Opinion of the United Nations

[Insula Dei]

I'm not sure who's brilliant idea it was to invite dictators and enemies of the United States into the United States...but it's not an idea I support.

HO.

Did people on here really fight to have you back?

[Insula Dei]

Horrible organization of course, but better than nothing.

Seems about right, yes.

[Insula Dei]

@Gustaf: From what I'm hearing, I would say that NGO's can be way less effective than UN organisations. This appearantly has to do with the general competence of those involved and the fact that the UN has more levers to pull when trying to get things done. I remember anecdotes about NGO's refusing UN protection in order to appear neutral and winding up paying large-ish amounts of money to local militia's, who would often be not trustworthy at all.

In addition to that, I suppose the UN is less 'trend'-concious than NGO's and makes sure that aid generally gets where it needs to be, rather than where the television camera's are.

Really, replacing the UN's humanitarian programmes with better funded NGO's, doesn't seem much different from replacing social security with charities to me.

[Insula Dei]

So why doesn't Israel do "whatever the hell it wants" if it has the US protecting it? 

It pretty much does. I can't think of any instance where Israel had to restrain itself out of fear for a UN intervention, can you?

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The high number of USSR vetoes might have to do with the facts that a) the UN as a whole was dominated almost entirely by the West and its allies untill the great decolonisation waves made the numerical balance of power shift towards the Third World. A fact the US was quite adept at exploiting, as evidenced by the way they played the institution during the Korea War, and b) the USSR was completely on its own in the SC well into the '70s, as Taiwan had the Chinese seat in that council and wouldn't give it up untill, what, the Shanghai Communiqué (?) (Honestly can't remember, I suppose it must have been then.)

[Insula Dei]

So why doesn't Israel do "whatever the hell it wants" if it has the US protecting it?

It pretty much does. I can't think of any instance where Israel had to restrain itself out of fear for a UN intervention, can you?

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But then that's like saying that Israel can't do what it wants becaus it can't colonise the moon. Some things are just impossible. In modern politics the genocide, which used to be a helpfull resource, has become a form of political suicide. No country on earth (and certainly not those in the West's sphere of influence) could easily get away with a direct massacre of a specific ethnical group.