A speech I'd like to hear at the United Nations.

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
your first 3 points are decidedly non-controversial, especially #3. #4 is the typical blowing iran out of proportion. #7 i am inclined to agree with as well.

Do you happen to remember the sh!t fit the PRC government threw when Bush flubbed a line and made them think we had gone back on our "One China" policy? Of the few remaning major trouble spots in the world that could quickly escalate into a nuclear war, Taiwan is near the top of the list.



As far as the security council goes, it is perhaps time France and Great Britain leave and India and the EU be given seats.

I think there should be one member on the UNSC for each of the major regions, one for Europe, one for Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America, North America, each with rotating seat holders.

I think this would encourage more cooperation between neighbors.

In exchange for that, the US and Japan stop footing the majority of the bill.

Nobody is forcing the US to pay anything. The US pay because the existance of the UN is very beneficial for their foreign policy, economic diplomacy and security policy.

Quote:
Financing
UN offices occupy the majority of this complex, the Vienna International Centre
Enlarge
UN offices occupy the majority of this complex, the Vienna International Centre

The UN is financed in two ways: assessed and voluntary contributions from member states. The regular two-year budgets of the UN and its specialized agencies are funded by assessments. The General Assembly approves the regular budget and determines the assessment for each member. This is broadly based on the relative capacity of each country to pay, as measured by national income statistics, along with other factors.

The Assembly has established the principle that the UN should not be overly dependent on any one member to finance its operations. Thus, there is a 'ceiling' rate, setting the maximum amount any member is assessed for the regular budget. In December 2000, the Assembly revised the scale of assessments to reflect current global circumstances. As part of that revision, the regular budget ceiling was reduced from 25% to 20%. The U.S. is the only member that meets that ceiling, but it is in arrears with hundreds of millions of dollars (see United States and the United Nations). Under the scale of assessments adopted in 2000, other major contributors to the regular UN budget for 2001 are Japan (19.63%), Germany (9.82%), France (6.50%), the UK (5.57%), Italy (5.09%), Canada (2.57%), Spain (2.53%), and Brazil (2.39%).[5]

Special UN programmes not included in the regular budget (such as UNICEF and UNDP) are financed by voluntary contributions from member governments. Some of this is in the form of agricultural commodities donated for afflicted populations, but the majority is financial contributions.

Endquote.


There has been since along time debate at the UN over a proposal that qould fix for every country in the world a AIDs-to-GDP ratio of 1% so that each country would pay a precise and fair share of the bill.
The US were among the harshest critics.

 

[bobdelt]

Originally posted by: ayabe
I agree with most of the stuff in there, except for Israel, speaking from an American perspective, all aid to Israel must stop immediately, all loans must be repaid also, starting today.

For China, I would add a 20% tarriff starting today.

The fate of Israel is the fate of west society. Aid will never be cut off to Israel.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
your first 3 points are decidedly non-controversial, especially #3. #4 is the typical blowing iran out of proportion. #7 i am inclined to agree with as well.

Do you happen to remember the sh!t fit the PRC government threw when Bush flubbed a line and made them think we had gone back on our "One China" policy? Of the few remaning major trouble spots in the world that could quickly escalate into a nuclear war, Taiwan is near the top of the list.



As far as the security council goes, it is perhaps time France and Great Britain leave and India and the EU be given seats.

if anything france and greatbritian should remain and both brazil and india should be invited, and the veto removed in favor of a 2/3rds majority.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Yes his comments are simplistic, but pretty much right on the money on many issues.

Israel is the whipping boy for the UN while they ignore Hamas, Hezbollah etc. At least now Amnesty International and other NGOs are starting to get tougher on the terrorist organizations.

100% right about Iran and Europe. Europe has not been willing to take action against any dictator without the US taking the lead. They got in the way with Saddam and are doing to same with Iran.
Look at the French position on Iran:

The French President said that world powers should abandon the idea of sanctions and in return Iran should agree to give up its programme of uranium enrichment while discussions between the two sides took place.

