McCain Proposal For Screw The UN Gains Support
WASHINGTON - Gaining ground this political season is a proposed League of Democracies designed to strengthen support for the next president’s overseas agenda and ensure a global leadership role for the United States.
John McCain, the virtually certain Republican presidential nominee, has endorsed the concept of a new global compact of more than 100 democratic countries to advance shared views and has discussed the idea with French and British leaders.
“It could act where the U.N. fails to act,” he said last month, and pressure tyrants “with or without Moscow’s and Beijing’s approval.”
McCain said the League might impose sanctions on Iran, relieve suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan and deal with environmental problems.
Barack Obama, who has a lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, has not taken a stand. But Anthony Lake, one of Obama’s policy advisers, has spoken in favor of the idea.
Analysts at think tanks in Washington and elsewhere envision a league focused on maintaining peace and limiting U.S. military intervention, such as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
But missing so far are specific, proposed steps to turn the idea into reality, such as where to have a headquarters, who would finance the league and how its membership would be decided.
“Cooperation is an absolute essential,” Ivo Daalder, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution, said Thursday at a seminar.
An originator of the idea, Daalder said it would give democracies a better opportunity to reform the United Nations.
“If there had been a dialogue on Iraq there would have been more rigorous containment of Saddam Hussein,” possibly averting war, said Tod Lindberg, a Hoover Institution research fellow, at the seminar held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But not all foreign policy experts support the proposal.
Thomas Carothers, vice president for studies at Carnegie, said “the world has no appetite for a U.S.-led league and many countries do not want the U.S. going around the U.N.”
In fact, Carothers said, the United States cooperates often with non-democracies in its foreign policy. China’s help in trying to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is just one example, he said.
President Bush’s Iraq war policy was bitterly opposed by two leading democracies, France and Germany, among others. But Bush went ahead despite their strong objections.
“It is wishful thinking” that a league of democracies would any more readily approve U.S. military intervention in support of another U.S. president, Carothers said.
And while “some people like Senator McCain imagine it might become a replacement for the U.N., that is not the initial intention,” Carothers said in a telephone interview after the seminar.
(AP)
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Sounds like more of the same and the US taxpayer will foot the bill. How about a new approach to the UN, say like leaving it and kicking all the spies out of the US and using the building to house the homeless. Take the billions we would save an with that form a Union of Democratic nations. Unify, trade, protect each other,”Might for Right!”
May 30th, 2008 at 9:36 amWhile it sounds like a good idea… So did the UN and the league of nations before the UN.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:39 amSince all institutions, including ones that start out with noble Ideals are all subject to subterfuge and inevitably so. Why create another monster that will become the UN.
How about an Anglo-Sphere League?
May 30th, 2008 at 9:43 amIt is a good idea if it remains a military oriented organization, like an expanded NATO. It could be involved in MMOTW operations as well as standard combat operations, while we cut out the regimes that we don’t want to deal with. The problem is that the democrats will invariably infiltrate it and subterfuge the operation of it with bureaucracy and other nonsense, like they do everything else.
Its easy to hate the UN, but it did provide a very useful political tool during the Cold War to keep the Soviets and Chinese in check. Even John Bolton has found it useful to engage and fight our enemies in the open. We just need to use the UN properly to our own advantage like others do, and it is effective from a political perspective. Remember - Iraq violated 17 UN mandates, which was a major reason why the UN itself authorized ’strong measures’ to be taken in the first place. It definitely legitimized our war in Iraq. It is full of spies, but I’d rather not have it in Moscow or Beijing. I’m sure the spying goes both ways…and we get plenty of information out of our enemies UN offices that doesn’t make it into the news.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:52 amMove the UN to the Middle East or better yet Monrovia, Liberia one of the “successes” of the UN, or wait send them to Mogadishu to set up shop, un-fuck another of their messes we are going to have to address in the coming years.
I here the nightlife in the Mog hasn’t changed much since my days there years ago.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:13 amHuh? It’s useful cuz it sucks??? Hmmmm….. you mean like Susan Sarandon could be “useful” with some rope and duct tape???
Nah…….
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j97/stars5501/UN-1.jpg
May 30th, 2008 at 10:15 amgreat pic sully
I’m w/KBoomr113 - how can the inevitable “bureaucratic creep” be stopped?…though one thing about the UN has always bugged me, giving equal voice to non-democratic gov’ts is sickening.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:28 amThanks but the irreconcilable problem of the U.N. is it makes predatory dictatorships and/or theocracies the moral equivalent as democracies; thereby encouraging (demanding) compromise of democratic ideals and morality. There is nothing I can see that we should be compromising. You?
May 30th, 2008 at 10:37 amyou’re right. it gives legitimacy to governments who do not deserve it and puts them on par with the rest of the civilized world.
The UN should be just be disbanded. there are too many spies protected under the umbrella of ‘diplomatic immunity’. these cockroaches need to be sent back to their own countries. So many countries make up the UN and yet we pay 25% of the bill and we get 100% of the bullshit that comes with it
May 30th, 2008 at 11:18 amIt will still be mostly our money and our military risking their lives.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:55 pmThe UN is the result of the League of Nations which started as like-minded, freedom loving countries banning together to fight any future enemy that would come against them. It since has become the hideous, self-protecting UN no longer made up of common allies, but a conglomerate of ideologies given moral equivalency as Sully pointed out.
It seems any organization of people becomes self-serving, and power hungry over time. However, we do need allies who will take seriously the war on Islamofacism. Perhaps an Ad Hoc structure, made up of allies with this common goal and streamlined for maximum flexibility, like a reactionary force. And some provision for expelling members that are caught sleeping with the enemy.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:50 pmHow about we just leave the UN completely? We’re paying for all of it, and all it does is rape children.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:11 pmThomas Carothers, vice president for studies at Carnegie, said “the world has no appetite for a U.S.-led league and many countries do not want the U.S. going around the U.N.”
No shit, Sherlock! Those would be the countries that want to keep their local kleptocracies intact, maybe?
As to the “bureacratization” worry, ever hear of The Iron Law?
[Jerry] Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
May 31st, 2008 at 12:42 am> Thomas Carothers, vice president for studies at Carnegie,
> said “the world has no appetite for a U.S.-led league and
> many countries do not want the U.S. going around the U.N.”
I have no appetite for a US-lead league either, but I don’t think that’s the intent. The very definition of democracy implies leadership by the group, not the US.
As for “going around the UN”, I would agree with many of the comments that we should not only go around, but disband it. It’s fundamentally against the principle of democracy when you give dictatorships equal seating. And the results of running an organization that way have shown what is predictable…complete failure.
Here’s another idea for you to ponder…
http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org
This is my own vision of a redefined UN. Feedback is welcome…
gary
May 31st, 2008 at 5:33 pm