3 questions about the UN.

[longboneslinger]

Question 1- What, exactly, is the UN good for?
The civil war in the Sudan has ben raging for over 2o years off and on with millions killed, wounded and their homes destroyed. Over 350,000 Christians (Black Christians-where is Jesse 'Praise the Lord' Jackson on this one??) have been killed by the Muslims. Most of these caualties are civilians. This is not an attack on Muslims, just fact. The UN proposes 'sanctions'. WTF?

Question 2-Have the Muslim nations taken the fore in the UN?
Power seems to be shifting into the hands of the Muslim nations. Any attack from Muslim nations seems to be overlooked while Christian nations like the US are ballyhooed as 'agressive' and 'warlike'.

Question 3-Should non-Muslim nations still support the UN?
Perhaps sanctions should be imposed on the UN. Sanity badly needs to be restored to this world body.

Want more info on the Sudan? Try these links:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134816,00.html
http://www.canada.com/news/world/sto...1-89aa246da941

[ahctlucabbuS]

First of all, you can't refer to fox news for information

[Biggles]

Lonebone

The UN has many components. There are UN missions all round the world supplying relief in disaster areas, providing health and education support to poor communities and providing peacekeeping troops in numerous troublespots.

However, it is not a political party or a country - and member countries do not cede sovereignty to it. It is simply the pooled resources of all the world's nations. Consequently, it reflects the diverse views of all its member nations.

In addition to this it is a forum for all the world nations to get together to resolve differences without recourse to war as the first option.

The biggest drag on the UN doing anything is the veto. No matter what the majority one veto will stop any forward movement. The UN cannot pass any resolutions regarding Israel because the US always vetos them. Likewise, the UN cannot pass any resolutions about Taiwan because China would use her veto and so on.

I am all for giving the UN teeth. Remove the vetos and let the resolutions be binding.

The other options are to leave it as it is (for there are a great many unsung UN workers who do a good job on essential if unexciting tasks) or to disband it and let it be every man for himself (except it wouldn't be - the world would immediately go into a frenzy of treaty building the like of which resulted in WW1) The big powers love their vetos and don't want lots of complicated treaties - so my guess is that there will little or no change in the foreseeable future. In truth the UN is an organisations politicians love to hate because they can blame it for all the problems without it having any avenue to defend itself - indeed, it is arguable that it sees no need to defend itself, knowing that it is all talk for domestic consumption and that behind closed doors the real talking takes place.

Sudan has been a big issue for many years and has been reported in depth through serious news outlets for as long. I am as baffled as you as to why it is taken so long for anyone in political circles to take notice. To be fair to the UN they were active before any of the national politicians started to take up the refrain. African wars do not (for whatever reason) seem to command a great deal of interest.