The U.N. is ridiculous, seriously ridiculous

[Commissar]

I was actually making a fairly bipartisan point, Taks.  You'll notice I included a Democratic example right after the Republican one.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You said you would have criticized a Democrat for the same thing.

 

You didn't actually criticize Democrats on any level however. You simply critized a Republican for a situation that was akward.

 

The guy was surrounded by little children and television cameras while discovering news that the United States had just suffered an attack worse than Pearl Harbor.

 

I'll agree his reaction didn't come across as strong, but he didn't panic either.

 

I'll also note that I never once came across a single Democrat who criticized Clinton save for myself. The guy gave China favored trading partner status as China was threatening to use nukes on Taiwan. Amnesty International and the UN were up in arms over human rights violations, and American businesses were up in arms over China's admission of pirating billions of dollars of IP daily.

 

Clinton just said, "let me rape the trade deficit even more".

 

Clinton was also linked to a Chinese business official that was found buried in Arlington National Cemetary, and illegal campaign contributions from a foreign government, namely China.

 

The guy changed his story every two seconds and refused to admit anytime he was caught in a lie.

 

"It depends on what your definition of is is."

 

Surely Clinton had just as many moments, if not worse when he made himself and his country look bad.

 

To say that you would have criticized Clinton isn't necessarily a bipartisan statement. You only criticized Bush, and I sure didn't notice any Democrats criticize Clinton when he made mistakes.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually, no one bothered to quote my whole post, so I can understand why you'd think you're right.

 

This is what I actually said:

 

"This is one of those things I've never understood about party politics as we have them. It's perfectly acceptable to disagree with people on your particular side of the political spectrum; indeed, it's often necessary if you want to maintain any credibility.

 

People who say that Bush did the right thing by freezing for seven minutes after being informed of the WTC attacks, for example.

 

Or people who suggest that Clinton lying under oath was no big thing, and not an impeachable offense.

 

I just don't get why people fall into line so easily on things like that. Why they swallow the Kool-Aid, as Bill Maher put it. "

[Oerwinde]

I read the thread title and thought of Dirty Work. "Ridiculous. You know what hurts most? The lack of respect... well, that other thing, that hurts the most. But the lack of respect hurts the second most. Ridiculous."

[Aponez]

All I have to say is the UN is an outdated concept, with more corruption than the US government and should be disolved... or at least the USA should pull out (which would result in the same thing)

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Well Darque, as US is doing what he wants all the time without see what the UN says it's like if the US are out of the UN now " .

[EnderAndrew]

Except when the UN wants troops somewhere, they send us.

[Lucius]

Except when the UN wants troops somewhere, they send us.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Or us, or soldiers from many other nations.

[SteveThaiBinh]

The most recent UN report on peacekeeping shows the largest contributors of troops to be Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, with the UK and US coming in at 29th and 30th respectively. I'm surprised - I thought we had a lot of troops in Cyprus, but either it's fewer than I thought or they're counted separately.

[metadigital]

So what does everyone think is a better manangement structure. After all, the UN is League of Nations, version 2, and I notice that nothing seems to be work adequately until version 3.

 

So what does the UN version 3 look like? (Some background on Franklin D. Rosevelt's baby.)

[Lucius]

Denmark comes in at 52, and the US is what... 55 times our population.

[Commissar]

The most recent UN report on peacekeeping shows the largest contributors of troops to be Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, with the UK and US coming in at 29th and 30th respectively.  I'm surprised - I thought we had a lot of troops in Cyprus, but either it's fewer than I thought or they're counted separately.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Man.

 

I clicked that link, and at first I thought it was a list of all of our militarily-significant Iraq War coalition allies.

[Lucius]

The most recent UN report on peacekeeping shows the largest contributors of troops to be Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, with the UK and US coming in at 29th and 30th respectively.  I'm surprised - I thought we had a lot of troops in Cyprus, but either it's fewer than I thought or they're counted separately.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Man.

 

I clicked that link, and at first I thought it was a list of all of our militarily-significant Iraq War coalition allies.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't know if you saw the post I made about that a few days ago, I was still in moderated status so it might have been drowned.

 

Anyway, here's the Coalition of the Willing for ya incase you didn't see it, and yes the numbers are strikingly similar to that UN list. :D

[213374U]

It is usually a pretty accurate representation of what the world thinks, and the world quite often thinks we're doing the wrong thing.  I know that doesn't matter to anyone who voted Republican last fall - them durned for'ners don't know what they're talking about, living in their little grass huts and hating Jesus - but it could become a problem in the future.

 

The UN, simply put, is the best forum for the US to get its world policy message out there - whenever it finds a coherent one.  And like it or not, UN approval does provide a sheen of legitimacy to actions that would not otherwise be there.

Hilarious.

[Commissar]

It is usually a pretty accurate representation of what the world thinks, and the world quite often thinks we're doing the wrong thing.  I know that doesn't matter to anyone who voted Republican last fall - them durned for'ners don't know what they're talking about, living in their little grass huts and hating Jesus - but it could become a problem in the future.

 

The UN, simply put, is the best forum for the US to get its world policy message out there - whenever it finds a coherent one.  And like it or not, UN approval does provide a sheen of legitimacy to actions that would not otherwise be there.

Hilarious.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thank you. I was shooting for an element of humor. Notice the clever transformation of 'foreigners' into something the NASCAR crowd can understand.

[213374U]

Yeah, this thread was in dire need of some comic relief. Your post served that purpose just fine.

[Aponez]

Denmark comes in at 52, and the US is what... 55 times our population. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Well, Spain is in post 38, US-345 Spain -258. US - 250.000.000 hab Spain - 42.000.000 We win

[Aponez]

Except when the UN wants troops somewhere, they send us.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Well, I'm a bit old Ender,

[metadigital]

I don't know if you saw the post I made about that a few days ago, I was still in moderated status so it might have been drowned.

 

Anyway, here's the Coalition of the Willing for ya incase you didn't see it, and yes the numbers are strikingly similar to that UN list.  :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...

Canada does not support the invasion of Iraq and is not a Coalition member but has 31 troops in the theatre as part of an exchange program with the United States military.

)

[Walsingham]

I don't agree that unrepresentative automatically makes rubbish.  We were decrying partisan shenanigans just now, and the best examples I know of non-partisan government come from the House of Lords in the UK. It isonly very recently that I've seen any partisan behaviour and that was only from life peers put in by this govt.

How does a voted representative necessarily make him or her partisan? Given that there is one representative for the US, we wouldn't have two representatives bickering over Democratic vs Republican platforms.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm not saying they have to be partisan. I'm merely observing that my experience f non-partisan behaviour comes from an unelected chamber. What's more, while we are not on the subject of the House of Lords, they were the ones who tried to stop this govt implementing detention without trial. Anyway, er...

 

 

Pakistan is indeed a large contributor to the UN. However, you may find that this was an assessment by proportion of total rather than gross.