Calls to reform UN Security Council after US vetoes Gaza ceasefire

GutsBerserk@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 774 points –
Calls to reform UN Security Council after US vetoes Gaza ceasefire
aljazeera.com

Calls are growing for the UN Security Council to be reformed after the US became the only member to use its veto power to block a Gaza ceasefire resolution, a move welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The UN chief says he will keep pushing for peace.

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Nothing changed on the UNSC when Russia vetoed the resolution to leave Ukraine.

I'm not educated enough to say which is a "worse" violation of the principles the UN stands for, but I'll go out on a limb and say nothing will change this time, either.

Yes, the whole idea of countries being able to veto UN resolutions are leading to exactly this, Russia vetoing all resolutions condemning their aggression in Ukraine and the US vetoing all resolutions concerning Israel.

I’m not sure how a resolution condemning anything is helpful, and I don’t know why Israel and Hamas need the UN for a cease fire.

The "resolution" the UN needs to come to here, in my opinion, is to put the whole area (Israel and Palestine) under UN control until something equitable can be worked out.

UN control is notorious for not working out well, and liking children too much.

Not working out well compared to what's happening now? And you think children are being protected from anything now?

No, of course not. There is just a very poor reputation for UN Peace keeping forces, so giving them martial law in one of the most contested places in the world might not end any better.

Who's to say the call for reform is only motivated by the most recent ridiculous veto?

I’m not educated enough to say which is a “worse” violation of the principles the UN stands for, but I’ll go out on a limb and say nothing will change this time, either.

Russia wants to annex a country. Israel is fighting a terrorist group. Russia is worse.

Russia wants to annex a country. Israel is fighting a terrorist group.

Isreal has been slowly annexing bits of Palestine for decades. Those terrorists are the latest reaction to that.

Not that their violence against Israel is a good thing - far from it, but it's also not surprising.

Isreal has been slowly annexing bits of Palestine for decades.

They literally haven't. Gaza's borders are unchanged.

And what do you call the Israeli "settlements"?

Israeli settlements are literally built on Israeli land. East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights were won in the Six Day War.

So... If Russia "wins" parts of Ukrainian territory, it's all valid?

The 6 Day War was a bit more complicated than a blatant land grab

In a realpolitik sense, yeah probably. That's why Ukraine needs to win. Nothing is going to happen to Russia if they crush Ukraine underfoot. Do you really believe something is?

More to the point, though, the Six Day War was a defensive war by Israel in which other countries willfully abdicated territory for Israel's security purposes. It was not a war of annexation, so the two are completely different things.

Note these settlements are on the other side of the Israeli border after the 1967 war, making a large percentage of the West Bank de facto Israeli territory. And it continues to shrink.

Russia wants to annex a country. Israel is fighting a terrorist group.

Genocide is obviously worse than annexation. One just wants the land, the other wants to kill everyone on it too. Israel is far more evil than Russia.

That said nothing will change indeed.

Russia is committing genocide. They're both evil. Israel has been doing it for longer and is better at it.

Russia is not out to kill all Ukrainians. They are annexing (stealing) land. They want land and then want to assimilate the Ukrainians into their country. (which is bad I'm not condoning Russia here)

Israel wants to kill all the people living on the land and replace them with their own race.

This is not nearly the same

Putin wants to russify ukraine, destroying their heritage and culture. That sounds like genocide to me, dawg

Again I'm not out here to defend Russia or anything but forced cultural assimilation is not Genocide or ethnic cleansing. Under prohibited acts you can find the requirements

Genocide is about intentionally murdering people of an ethnic group or forcefully sterilizing them so their race dies out. Russia wants to own the Ukranians land, not murder them.

I'd personally prefer the option to assimilate rather than being straight up murdered.

You need to read the final prohibited act, Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Actually you're right that does indeed constitute as genocide. My bad.

Fucking liar.

