UN Oil for food program under scrutiny

[CaptainCrunch]

Yes, I know its a fox news article which to a lot of you is akin to receiving a hand written note from Satan. But they are running a multi article series on the whole UN food for Oil mess.

Give me more money


Some additional Stuff

Stuff


The UN right now is standing on the edge of a cliff as thier standing in the world is getting pummeled left right and center over its lack of efficiency.

Is it time for a overhauling or is the UN in its current shape and form even worth funding?

[Cowperson]

There aren't a lot of clean hands in the world in the matter of Iraq, whether it be a conversation about WMD or the motivation of some UN members opposing military action there.

We'll all be interested in seeing where these investigations lead.

I don't mean to hijack your thread, but this is interesting from the story:

A new FOX News poll finds that 54 percent of the U.S. public believes the United Nations does not reflect the values of average Americans. Only 29 percent say that U.N. policies reflect said values.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132594,00.html

Cowperson

[Agamemnon]

Originally posted by CaptainCrunch@Sep 19 2004, 05:16 PM
The UN right now is standing on the edge of a cliff as thier standing in the world is getting pummeled left right and center over its lack of efficiency.

Is it time for a overhauling or is the UN in its current shape and form even worth funding?

I'm not so sure that the UN really is getting pummeled left and right (any more than it has in history) for its lack of efficiency. I think the UN is probably the most complicate bureaucracy in existance. Forgetting about the different languages and legal systems of all 190+ member-states, UN relief efforts are probably some of the most complicated military and humanitarian operations ever.

I believe there is a problem w/ efficiency, but I don't think that its at a sink-or-swim point for the UN. These problems have always existed. Much of the current pessimism about the UN is a lashback from the failures in Somalia and Rwanda. But these weren't bureaucratic problems. These were the faults of the member-states who refused to act.

I guess my point would be this. As long as the UN is a voluntary organization, committed to respecting the sovereignty of every (legitimate) nation-state, then you're going to see it act much the way it does right now. It waits to be told by its members what to do and does it.

You can reform the UN, but can you reform the attitudes and intentions of its member-states? If you can't, I suspect you'd end up w/ exactly the same thing.