Should The United Nations Have Its Own Military?

[Nono]

Originally posted by Texans 4 Furors The United States of America: the last vestige of freedom

Source please.

[Texans 4 Furors]

What we are doing right now is a pretty good source I think...

[rmnunez]

There are plenty of governments which afford their citizens greater guarantees of individual freedom than the US.

[Melvyn]

Originally posted by fedfem, While many seem to believe the UN has become irrelevent, I disagree. I think it is feasible and especially with the recent bullying and rhetoric, important to have a international watchdog. Who else can prevent and prosecute those who break International Law? Opinions?

A long time ago, I might have agreed, but the U.N. has failed so often that it would be tragic to give them military power. A lot of people think they were right about not going into Iraq and I won't argue that point. But, their neglect of the Balkans, their failure in Rowanda and their curent failure in the Sudan to say nothing of the obvious corruption in the Iraqi oil for food program make it clear that they are a body that can't be trusted with the role of world policeman.

Melvyn - Blogging at http://radio.weblogs.com/0137954/

[Nono]

Jeez, Melvyn, you speak as if the UN had the slightest speck of actual power, as if it weren't totally dependent on its members -- in particular those of the Security Council hint hint -- for everything that it does or doesn't do.

Blaming the UN for doing or not doing this or that is like blaming Santa Claus for the fact that your kid didn't receive a certain Christmas gift.

[Nono]

Originally posted by rmnunez There are plenty of governments which afford their citizens greater guarantees of individual freedom than the US.

Yes, (most) Americans have this fairy-tale view of their country as a unique fount of libertry. Yet they can't even guarantee a transparent, one-man-one-vote election. Etc.

[Mr.Vicchio]

Originally posted by Nono,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Nono,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-rmnunez There are plenty of governments which afford their citizens greater guarantees of individual freedom than the US.

Yes, (most) Americans have this fairy-tale view of their country as a unique fount of libertry. Yet they can't even guarantee a transparent, one-man-one-vote election. Etc.[/b][/quote]


Gee Nono, you think maybe that might be due to the fact America is not a Democracy?


Damn, what a concept, it helps to understand America's governmental system before making such remarks.

America, for those not knowing, is a Representative Republic.

Has been, and always will be.

[Nono]

Originally posted by Vic Damn, what a concept, it helps to understand America's governmental system before making such remarks. America, for those not knowing, is a Representative Republic. Has been, and always will be.

Thanks for reassuring me, Mr.V. I'm touched by your steadfast faith.
The problem is that ever fewer of us take you seriously as a real democracy. No kidding. A growing number of people -- including many, many Americans -- would replace "Representative" by "Banana".

You think that's an outrageous, impudent slur. But that just shows how little you know about how the way perfectly transparent elections are regularly held in other countries. I'm sorry* to say it, but they put your elections to shame.

* Please believe that I'm perfectly sincere in my use of that word.

[Mr.Vicchio]

Thats cause, you guys are... just ignorant as to how America works and why our founding fathers rejected "democracy".


You think you know whats going on, but you are very wrong.

[Osborn F Enready]

As are you Mr Vic. Hmmm.

Could you show me where we departed the "Constitutionally Limited, Democratic Republic" and became a "Representative Republic"?

It doesn't matter, because we are neither now.

He is quite right when he says democracy, as the peoples concerns are at the bottom of the representatives list. They are too busy promoting partisan agendas, raising campaign dollars, vacationing, doing guest spots on talk shows and consumed with "pork barrel politics".

They days of public representation, fair elections, and liberty and justice are quiclky becoming long gone.

[rmnunez]

Is the system of government in the US best described as:

a. "Constitutionally Limited, Democratic Republic"

b. "Representative Republic"

c. "Democratic Republic"

d. "Peoples Republic"

(or)

e. "Banana Republic"?

[PatrickHenry]

More like an Empire with the Emperor having to please public opinion in order to ride the tiger.

I hope things backfire on the present Emperor.