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf

Article two. Read it, and go silent until you grow a brain, a conscience, or both.

Russia explicitly, openly, and repeatedly states that they desire elimination of Ukrainian nation. Their official stance, repeated by their president and all the state media is that Ukraine and Ukrainians either don’t exist or are a “historical mistake”. Whether they target the entire nation or just the parts they can reach is of no import for the definition of genocide.

In fact, Russia ticks off all five definitions in article two and least points a), c), and d) of article three in Ukraine alone.

I think it's a valid point that Russia's actions aren't driven by racism anywhere as much as Israel's actions, which in turns gets reflected in the proportion of the civilian population killed by both: Israel already killed way more Palestinian civilians in 2 months as a proportion of the 5 million population, than Russia killed Ukranians civilians in 2 years as a proportion of a population of 40 million.

This doesn't excuse Russian actions or make them any less evil, it just shows how Israel is managing to act significantly more evil even than the people who perpetrated the Buch and Mariupoli massacres.

Fascists when they have the freedom to do what they want are always evil and it shouldn't be that contentious that the more racist they are, the more evil they act.

It's weird that some here insist on taking the point being made as being "Russia is not evil" rather than being that "Israel manages to be even more evil than Russia".

Racism has nothing to do with casualty numbers discrepancy. Gaza Strip is a densely populated area.

Genocide is not a competition, it’s a crime against humanity. I don’t care whether Israel or Russia does it better, I care that both state actors are reveling in it.

They are knowingly chosing to do a blockade of Food, Water and Medicine which they know has little effect on Hamas (who have stores of those things) and massive effect on civilians.

Also it has been leaked that now, when their casualty estimation systems give a high probability that 5 or more innocent victims will be killed as collateral when attacking a target, they go ahead and attack it anyway, when before they didn't.

They are choosing to kill Palestinian civilians, the very people who members of the Israeli Cabinet describe as "human animals".

Would you have said "Genocide is not a competition" to dismiss the similar hate-driven indiscriminate killing of civilians because of the etnic group they came from practiced by the early Nazi Germany, or would you recognize that is the type mindless hate is what ends up with things like the Holocaust and that such race-Fascism is an altogether separate category from the opportunistic kind of Fascism practiced in places like Spain and Italy?

They do tick off the fifth box of kidnapping children, but the rest not at all.

Elimination of a nation does not mean the elimination of its inhabitants.

You had two options: read one damn sentence or insist on being a tool.

Of course you chose the latter.

Please do quote that sentence you're talking about since you are so much more gifted in the ways of literacy than me

Article II In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

The first bloody page. The article you were asked to read.

But what could I expect from someone who thinks genocide is a competition that one could lose if someone else did it better…

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"Forced assimilation" is one way to commit genocide. Another is through holocaust. The Holocaust happened to be genocide via holocaust. Gaza happens to be genocide via holocaust. The definition of genocide doesn't require it be committed via holocaust.

Edit: fixed an autoincorrect

Giza happens to be genocide via holocaust. The definition of genocide doesn't require it be committed via holocaust.

The Pharoah must step in!

And the award for the clueless, most unnecessary joke, goes to you. You do understand that not everything requires a shitty take at humor? Your comment brings nothing to the thread, OP has already fixed their mistake. Why are you here?

and then want to assimilate the Ukrainians into their country

Textbook genocide. The erasure of a group of people is genocide. That can be done by:

  • Ethnic cleansing and mass killings (as demonstrated by piles of bodies in Mariupol I believe, as well as mobile crematoriums)

  • Kidnapping the group's children (again, loudly and proudly admitted to by Russia) to deny the future of the group

  • Forcible assimilation by preventing the group from practicing it's culture and identity (as demonstrated by Putin saying Ukraine is actually Russian because it's historically part of the Russian empire)

There's one more, that I pray isn't being used and I think we'd have heard if it was. Rape can be used as a weapon of war to force the group to give birth to your children, and deny their future in that way. To my knowledge Russia does not have a campaign to do so with Ukrainians, thank God.

