Canada finallly says UN does more harm than good and thinking leaving (Representatives, Iran)

[GTOlover]

A lot of hardcore Conservative supporters and UN critics will be very pleased at what Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird had to say at the United Nations on Monday.

Mr. Baird, speaking on the occasion of the UN’s 67th General Assembly, banged a metaphorical shoe on the podium. Specifically, he pointed out the blindingly obvious: the UN doesn’t come close to living up to its own ideals, and hasn’t for years. It needs to stop worrying about internal process issues, he said, and focus on “results.”

Syria, he said, is the test of whether this is possible. And so far, he hasn’t liked what he has seen.
“While [slaughter in Syria continues],” Mr. Baird noted, “the United Nations continues to fail to impose binding sanctions that would stem the crimson tide of this bloody assault.”

But when was the last time that anyone outside the UN seriously believed that it might actually serve a useful function in maintaining global peace? The Cuban Missile Crisis? Perhaps the Yom Kippur War of 1973? Anyone who thinks that the UN actually attempts to be relevant hasn’t been paying attention for the last few genocides.

Will Mr. Baird’s speech make a difference? Not unless Canada is willing to go a lot further than just a tough speech, and maybe not even then.

The UN was a great idea at the end of the Second World War and even well into the Cold War, when superpowers counted effective diplomacy as potent weapons alongside their nuclear arsenals. But it’s become a historical relic since the Soviet Union collapsed 21 years ago. There is simply no reason beyond the weight of its own inertia for it to function in its current guise, where the U.S. and China are equally powerful (equally impotent, really) as has-been great powers like Russia, Britain and France.

Some UN agencies do good work, and many of its wonkier decisions — appointing representatives of despots to human rights agencies comes to mind — are irritating but not particularly dangerous. But when it comes to resolving international crises, the UN is worse than irrelevant. It increasingly does more harm than good. It provides a venue for barbaric regimes to obfuscate and delay, and for the nations (or coalitions) that have the ability to stop the violence with military force to act concerned without actually, you know, doing anything.

Syria is the perfect example. Sanctions haven’t worked. Bombing would be expensive, dangerous and probably just commit the West to one side of an unfolding bloodbath. No thanks. So let’s just talk about it a lot until one side wins.

We’ve seen this all before. Serious men and women will make grave remarks and read grim statements. Meanwhile, the Syrian Air Force will be levelling rebel neighbourhoods. But that’s OK. The UN’s success or failure isn’t measured in lives lost or saved, but the proper observing of diplomatic ritual. And it’s really good at that.
Mr. Baird knows this. It explains why the Tories have largely given up on the UN. It takes a lot of energy but produces very little.

Mr. Baird’s remarks won’t change that. Merely pointing out the UN’s obsession with process over progress isn’t likely to impress those who don’t even feel a sense of urgency about their jobs when thousands are dying violently.

Mr. Baird’s speech is fundamentally right, but is also part of the problem. It’s just words that won’t change anything. It would take something like pulling Canada out of the UN’s daily business to get their attention, if anything can at all. In a perfect world, Canada would show the same kind of courage at the UN as it recently did in Tehran: Pull out the Canadian delegation from the UN until the organization actually takes steps toward reform. Direct Canadian funds directly to worthy humanitarian projects. Skip the bureaucratic middle man.

And who, except for the thousands of helpless civilians caught between warring factions, would ever want that? Diplomats get paid to talk, not solve problems.

“This organization is not a goal; it is merely the means to accomplish goals,” Mr. Baird said on Monday. How right he is. It wasn’t all that long ago that the UN stood for something. Perhaps, one day, it will again. But it will take more than speeches to bring that about, if it can be done at all. The ineffectual status quo works for too many countries, including some of our friends, for any real effort at reform to go very far.
source: Matt Gurney: Increasingly, the UN does more harm than good

[sailordave]

Long over due for good nations to abandon the UN and stop funding this borderline criminal organization. The US government should go further and reject all UN staff's diplomatic immunity, a step that would make the NYPD very happy.

[freightshaker]

Back in the early 60's, my grandfather was a John Bircher. I can remember him telling me why we should get out of the UN. At the time, although he was my grandfather, I thought he was a little nuts. Over the years, I have thought back about those talks, and to my amazement, he was right.

[GTOlover]

Well if We go anyone want to go with us well only close allied Countries that we have long sstanding ties I am think maybe then U.S. the UK, Australia, new Zealand, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Isreal, South korea, Jamaica or any one that we actuallly get along with and have ties with knowing our luck if We walk out North Korea will support us or something.

I mean from League of nation memebers to the U.N. we have been there but if we cut alll aid anf funding to the U.N. I will be happy but if we leave then we should kick over the podium to make a statement and it makes good TV if Canada does it it iks like we are becoming a Rouge nation but in a goodway doing the things the U.S. would like to do but you host the U.N. and are permanent memebers on the security council with Veto power and that might be needed in Case china and Russsia want to block us from international trade and the U.N. proposes sanctions be placed on us someone can veto it.

