From: bitn@quads.uchicago.edu (nathan elery bitner)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna,soc.culture.arabic,soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Mr. Ghaly is the right man in the right place.
Date: 8 Jan 93 23:31:01 GMT
Reply-To: bitn@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago

>> In article <1993Jan5.143225@IASTATE.EDU> jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed Ahmed Khan)
>writes:
>
>
>What is the sense in keeping the UN alive just to humour the US, the Brits,
>France etc.? The UN has been used to maintain the superiority of the west in
>many respects. The US paying such a huge chunk of the UN budget is used to
>manipulate the UN agenda to its wishes making a mockery of the claim of the
>"independence and fair paly" aspect of its charter.
>
>See what happened in the Gulf War. Even now when the "Allied" forces gave an
>ultimatum to Iraq to remove the missiles, they say implementing the UN
>resolutions is paramount and are willing to risk the lives of their "sons and
>daughters" to destroy Saddam. But they also say that if the UN security council
>does not pass a resolution to bomb Iraq (because of a veto by one of 
>the permanent members like China or Russia) they would go ahead in any case.
>The UN may be dammed as far as they are concerned in that case.
>
>
>
	I was not defending the clearly western bias of the United Nations;
I was merely pointing out the impracticality of your proposals.  Money
makes the world go 'round.  The U.S. obviously has a disproportionate
amount of influence with regards to the spirit of the UN Charter.  Without
an effective Security Council (and to be effective, it must have the 
support of the United States), you might as well call the UN the Useless
Nations.  Not that it's any great source of power now.  The UN Charter is
out of date.  Ghali is using it to defend the UN's weak-kneed policies towards
BiH.  So what you have to decide is whether you want the UN to have teeth
or not.  I believe the UN should throw out its charter and give itself far
more power to intervene in situations such as BiH and to be able to take
substantial preventative measures as well where situations require them.
I strongly support the policies taken towards Iraq by the UN, whether or not
they were influenced by U.S. pressure (which of course they were).  It 
showed that the UN *will* support the use of force where its required.  And
if the UN wasn't going to, then I think the U.S. would have been right to
say "screw you, we're going to do something anyway."  All the UN has been
with regards to Bosnia-Hercegovina is a bunch of pansies sitting on high
condemning atrocities.  That's all they usually ever do.  So I say, as an
American:  "UN:  Screw you.  If you are going to continue your weak-kneed
policies towards BiH, then we will work around you.  What are you going to
do about it?  We pay you enough money to keep you afloat.  You continue
to ignore one of the worst crimes of the twentieth century.  Desperate times
call for desperate measures, and we are prepared to take them if you are not.
Let them call us imperialist, interventionist, capitalist pigs.  I don't care;
this must stop.  Let them say that this undermines the credibility of the
UN.  If you ask me, they never had any anyway.  Meanwhile, you can go draft
your zillionth resolution condemning the Israelis or something.  Keep yourself
occupied -- something might actually get done."
	The U.S. should have done it while the war was still in Croatia.
	So decide -- Useless Nations or "teeth" in the form of a mostly
western military.  Being an American and obviously biased, I'll take the
latter.  The time for condemnations ended long ago.

*-Nathan-*

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