A lot of the tactics Russia is using aren't new either, look into Russification by the USSR to Eastern Europe. They would envelop states into the USSR after purposely growing a Russian population there with settlers. This is the big reason why Eastern Europe tends to hate Russia.

as demonstrated by Putin saying Ukraine is actually Russian because it's historically part of the Russian empire

Funny that he says "Russian Empire", because Russia hasn't been an Empire since Tsar Nicholas II. Is he trying to go back to those days, like try to install himself as Tsar?

Israel wants to kill all the people living on the land and replace them with their own race.

If that was a thing they actually wanted, they'd be doing a really shitty job of it.

Nah they're doing pretty great at it. Maybe a little too fast this time, normally they're better at taking the land and killing people slow enough to give the US and other Western allies some plausible deniability, but since no one is stopping them still, you can't even hold that against them.

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Which will be vetoed by all permanent members of the security council.

The problem in this case is depending on the security council to act on an issue it isn't designed to address.

The main purpose of the UN is to prevent global war, and the Security Council is the primary way in which that goal is achieved.

In that context, the P5's veto power makes sense. It prevents resolutions pitting the world against one of the superpowers that can sustain that kind of war.

How does the security counsel prevent global war? They're powerless to do anything to any of the super powers and by proxy also won't do anything to anyone else either.

Or the wonky intertwinement is the peace mechanism? How much more bloody would the world have been without it?

"Global War" isn't all war on the globe. It's war that pulls in the whole world. Having 4 of the P5 gang up on the 5th in a military campaign authorized by the UN would very likely result in WWIII.

The veto power prevents the UN from taking military action against a country the interest of countries that can sustain a war against the rest of the world.

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American here, I support this call.

I mean, same. The ability of certain blocs to railroad the UN is obscene. We should protect our veto tho

We should protect our veto

The countries that currently have a veto make less sense the way the world is developing.

France and the UK have a veto, but Germany doesn't? China has a veto but India doesn't?

I get that it's based on historic disputes after the war, but it doesn't fit the current world well.

If the UN isn't reformed, there's nothing stopping these rising states from starting their own UN

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Our veto is the problem here. Vetoes in general are the problem.

Because of "one nation one vote," it is trivially easy for the more hardcore Muslim bloc or authoritarian nations to shove things through that should absolutely not be shoved through.

And basing it off population would essentially give China and India the power to vote themselves whatever they wanted. It's the US legislative problem all over again and do we really want one world government in the end?

Yeah, many people fail to realize that the places in the world where individual rights are (mostly) respected are actually few, with only a minor portion of the world population.

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So there were no "calls for reform" after a similar Russian veto about Artsakh in 2020 or recently. If nobody cares about that, then why should I care about anything else really.

There has been "calls for reform" almost every time Russia has vetoed

I haven't seen any in those cases I mentioned. In others - yeah.

Not sure how to help you with that one. People call for an end to vetos literally every time it's used

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There shouldn't be a security council

It's less a council of nations who actively keep the world secure, but moreso a council to keep the world secure from those nations. The security council is there so the world's most dangerous countries don't just go to war, and it makes them maintain a dialogue.

It's unfortunately functioning as needed. The vetoes may piss others off, but it keeps them at the table. The ability to veto anything is a great incentive to stick around.

How are they supposed to cater to the MIC if some random bunch of countries can cut off their markets like that?

Israel only exists in its current form because the advocate for the original UN plan was assassinated by a zionist terrorist. Israel was born an enemy of the UN.

Things just dont make sense. Hamas, a very weak power, sneak attacks Israel, a relatively strong power, then hides amongst the civilian population with military targets scattered throughout neighborhoods and municipalities.

Is Hamas surprised by the mass civilian casualties or are you (the reader) the one who is surprised? Is Hamas actually weaponizing their civilians by showing the world how many are dying and being an agent of change in the UN?

