blatham wrote:foxfyre
We, you nor I, have any dependable means to measure the efficiency or effectiveness of the UN mission in Lebanon. But nor are we any more able to measure the effectiveness or efficiency of the CIA office in Mozambique. You simply trust one and mistrust the other, on faith.
Quote:I definitely have a HUGE pet peeve re the UN. I believe it to be an enormous, mostly ineffetive, mostly corrupt organization that is dominated by those who utilize it for their own self interests.
Again, what warrants you in making this supposition? You preface with "I believe" but your prejudicial view is clear in what you believe. How can you say "mostly corrupt"? Secretaries here in New York? Finnish students working in Africa dong volunteer work for the UN? American employees working around the world?
And which state, over the last fifty years, has wielded more influence and control over the UN than the US?
In any case, I don't think we can discuss this matter to any further gain.
I think if the USA wielded anywhere near as much power over the UN as you assign to it, the USA would get its way a hell of a lot more often than it does. As it is, the requests/wishes/hopes/beggings of the USA are rewarded quite rarely. We're not talking about 50 years ago. We're talking about now. Today. The last five years. Recently.
I don't think we can reasonably go around judging either people or nations by what they once were or what they used to do or what we imagine them to be. I think the only way we can honorably judge anything is by what it is now which is mostly judged by what the person or organization or entity or nations does/is doing now.
Any other approach does not allow for learning, new insights, change of heart, growth, becoming better - or worse as the case may be. If we must judge everything by what happened up to 50 or 60 years ago or so, Germany, Italy, and Japan would still be sworn enemies of the USA et al. Iron country countries would still be judged by that parameter. I think honorable judgment must allow for corrections of bad policy and practices and also adoption of new bad policy and practices.
This whole area of discussion came up when some accused Israel of deliberately or wantonly targeting those poor UN workers who were killed in Lebanon. There is room to debate whether Israel over reacts and whether Israel's practices are disproportional to a reasonable defense. But I think that debate must also include the recent times in which Israel has demonstrated great restraint. And as the evidence seems reasonably clear to me that Israel is not a terrorist nation and does not deal in terrorist tactics, I thought accusations that Israel deliberately targeted the UN workers to be both hateful and repugnant.
And that led to a broader discussion of what the UN's role in Lebanon actually was other than in some quite broad and quite vague terms and whether it was reasonable and/or necessary for them to have stayed there after hostilities started. And, if the UN was actually protecting Hezbollah, a fact that has in no way been proved, we deserve the truth of that information too.
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