It is easy for the French to appear as the moderate country try to solve the worlds problems in a peaceful way when they know that if things go wrong the US will be there to bail them out.

If you want to read something interesting, check out the application of the "free rider" problem(see below) onto world security/defense.
Essentially, Europe and other rich countries enjoy the security provided to them by our military force and ability to intervene in world crisis without the burden of paying for it themselves in either money or lives.
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is a perfect example of this. It was our military might that kept Saddam in check and eventually forced him out of Kuwait. Meanwhile, Europe, Japan and China got the benefit of free flowing oil to power their economies. (Yes there was a coalition in this war, but the US provided 550,000 troops, the other 17 countries provided around 200,000 troops many of which did not fight ala Turkey and Saudi Arabia.)

Note: Please do not respond with anything about Bush and the invasion of Iraq etc etc, this was a problem long before Bush took over.

Interesting article about Power and Weakness from Policy Review
Especially the part under The power gap: perception and reality
Power and Weakness

Rather than viewing the collapse of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to flex global muscles, Europeans took it as an opportunity to cash in on a sizable peace dividend. Average European defense budgets gradually fell below 2 percent of gdp. Despite talk of establishing Europe as a global superpower, therefore, European military capabilities steadily fell behind those of the United States throughout the 1990s...

For although Americans looked for a peace dividend, too, and defense budgets declined or remained flat during most of the 1990s, defense spending still remained above 3 percent of gdp.

1% of our GDP is about $124 billion dollars. We now spend about 4% of our GDP on defense.

Free rider problem from Wikipedia

In economics, collective bargaining, and political science, free riders are actors who consume more than their fair share of a resource, or shoulder less than a fair share of the costs of its production. The free rider problem is the question of how to prevent free riding from taking place, or at least limit its negative effects.

Please. Te EU is fully capable of defending itself, with or without "us". You are equating the capablity to wage offensive war with the ability to defends ones borders and demonstrate air and naval superiority, all of which the eu countries are quite capable of doing.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: Martin
People like O'Reilley are also extensively featured on TV, radio and print, so you see why I don't particularly care who he is or what he does, but only what he says.

So what's my beef with what he says? There's a ton of typical rightist bullshit mixed with an huge amount of childish naiveté and ridiculously over-the-top language. Apart from his point on afghanistan everythign he says is unrealistic, ignores numerous facts and would not only not solve any problems, but probably make a much bigger mess of things.

I can go over each particular point and tell you how it fits into the above, but that would be waste of time for me. Based on your posts since you started posting here (on a reglar-ish basis), you're much more interested in being a shill than engaging in any sort of meaningful discussion.

Translation: "MY HEAD IS TOO FAR UP MY RECTAL CAVITY TO ALLOW ME TO HANDLE OPINIONS OTHER THAN MY OWN, SO I'M GOING TO WHINE AND RUN LIKE I DO IN PRETTY MUCH EVERY THREAD I POST IN." I've noticed your habits as well, Martin.

Originally posted by: ntdz
Rich my ass, ME countries are poorer than dirt.

Nah, it just goes to 1% of the population, while the other 99% is fed excuses like, "Uh, America did it! And Jews! And...pirates! Hate them!"

No, the middle east is in fact poorer than dirt. The middleeast has absolutely no productive capacity.

 

[imported_dna]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
If Israel could stop talking land they wouldn't get so much flack from the UN, the conflict there is that the vast majority of nations agree we should respect each others boarders rather than conduct colonial settlement of under cover of military occupation.

Hah! That's a laugh!
If borders would've been respected in 1948 and 1967, then we wouldn't be in this situation today.

Again, I highly recommend watching "We..." as It addresses the ...

It's addresses squat, and you keep pusing this kind of propaganda in order to fool those who don't know better.
This woman obviously knows nothing on the matter, yet goes on stating that sucide bombing is an individual action, while evidence shows that the terror groups have a system setup to create suicide bombers, which is based on promoting the idea of the martyr.
An interesting read is Palestinian Suicide Bombers. There's plenty of more material out there, like at Palestinian Media Watch, videos on YouTube, etc.