Is Hamas considering these civilian deaths as martyrs? Because martyrdom is not the same as innocent death.

You’re god damn right I’m surprised.

If terrorists hid in your family’s basement and then your family home and all those in it, plus their whole neighborhood, was wiped off the face of the earth, you’d sing a real different tune then.

Try to imagine Palestinians as real people, instead of faceless terrorists who “sealed their fate” when they “supported the wrong side” (basically just by existing).

Yeah I'd be pretty fucking pissed at the terrorists there, ngl

Unfortunately the residents of Gaza are prevented from importing weapons

I mean that's an extremely strong positive right now.

Picture a bank hostage situation. Police officer comes in with a fully loaded gun. A bank teller is being held at gunpoint by the robber. Never once in the history of ever has the police officer shot the bank teller.

That's what Israel is doing.

It’s more like the cops throw a grenade at the robber and teller, and when they kill the teller, the officers try to imply the teller’s complicity because they allowed the robbers to control the bank to begin with.

And then when the robbers rationalize the bank teller’s death as martyrdom for their cause, should we really feel bad for the teller?

Closer to the usaf bombing the entire neighborhood that the bank is in.

No police in the world would say “ok, go free, and keep the hostages”. And by the way, a murderer would be better analogy than bank robber.
Also, hostages did die in real world hostage situations too, while police was targeting those hostage takers.

You are an ill little man. I wish you better help.

Yes, when your own analogy fails attack a person who showed this to you. Never reevaluate your position.

Thanks for clarifying for me. Didn't realize it was such a simple scenario like a bank robbery.

You clearly can't grasp the real complicated scenario so he gave you a simplified version to make it easier to understand.

Anyone with even an ounce of empathy understands why Israel bombing children is always unacceptable. Nobody should need to explain it to you really

So, which is less acceptable:

Hamas, a military threat to Israel who hides behind children.

Or

Israel, a country with a military who is responding to military threats in a way a military would.

BTW, my original post is asking questions, but you Lemmy Users just keep making it seem I'm pro Israel just for asking.

But is Israels actions appropriate? Indiscriminate bombing across all of Gaza? Collective punishment? If they really wanted to A) save hostages and B) take out those responsible, they could do a surgical strike with special forces. Raining hellfire upon innocent people just because their might be hamas there is absolutely disgusting.

Before I answer your questions, you answer mine. Which is less acceptable?

Israel commiting genocide is awful. Hamas is just a response to that.

As you laid out your question, probably (cynically), hamas. The world has been happy to tolerate some incredibly awful governments - especially if you start looking at African dictators.

If you look at Nelson Mandela and the ANC in South Africa you'll find they did the same thing as Hamas to get rid of the Apartheid.

When asking nicely didn't work they started asking less nicely.

Both are unacceptable but clearly Israel is more so. In a hostage situation, you don't bomb the neighborhood. I'd also like to point out that nobody is really defending Hamas, which is more acceptable is missing the point entirely.

Israel has serious military advantage, they can basically force a cease fire at any time. They aren't under threat and tbh, probably let the events that started all this happen for causus belli.

The article talks about a mostly symbolic UN vote that was vetoed by the US at the request of Israel. They don't want a ceasefire, they don't want their hostages back, they don't want a solution.

They just want to keep bombing.

I'll agree israel is worse in hindsight, but Hamas kicked this off with this sneak attack that has led to this situation, so I'd say that is worse. Hamas was so successful in causing an Israeli intelligence disaster, which I feel like caused their military to lash out. All militaries do is destroy, they are not nation builders. Surgical special force operations can take a long time to plan and wouldn't work since there were so many hostages and they kept moving them around.

What about the decades before this where Israel had been killing people, imprisoning without charges, and forcing them off their land? When that's added for context, Israel is the one who kicked this off.