It is not a republic any longer. If the government has operated under a declared State of Emergency for seventy-one years, the republic we learned about in civis class is long gone. Welcome to the Age of US Empire...

http://www.barefootsworld.net/war_ep1.html

Text of the official document, Senate Report 93-549

Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency... These proclamations give force to 470 provisions of Federal law. These hundreds of statutes delegate to the President extraordinary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Congress, which affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing manners. This vast range of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal Constitutional processes. Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens. .. A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule. For [seventy one] years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency. The problem of how a constitutional democracy reacts to great crises, however, far antedates the Great Depression. As a philosophical issue, its origins reach back to the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. And, in the United States, actions taken by the Government in times of great crises have-from, at least, the Civil War-in important ways, shaped the present phenomenon of a [SIZE=2]permanent state of national emergency.[/SIZE]

[rmnunez]

PH, it is a bit of an exageration to say the US has operated under some sort of state of emergency since 1933. Hundreds of statutes have apparently been enacted to enhance presidential powers to address specific 'emergencies', but these have rarely been successfully applied. See the Youngstown Sheet and Tube case to find out what happened when the president was upset union troubles at the plant would interfere with aircraft production deadlines during the Korean war and sought to use those emergency powers -his argument didn't carry and that was in the 50s.

[Osborn F Enready]

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
-James Madison, Federalist Papers #47

The fact is quite plan and simple Mr. Munez. Executive Orders are another term for a Presidents version of a Kings proclamation. This has been in effect, by signature of each successive president since 1933. This act alone is treasonous, and against the Constitution in every facet of its being. The whole purpose of checks and balances, and the multiple branches of government, was TO PREVENT THIS VERY THING, so to say it is anything other than treason, is purely illogical.

The New Deal, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and the Executive Order "PRIVLIDGE" all occurred at the same time, and were noble in concept, but not in design or execution. All of the above I just listed, are responsible for the majority of corruption and problems we see in our society, and that is for one simple reason alone. It showed that the people had lost sight of liberty for long enough to actually ALLOW A CHANGE from the constitution without revolt. It was not legal, nor was it voted in by the people, but it still happened, only because the "majority" of people had no concept of the consequences of this power being given indefinitely.

It was wrong, is wrong, and will eventually by legislation, redress of grievances, constitutional convention, or by revolution will be changed BACK to the way it was intended to be.

You cannot deny the fact that each President has to sign the "DECLARATION" to keep his executive order PRIVLIDGE, therefore you cannot deny that the problem is real, and not simple (conspiracy theory). The reason they all have kept it, is because the bi-partisan group that conspired to create it, have held the same offices since its inception, and it is the greatest tool to use to enable the bi-partisan effort to maintain control of the media, the corporate intrests, the monetary outlay, and the control of the police and military for their own agendas mutually.
Over the last 154 years, the bi-partisan agreement has allowed all appointments, virtually all elected seats, and all agencies created since the New Deal to be strictly under majority bi-partisan hands.

This is unconstitutional, and the underlying problem to our entire system. Hypocrisy.

[Sonart]

I hope no one minds, but I'm going to cut & paste my own post from the 'UN Nonsense' thread. It seems appropriate...

...the UN can never be a legimate arbitor without having a legitimate enforcement capability, but the only power on earth with the true capability for enforcement against any nation tougher than Barbados is the U.S. military. Who remembers that in Somalia, 24 Pakistani peacekeepers were slaughtered by Aidides thugs, forcing the U.S. to take a tougher stance, leading to Black Hawk Down? Anyone?

Yet the U.S. refuses to allow our military to serve under UN authority. And if you don't believe our military should be under UN authority, then you can't complain about the UN being toothless, because only we can give it teeth. This is why the UN in the Balkans was so feckless. France, the Netherlands, Norway may all have militaries modern enough and capable enough to defends themselves, but they were facing an equally modern and hardened Serbian military who could put up a serious fight. So rather than confront the Serbs, with potentially disastrous results, the UN Bluehats chose to be doggedly neutral peacekeepers with little real military capability. Hence we have 4 Dutch troops on trial at the Hague for failing to intervene in the presence of Serb atrocities.