I mean leaving the U.N. is not leaving NATO or NORAD where things do get done sometimes plus we are always been the precived as the nice guy so maybe we switch up and apdopt a bruce willis die hard attitude where do reallly give a hoot as long as what needs to get done is done and not apologize for saying or doing what everyone things but won't say outlond in the U.N.


Plus John Baird is not quite soft spoken or the toye of guy that thinks before he says something so he gets in alot of trouble up here but he would be fun to watch if our PM let him go at it without firing him with a really good pension.

Heck if we leave this could be fun and is a change from the some old boring same old stuff we all heard for years now. we are not a Country that stirs stuff up but when we do No one listens our cares but we ateast can be entertaining with abd no NHL season even the politicans have to do something so they can fill in for Hockey on Tv time slots.

[freightshaker]

I have bad news.... THe US, will NOT leave the UN... Sadly

[Glitch]

It certainly explains why Democrats support UN participation. If the UN truly does more harm than good, it will have the full backing of liberal freaks. After all, they share the same purpose.

[GTOlover]

Originally Posted by freightshaker

I have bad news.... THe US, will NOT leave the UN... Sadly

well the money we do not spend giving to Countires and leaders that are trying to take down the west we just invest in building the up ther againg infastructure in Canada and the U.S. where we invest in in our own infastructure and but alot billions off dollers to go to American Construction Companies to build New Roads, Power Planets lie real power plants like Nulcear or something viable and Power lines and create jobs for Americans.

It is the least we can do to help in some way and with massive amounts of funds freed up from, UN obligations it makes sense to spend it here in North America were we will see the most benifit and it would be money worth spending where we spend it on ourselfs and frinds for once not a country that wants to blow us up then asks for a couple hundred million to be able to train and arm terroist groups makes no sense.

call it the North America first Building and Reconstrution project

[Earlyretired]

Originally Posted by freightshaker

Back in the early 60's, my grandfather was a John Bircher. I can remember him telling me why we should get out of the UN. At the time, although he was my grandfather, I thought he was a little nuts. Over the years, I have thought back about those talks, and to my amazement, he was right.

Grandpa was right....


The John Birch Society in 1958, Forerunner of the Tea Party Movement? - YouTube

[GTOlover]

Mr. Baird denounced the UN for “endless, fruitless inward-looking exercises,” for “preoccupation with procedure and process” instead of “substance and results.” He excoriated the UN over its failure to confront the civil war in Syria. “While the brutal and repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad continues the slaughter of its own people, the United Nations continues to fail to impose binding sanctions that would stem the crimson tide of this bloody assault,” he declared.

In vowing “to work closely with the United States and other allies to put pressure on Iran to comply with its international nuclear obligations,” Mr. Baird implicitly dismissed any meaningful role for the Security Council in containing the regime. And in condemning “the early and forced marriage of young girls … the criminalization of sexuality” and “suppressing – sometimes suppressing with brutal force – the rights to worship freely” he was indicting many UN member states for failing to honour the principles on which the organization was founded.

In his own foreign-policy speech last week, at a ceremony honouring him as an international statesman, Mr. Harper similarly dismissed “trying to court every dictator with a vote at the United Nations or just going along with every emerging international consensus, no matter how self-evidently wrong-headed.”

Henceforth, he vowed, Canadian foreign policy would take three approaches: to make common cause with democratic allies – “our true friends” – to deal “openly and fairly” with other nations, though “we will not deceive ourselves about those relationships,” and finally “to recognize clear and unequivocal threats” to global security and to speak out against them.

for the first time I am glad we finallly got enough guts to speak out on our own with oout thedoing ti with the U.S. or the The UK because this is the first time we have not had you guys lead and we just follow we finallly decided to be lead if we need to lead if things are getting way to out of hand and we found our voice.

I guess John Bull and Uncle Sam should be proud of cousin Johnnny Cannuck we are Finallly growing up to be true middle power even though by defination we already were one.

we missed the one part of being able to stand for our selfs and not just take the easy way and follow beause it is hard to lead since it means taking the blame and the Risks if it fails it is all on us.

in case you do not know who Johnny Canuck is to understand why we are the younger cousin to John Bull and Uncle Sam well then Learn about the close WW2 westen allied forces and Read this because the start of our true friendship was forged in battle during WW2 where we learned who or true alies were and if SHTF who would be there to lay it on the line and after WW2 the U.N. was founded out of it which is a big deal if we leave because Leaving the thing you halped create with fellow allies because what it was made for has been Hijacked into allowing we orginally were trying to prevent from taking place has now taken over and has more power and influece then we do now.
Johnny Canuck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Stiggie]

There is a reason why reform, of the political side of the UN system, has been called for the past 20 years. But does Mr. Baird also realise that the UN is more than just the Security Council? What will he do about UNICEF, WHO, UNHCR, or WFP? just to take a few!