All militaries do is destroy

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of violence generally. The purpose of destructive capability is deterrence, and hence the protection of things. This is really crucial to get in order to understand anything about violence at all.

This is why a mother cat bares her fangs when she’s cornered. She’s not attempting to destroy, but rather to prove that she can destroy, in order to deter an attack.

Weapons, by existing and being visible, send signals that make violence less likely to occur.

When weapons are being used actively to destroy, it’s because their initial purpose failed.

Stop trying to wash Bibi's ass and depose him already. You are going to get Israel destroyed if you don't.

iS hAmAs SuRpRiSeD!?

Who cares what Hamas even thinks for fucks sake. Innocents are dying. If you're all so "civilised" then maybe you should realize that indiscriminately killing innocents isn't right, no matter who does it.

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Why are you acting like Hamas and Israel are the only parties in the conflict? That makes no more sense than talking about a war between Palestine and Likud.

Pretending Hamas is the same as Palestinians is anti-Palestenian, which to any person with a moral compass is just as bad as antisemitism, the same as being hateful towards any ethnic group.

It's black and white thinking, just like the whole mindset of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Hamas and the Israeli regime are enemies. The people of Palestine and the Israeli regime are enemies, therefore Hamas and the people of Palestine must be friends. Also people opposing the actions of Israel must thus be friends with Hamas.

I'm just not sure how much of it is in bad faith because they support the evil actions (possibly even including the evil actions of Hamas that they believe gives justification for the evil actions of Israel), or because they are just stupid and don't understand that people fit into more than two categories.

It's interesting how just asking critical questions of Hamas entails that I support Israel's response.

"just asking questions" is the excuse for assholes to be assholes. It's never "just asking questions" it is always "asking misleading questions to evoke an emotional reaction out of someone".

It’s never “just asking questions”

Do you have any evidence of this claim? Because that doesn’t make any sense to me. People do, indeed, ask questions to clarify things. It’s a crucial part of communication and thinking.

Labeling all questions as attempts to troll sounds like the sort of knee jerk reaction of a person who doesn’t want their beliefs questioned. And someone who doesn’t want their beliefs questioned probably hasn’t developed them very thoroughly.

You should be asking yourself questions all the time. When I said it’s a crucial part of communication and thinking I mean that if you don’t ask questions about things, then you don’t communicate or think. And that’s very bad.

Sure. With that logic, you can win every argument. Done talking to you now, thanks

I see you Likechecker. I know you’re not just here to be an ass. Just wanted you to know this hate isn’t universal.

Boo hoo. With your "just asking questions" you try to absolve yourself of the type of questions you are asking. And if someone calls you out on it, you run away because you know what kind of questions you are asking.

You left out the part where Israel, of their own accord, goes in and kills these civilians to retaliate against what you've stated as a "very weak power."

What? I was asking questions and they are not rhetorical.

Gotcha. Asking questions is the new wild accusation these days. It's a good way to avoid critical thought.

Yes now that some wiki somewhere has published it, it is now a fact that those asking questions are troublemakers.

No. There's a big difference between asking questions and asking pointed, leading questions. One is Socratic dialogue, the other is JAQing off.

Hamas wants dead civilians. That's how resistance/terrorism movements work (your choice of descriptor, it's the exact same thing).

IRA, Tamil Tigers, Viet Cong, etc. They all benefit from civilians on "their" side dying, that's just the game they are choosing to play. Acting like you're pwning somebody by pointing out an obvious fact won't get you far.

And for the record, fuck Hamas.

Hamas might be, but the millions of non-terrorist Palestinian's lives are worth more than to end as collateral damage.

Hamas is evil. Wanting to get rid of them is understandable. Commuting mass civilian death to remove them is still a war crime.

What's ironic is that I thought you were talking about Hamas, wanting to get rid of Israeli authorities. It just highlights how similar the two are. The IDF and Hamas both have no qualms about killing innocent people to further their agenda.