Yet once the U.S. gave in to Europes pitiful begging, our military was able to end the conflicts in both Bosnia and Kosovo in fairly short order, with no losses. And forced regime change to boot, with Molosevic being tossed out of office and into a war crimes court.

We can never allow our military to serve under the UN, certainly never until the U.S. itself submits to the authority of the UN by submitting to UN resolutions, no matter how onerous they may seem, or more to the point, how onerous they may be to our allies, like Israel. And the U.S. is much too full of ourselves to allow that.

[rmnunez]

There are ways to work around this. We could have the US military under the command of their own officers reporting to a US general in the UN's unified military command. How orders emanate from the top is a different problem. I'd imagine the Secretary General would make a deal with the US president on what the mission was, what objectives could or should be attacked and how they would need to go about it. The UN does have something like this already in place for the peacekeeping operations, they coordinate multinational operations with dozens of nationalities involved.

[Osborn F Enready]

RMnunez. Does the RM stand for your rate as a Radioman? Just curious.

As to your reply, you say this:
There are ways to work around this.

I say:
As if globalism, unified government, or de-constitutionalization was a goal of ours?

You assume the will of the people is along with this plan, and I beg to differ. This has never been questioned, or voted on. The "representatives" have no way to base an opinion on something they have never officially polled the public on.

Why is it more important to put a smoking ban up for vote on the ballot then where my compatriots kids, spouses or friends go to war, and for what purpose?

The whole point is, our system of government can be run effectively, within budget, and still provide all of its mighty claims as well as the security this nation deserves, IT JUST HAS TO START USING IT by re-instituting the Constitution in full.

[rmnunez]

Osborn, you have your own pet peeve, its consitutionalism or big government. That issue is quite apart from the question of whether the UN could have or should have its own military force.

The UN certainly could have one if its members so desired. I'm sure they could even manage to create the fiction of a standing army of some sort, in fact they had a unified military command structure set up when the Cold War emerged and this all went out the window.

In practice its a problem because armed forces don't heed well foreign orders, nobody wants their boys in harm's way under some foreigner's command. To get around this what they do is use the contributing government's own command structure. If many countries are involved they use discrete units with their own command structures, try and pair countries with close ties, cultural similarities and same military set ups to assemble joint commands of their own. It works pretty well in peacekeeping which usually doesn't involve a lot of action or casualties.

The US is the strongest military power out there and if we were positing a UN military capable of enforcing its resolutions by force, then we're talking about the gringoes doing the job. For the US to become the UN's fighting arm would mean there would have to be some rather radical changes in the UN. I'd anticipate, in addition to arrangements for the military command to respond to the Secretary General's orders, we'd need to create some sort of UN Military Commander (an American of course) who would have to participate with the Secretary General in developing those orders which would necessarily have to be approved by the US president.

Otherwise its impossible, long before the UN acquired a military force capable of enforcing its resolutions even against the US, that military would be confronted and eliminated as a threat (it would be easy since the Americans would be paying 25% of its costs).

[castille]

The only problem is, Africa and Asia would be the losing sides in the whole UN deal.

The permanent security council consists of 3 European powers and 1 US powers, and 1 Asian power. None from Africa. This essentially means that Africa will remain a helpless puppet of the West.

But if you strip permanent powers from the 5 nations, then they will not be happy, and seeing how they are some of the most powerful nations in the world, it will be bad news for the UN.

Funny how politics is so complex, eh? Try to simply it, and you get genocide.

[Osborn F Enready]

Which is why I will never support the U.N. along the lines they now espouse.

We take care of our own nation FIRST, and then we can deal with organizations like the U.N. We can only chase corruption in so many places at one time, and this government has plenty for us to sort out right now.

The U.N., in my opinion, should never have access to control of U.S. troops, period.