OBL says don´t vote bush. the enemy of my enemy...

Reading comprehension is your friend....Try it.

I guess Bush wants OBL to die of old age.

All the Bush supporters I know are voting for the President because they are "scared." Fucking pussies.

Kirk.... Kirk this.... Cant be true.... Too many... Bush oil connections... The.. Cpt..... lIES!

...i can´t understand why all you kerry zombies are standing behind a man who needs permission from an anti-american organization such as the united nations to defend american´s from radical assholes that don´t want to co-exist with the usa but want to only to kill us all???...

...sorry for the run on sentence...i just no comprendo...

He also said that if a state goes to Bush, it is subject to attack, if you vote for Kerry, you have made peace with his security, thus ensuring yours....

the shit could hit the fan tomorrow night, once the states make final reports

[link to www.nypost.com]

United Nations.. All nations together united.. Damn them wanting peace!

>man who needs permission from an anti-american organization such as the united nations to defend american´s from radical assholes

That is what you want John Kerry to be. This election would not be as close if he believed or said that. He hasn´t.

...yeah, 808 the united nations wants a "piece" of the united states...the un is nothing but a gang of thieves and anti-american cutthroats, and those are its good points...

"He also said that if a state goes to Bush, it is subject to attack, if you vote for Kerry, you have made peace with his security, thus ensuring yours...."


Did he really say that? I gotta get out more.

And you´re a dope.

No, he did not.

Scotty, Beam this dumb mutherfucker up.

Capt. Kirk
11/1/2004
8:11 pm EST


Paranoia will destroy ya

Step off---this is Hegelian dialectic at its MOST convoluted.
FUCK YOU.
I want a MOTHERFUCKER WHO KNOWS HOW TO FIGHT.
BUSH IS A FUCKING CHEERLEADER.

Amen.

AC 812.

Yes he did say that. There is a thread on here that has the actual transript of his speech, the very last part of it clearly states that each state must decide their security by voting for or against OBL and his fellow terrorists security.

It has also been discussed on several of the news programs that are extremely anti-bush.

Exactly, OP.

That is why I´m voting BUSH!!!!

...not paranoid 8:17...there "are" radial assholes out to get american´s...really...if you don´t believe me take a ride to the "twin towers" in new york...oh, wait a minute, its not there anymore...must be my paranoia...

I see the polictical blood dancers are out in force tonight.

Dance Dance Dance

""There is a thread on here that has the actual transript of his speech, the very last part of it clearly states that each state must decide their security by voting for or against OBL and his fellow terrorists security.""



you sir are an abject moron that must have less than a 3rd grade reading comprehension level, hell, you could have even c/p´d it but no, you wanted to lie and be a disinformationist.

Tell me where in this he said that.

[link to english.aljazeera.net]

Full transcript of bin Ladin´s speech

Monday 01 November 2004, 16:01 Makka Time, 13:01 GMT
Bin Ladin directed his message at the American people

Following is the ull English transcript of Usama bin Ladin´s speech in a videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.

-------------------------------------------

Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:

Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush´s claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him explain to us why we don´t strike for example – Sweden?

And we know that freedom-haters don´t possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 – may Allah have mercy on them.

No, we fight because we are free men who don´t sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.

No-one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.

But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.

So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.

I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorized and displaced.

I couldn´t forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.

The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn´t include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn´t respond.

In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.

And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.

This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr. did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children – also in Iraq – as Bush Jr. Did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq´s oil and other outrages.

So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?

Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.

This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.

And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.

You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.

The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at The White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?

If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead America to the security that it was in before September 11th. This concerned the causes of the war.

As for it´s results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief amongst them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.

Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterized by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr. to the region.

At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.

So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretense of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn´t forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region´s presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two Mujahideen to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the Mujahideen, bled Russia for ten years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinizes the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.

Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations – whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction – has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.

And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.

And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. (When they pointed out that) for example, al-Qaida spent $500 000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost – according to the lowest estimate – more than 500 billion dollars.

Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.

As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahideen recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the blee-until-bankruptcy plan – with Allah´s permission.

It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Haliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is...you.

It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within twenty minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.

It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would abandon 50 000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.

But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers. We were given three times the period required to execute the operations – All Praise is Due to Allah.

And it´s no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him, "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction – assuming they exist – is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."

But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.

So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying, "Like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth"

So I say to you, over 15 000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10 000 injured. And Bush´s hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.

Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.

And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorize the women and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.

Finally, it behooves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.

Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say, "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision." It is as if they were telling you, the people of America, "Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others´ mistakes," And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry, "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."

As has been said, "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

And know that, "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn´t squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.

In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida.

No.

Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn´t play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All Peace be Upon he who follows the Guidance.

...not paranoid 8:17...there "are" radial assholes out to get american´s...really...if you don´t believe me take a ride to the "twin towers" in new york...oh, wait a minute, its not there anymore...must be my paranoia...


Encyclopedia: United Nations
Sponsored links:

]] The United Nations, or UN, is an international organization made up of states. Almost all countries are members. It was founded on October 24, 1945 in San Francisco, California, following the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC, but the first General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, was not held until January 10, 1946 (held in Church House, London). From 1919 to 1946, there existed a somewhat similar organization under the name of League of Nations, which can be considered the UN´s precursor. UN membership is open to all "peace-loving states" that accept the obligations of the UN Charter and, in the judgment of the organization, are able and willing to fulfill these obligations. The General Assembly determines admission upon recommendation of the Security Council. As of April 2004 there were 191 members; see United Nations member states.