The difference between the IDF and Hamas is that the IDF serves a civilian population that is heavily armed and almost 100% veterans.

Hamas forcibly rules a civilian population that is unarmed.

Given Israel actively prevents the people of Gaza from being armed (as is their human right) they are completely wrong to hold Gazans responsible for Hamas, given the Gazans have no power to consent to or reject Hamas’s rule.

I don't disagree at all. I see Palestinians as a completely separate entity. I also see Israeli civilians as a separate entity from the IDF, however. Netanyahu isn't universally supported. No civilian in this situation is culpable.

For decades we had the IRA and we didn't level Northern Ireland. The IRA were a terrorist organisation and repeatedly bombed civilians in UK.

The IRA didn't target civilians though, they targeted the military or they tried doing economic damage.

Nah they killed plenty but I was trying to draw attention to the fact that the British army were vastly superior but didn't level NI.

WIKI has a list of the bombings.

Point taken. However Hamas isn't just a terrorist organization, they are the elected political party of Gaza. They are the government. So not really apples to apples.

Elected years ago, by people who are mostly dead?

Answering that question is a whole rabbit hole I will not go down. Just wanted to point out that comparing Hamas with any other terrorist organization is imo not really possible.

Comparing them to the Taliban or Hezbollagh is pretty possible.

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Maybe we should look at parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the Gazan resistance.

Yeah all those Holocaust survivors who flooded the nearby villages to rape murder and kidnap random folks back to the ghetto oh wait that parallel actually makes no sense whatsoever.

What's surprising to me is that Hamas was able to succeed in the attack in the first place.

Also that people are actually starting to think for themselves and find nuance in a situation that is filled to the brim of it.

You are being downvoted, but Hamas said exactly this on international TV.

People are downvoting because it's a dumb ass take. Not because of what hamas said or not.

Killing civillians en mass is not right. You're no better than hamas if you do that, no matter how "civilised" you claim to be.

...except that was literally Hamas' goal. I didn't say it wasn't stupid.

Hamas isn't surprised by the casualties, because the casualties are a desired goal for Hamas. They shot civilians who tried to flee south at the start of the war. They tell civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings that have been "knocked."

Mass death is their goal, because they know it will do shit like manipulate the UN into protecting them.

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We could save so much money if we just disbanded the UN.

Th UN gives all countries the ability to have a voice on the world stage, yeah the security council can suck sometimes but not having the UN would be so much worse than having it

I understand this logic and I’ve made this argument in the past. As time goes on, however, I’m coming to the understanding that the major thing the UN actually provides is deniability. It creates an aura of accountability without actually accomplishing it. The pageantry of rhetoric around the UN’s mission would have us believe that merely shining light on the wrongdoing of powerful nations will lead to some kind of justice. It never does. It actually breeds complacency in the same way that ranting about politics online does. You feel like you are changing something, but you aren’t. I think we need something like the UN, but the UN as currently constructed is fatally flawed and may be making things actively worse in some important ways.

A government without an army can’t govern.

Not that I’m in favor of a single government over all humanity. But the UN can’t govern anything because it’s got no teeth.

If only we had some global communication system that allowed people to post their opinions. Maybe a packet based one.

Are... Are you actually suggesting that "the internet" is a viable substitute for the UN?

Sure. At least I don't see the internet driving around Mercedes in NYC and parking wherever they want

Yeah, lets replace the UN with a fuckin' facebook group.

Moms Against Thermonuclear War has been marked as a private community.

We already had world leaders tweeting their opinions at other, but they still meet in person to discuss issues and form agreements.

A structured system is necessary when you have meetings with representatives for nearly every person on the planet

And again how is that working?

Instead of replying with that same comment again, why don't you explain what alternative you have in mind. Don't just vaguely mention 'packets'

Oh I am sorry I wasn't aware that I had to come up with a solution if I point out the current solution isn't working. Shit. Better say nothing ever again and just keep giving my money to a corrupt institution that fucks up everything it touches. Sorry for pointing out the emperor has no clothing here is free fucking money

That's kind of the point here

We all agree that the current system has issues.

