX articles and I have to say that it's some serious stuff. I definitely think that, if these stories are true, we should further investigate into Oil-for-Food corruption. But there are still many unanswered questions, like whether or not the money did go to al Qaeda (which is highly unlikely, considering how much Saddam and bin Laden hated each other) and whether or not the actual governments of Russia, France, China, etc. were aware of or involved with the corruption. We don't know if this corruption was something actually sanctioned by the U.N. proper or by its Secretariat. Also, with just one exception, everything I read shows that the United States (until recently) did nothing about this, which contradicts darthmalt16's earlier comment about how the USA "shot it down".

Moreover, none of this really relates to the question of "Can we trust the UN?" Is a scandal really something to use as a reason to completely shun the system? After all, after Teapot Dome and Watergate no one said, "Can we trust the USA?" They may have asked if they could trust the Harding or Nixon administrations, and a question on whether we can trust Kofi Annan could be reasonably asked. But to completely shun or "disband" the U.N. would be equivalent to dismantling the U.S. federal government after Watergate.

IMO, you conservatives are just too peeved about the U.N. not going along with the Iraq war, and need to find any opportunity available to pick on it. Well, I think ya'll should listen to the words of two Republicans mentioned in the FOX articles (I'm surprised these quotes actually made it in):

"I think we need the U.N. But we need it to be an honest institution. When there are mistakes made, you have to uncover them and deal with them.?
- Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.)

?I?m not willing to kind of cash it in ? they?re not the Evil Empire, the United Nations.?
- Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.)

Isreal targets the terrorists. They don't care too mush about civilian casualties addmittedly, but their targets are terrorists.
The palestinians target civilians exclusivly.

Neither are desirable situations but there is a big difference.

I thought the Palestinians take on Israeli police and military as well. I didn't think they targeted civilians exclusively.

rogue_wookiee:
That was a list of wars that at least tried to expand communism they failed to prevent. And the UN only told the North Koreans to withdraw they did nothing to enforce it until the US stepped in.

That's because the U.N. (at the time, anyway)

 

Ah, that. You do realize that the U.N. inspectors pulled out in 1998 on the orders of UNSCOM head Amb. Richard Butler, not because Saddam "kicked them out" as conservative myth stipulates.

So you have one instance where they were pulled out. How does that negate the several other instances where Saddam stonewalled them?

 

Only the US could go from the massive outpouring of support after 9/11 to the most hated country in the world yet again.

 

Maybe France helped hide the WMDs to Syria.

Oh for the love of God... Make sure brain is in gear before taking your foot off the clutch b_s...

That's twice in one night...must be tired.


Yeah, that *must* be it.

DarthKarde is of course correct. The problem I have with the modern, conservative American perception of the UN is that it bristles with factual and structural ignorance. The best way to understand how the UN works is to look at the organisational structure and the charter; yet most rely on idiotic sources like FOXNews, which is so innaccurate and biased it's barely worth calling a "source" as is.

(Furthermore, I'd call it petulance when the people who basically had the most effective and production relationship with the UN since it's inception thrown a tantrum over one hiccup with Iraq, but that's another day.)

The lesser of two evils. Communists are far worse than usual dictators.

No.

They are as bad as each other. For every left wing dictator like Lenin and Mao, there's a right wing dictator like Batista or Pinochet.

That kind of inane rationalisation of basic evil was supposed to have gone out of vogue with the demise of the Cold War polarisation. Oh well.

The palestinians target civilians exclusivly.

Neither are desirable situations but there is a big difference.

Not exclusively; largely.

So you have one instance where they were pulled out. How does that negate the several other instances where Saddam stonewalled them?

Psst, guess why Butler pulled them out?

Only the US could go from the massive outpouring of support after 9/11 to the most hated country in the world yet again.

I don't know about "only", but that's certainly what's happened.

Back to the topic; asking if we can trust the UN is like asking whether we can trust The Government; both are merely the sum of their parts. All the UN does is provide a forum, if you like, for world issues to be dicussed and acted upon. If not all states agree, it's no different to what happens if all Parliamentarians (or for those non-parliamentary savages, whatever youc all your representatives ) don't agree.

"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve." - GB Shaw

E_S

 

That's because the U.N. (at the time, anyway) didn't have an army of its own. It was largely dependent on the military forces of its constituent nations.

That's part of my point. They have no army. They have no real power. All they can do is slap resolutions down and not enforce them. Unless we enforce them for them. That's exactly what we did in Iraq. Saddam didn't concede to demands and resolutions so we did a preemptive strike and found weapons he wasn't supposed to have.

That's not a judgement for you and I or anyone else to make. The U.N.'s job is to keep the peace, not to decide what kind of government a country has. Also, the "worst" dictator by reputation is German Emperor Adolf Hitler, and he was rabidly anti-Communist.

Hitler wasn't as bad as some communist dictators. He is just more well known and hyped.

Do you have any reason to detest Communism so much? I never understood why Communism in and of itself was such a terrifying prospect. Tell me, why is it so "evil"?

You mean besides the way they want to take over the world, imprison, and kill those who disagree with them, and a more personal reason is that my granfather risked his life in the Korean War to stop communist advance.

There was no way anyone could have known that at the time. What was true at the time was that most Chinese were largely impoverished, and the country was heavily scarred by four decades of almost continous warfare. The people wanted Mao and the Communists, and since we all support democracy here shouldn't we support the Chinese people's decision?

No. I don't entirely believe in democracy. It's fallible. It has been proven fallible throughout history. If the people are poorly informed and / or stupid it isn't a good system.

That's a Chinese policy to contain population growth, and it's not entirely unreasonable, nor is it relevant to this discussion.

It is a relevant because it is an example of their oppression. It would take my family almost two years of putting every dollar we earned towards paying that fine. So realistically we would never pay that off. And we are an average American family. I know they don't pay as much for work in China as you can tell by the amount of stuff that says "Made in China".

Did Mao's government actually kill them? If so, how? I know Mao's government imprisoned a lot of people but I wasn't aware of it actually executing people.

In the first 4 years he executed 800,000.

No. But the point is that people in the 1940s were fed up with the Nationalists and Chiang - for good reason. The country was basically in the crapper, and the promise of the Republic of China made by Dr. Sun had been largely unfulfilled because of massive civil war and near-anarchy in some of the outlying areas of the country.

It wasn't the Nationalists fault that they had war after war. And as we can now see they were in the right.


Like I said, I have nothing against Chiang; he was a leader of conviction and did his best given the circumstances. That's not the point; the point is that Chiang's government was not democratic, so your pretending it was (with all that talk of "freedom loving Chinese") is inaccurate.

I never said they were. But they were free Chinese. Free of communist oppression. Free to choose capitalism. Free to do more things if they wished.

In case you've forgotten we were kinda tied up in a little something called World War I. Moreover, the USA as well as a few other countries did send aid to the Whites; it just wasn't enough to counter the overwhelming public support for the Reds.

They sent little to no aid. A good leader would have the foresight to see what would happen if the reds won. Wilson didn't.

It's amazing how some Commiephobic people prattle off endlessly about democracy - but then when the people choose Communism, suddenly democracy is the most terrible thing ever. I am no friend of Communism, but hell, if some other country wants it, who are we to tell them they can't have it?[