You're saying the next move should be to disband it, and others are saying that we need an alternative first. I don't think anyone here is saying the UN is perfect the way it is

An imperfect system doesn't mean we need to throw out the whole system. And if we did throw it out, you can't just not have a replacement for it.

People making posts on the Internet is not equivalent to real people meeting and being forced to at least give an answer.

Forced to give an answer like when they abstain?

That's still an answer. We actively know they chose to abstain rather than passively. Still better than radio silence from "the Internet"

We can all agree homelessness is a problem, what matters is the solutions to the problem

Some want to house these people, some want to build more homeless shelters, some want dedicated camping sites in the city, some want dedicated camping sites outside the city, some want to simply ban them from existing in a city, etc, etc

If all you do is focus on the problem and not coming up with solutions then the problem will never be solved

This is an example of why coming up with solutions is important when discussing issues

What you need to do is define “working” in order to point out that the current solution isn’t working.

To define “working” you either need to come up with a standard for how such organizations should operate, or barring that name some alternative solution that it can be compared to.

I see. So if I see an airplane burn on the ground after falling from the sky unless I am a professional pilot, have done an indepth analysis of what happened, have a solution to prevent future problems, and have a master's degree in aerospace engineering I am not allowed to say that there is any issue and should assume the airplane is fine.

Sorry YOUR UN sucks

Last I heard we haven't descended into nuclear war in the last 75 years.

Or having gone into another World War.

Are you familiar with the failure of the League of Nations? I'd look into it if you're not.

Nuclear war is prevented by nuclear deterrence. Nothing published by the UN has the ability to stop a nation from firing its nuclear weapons at another nation’s cities.

As for world wars, let’s wait a year and see if we’re willing to define this interconnected set of conflicts as a world war.

Could you not say thats because of MAD from nuclear weapons?

No, MAD seems to be a failed philosophy as it assumes that aggressive actions are attributable to clearly defined parties. MAD got shook the fuck up as soon as we realized dirty bombs could exist.

I hope that our long standing mostly peace is due to the UN and media innovations... I cynically suspect that it's due to neoliberalism and globalization making a grand war too economically costly.

I wouldn't be surprised at money being the reason. It's too bad some conflict can still be seen as profitable unfortunately.

I used to think the same way. But with UN, at least someone "official" has a responsibility to "raise the voice". It is better than nothing, I guess.

And how is that going for us? The Middle East doing fine now?

Why do you think it would not be worse without the UN?

Do you think this is the only thing the UN does? Or that everything else it does does not matter?

I think they spend a lot of money and park in handicapped spots.

We got an edgy one here. No one get cut

Got an argument go ahead and make it.

Because your argument of taking up parking spaces is so worth debating lol

You've made the same point about parking twice in these comments now, got anything else to add

Honestly, I’m good with a few thousand people parking. Doesn’t sound like that big a problem. If the worst thing this organization produces is parked cars, I’m gonna vote for “no fucks given” on that issue.

The UK and the US voluntarily walked in to that. Multiple times. That has less than nothing to do with the UN.

I see. So the UN has had no impact on the region?

Just because it isn't 100% effective that doesn't mean it has no impact.

Right just one identical to not existing

You're welcome to move to Russia any time you want

In the global scheme of things the UN is so fucking cheap. I can't understand your point at all.

Don't you think it would be possible to just operate it more cheaply?

Or have some conception as to its value? I mean we could save so much money if we never paid for anything. And yet we do pay for things. The question is, why? If we could save money by never paying for anything, why not?

Oh right. Things have value.

Yeah but like, what's the 'value' in their expensive forums? I'm sure there is a lot of fat to trim that only exists so the public servants get to live like kings.