Background and history
The idea for the United Nations was elaborated in declarations signed at the wartime Allied conferences in Moscow and Tehran in 1943. United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt suggested the name "United Nations" and the first official use of the term occurred on January 1, 1942 with the Declaration by the United Nations. During World War II, the Allies used the term "United Nations" to refer to their alliance. From August to October 1944, representatives of France, the Republic of China (now on Taiwan), the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR met to elaborate the plans at the Dumbarton Oaks Estate in Washington, D.C. Those and later talks produced proposals outlining the purposes of the organization, its membership and organs, as well as arrangements to maintain international peace and security and international economic and social cooperation. These proposals were discussed and debated by governments and private citizens worldwide.

New York City"> On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organizations began in San Francisco. In addition to the Governments, a number of non-government organisations, including Lions Clubs International were invited to assist in the drafting of the charter. The 50 nations represented at the conference signed the Charter of the United Nations two months later on June 26. Poland, which was not represented at the conference, but for which a place among the original signatories had been reserved, added its name later, bringing the total of original signatories to 51. The UN came into existence on October 24, 1945, after the Charter had been ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council — Republic of China, France, USSR, United Kingdom, and the United States — and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.

The United States Senate, by a vote of 89 to 2, gave its consent to the ratification of the UN Charter on July 28, 1945. In December 1945, the Senate and the House of Representatives, by unanimous votes, requested that the UN make its headquarters in the United States. The offer was accepted and the United Nations headquarters building was constructed in New York City in 1949 and 1950 beside the East River on land purchased by an 8.5 million dollar donation from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. UN headquarters officially opened on January 9, 1951. Under special agreement with the United States, certain diplomatic privileges and immunities have been granted, but generally the laws of New York City, New York State, and the United States apply.

While the principal headquarters of the UN are in New York, there are major agencies located in Geneva in Switzerland, The Hague in The Netherlands, Vienna in Austria and elsewhere.

]] On October 25, 1971, UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 was passed by the General Assembly, replacing the government of the Republic of China with the government of the People´s Republic of China as the only "lawful" and "legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations" and as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Multiple attempts by the Republic of China on Taiwan to re-join the UN have never passed committee. (For more on the issue of Taiwan, see China and the United Nations.) The founders of the UN had high hopes that it would act to prevent conflicts between nations and make future wars impossible. Those hopes have obviously not been fully realised. From about 1947 until 1991 the division of the world into hostile camps during the Cold War made agreement on peacekeeping matters extremely difficult. Following the end of the Cold War, there were renewed calls for the UN to become the agency for achieving world peace and co-operation, as several dozen active military conflicts continue to rage around the globe. The breakup of the Soviet Union has also left the United States in a unique position of global dominance, creating a variety of new problems for the UN (See the United States and the United Nations).


Arms control and disarmament
The 1945 UN Charter envisaged a system of regulation that would ensure "the least diversion for armaments of the world´s human and economic resources." The advent of nuclear weapons came only weeks after the signing of the Charter and provided immediate impetus to concepts of arms limitation and disarmament. In fact, the first resolution of the first meeting of the UN General Assembly (January 24, 1946) was entitled "The Establishment of a Commission to Deal with the Problems Raised by the Discovery of Atomic Energy" and called upon the commission to make specific proposals for "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction." The UN has established several forums to address multilateral disarmament issues. The principal ones are the First Committee of the General Assembly and the UN Disarmament Commission. Items on the agenda include consideration of the possible merits of a nuclear test ban, outer-space arms control, efforts to ban chemical weapons, nuclear and conventional disarmament, nuclear-weapon-free zones, reduction of military budgets, and measures to strengthen international security.

The Conference on Disarmament is the sole forum established by the international community for the negotiation of multilateral arms control and disarmament agreements. It has 66 members representing all areas of the world, including the five major nuclear-weapon states (the People´s Republic of China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States). While the conference is not formally a UN organization, it is linked to the UN through a personal representative of the Secretary-General; this representative serves as the secretary general of the conference. Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly often request the conference to consider specific disarmament matters. In turn, the conference annually reports on its activities to the General Assembly.


Peace-keeping
UN peace operations are funded by assessments, using a formula derived from the regular scale, but including a surcharge for the five permanent members of the Security Council (who must approve all peacekeeping operations); this surcharge serves to offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries.

In December 2000, the UN revised the assessment rate scale for the regular budget and for peacekeeping. The peacekeeping scale is designed to be revised every six months and is projected to be near 27% in 2003. The United States intends to pay peacekeeping assessments at these lower rates and has sought legislation from the United States Congress to allow payment at these rates and to make payments towards arrears.

Total UN peacekeeping expenses peaked between 1994 and 1995; at the end of 1995 the total cost was just over $3.5 billion. Total UN peacekeeping costs for 2000, including operations funded from the UN regular budget as well as the peacekeeping budget, were on the order of $2.2 billion.

The UN Peace-Keeping Forces received the 1988 Nobel Prize for Peace.


Human rights
The pursuit of human rights was one of the central reasons for creating the United Nations. World War II atrocities and genocide led to a ready consensus that the new organization must work to prevent any similar tragedies in the future. An early objective was creating a legal framework for considering and acting on complaints about human rights violations.

The UN Charter obliges all member nations to promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights" and to take "joint and separate action" to that end. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though not legally binding, was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 as a common standard of achievement for all. The General Assembly regularly takes up human rights issues. The UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), under ECOSOC, is the primary UN body charged with promoting human rights, primarily through investigations and offers of technical assistance. As discussed, the High Commissioner for Human Rights is the official principally responsible for all UN human rights activities (see, under "The UN Family," the section on "Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights").

The United Nations and its various agencies are central in upholding and implementing the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A case in point is support by the United Nations for countries in transition to democracy. Technical assistance in providing free and fair elections, improving judicial structures, drafting constitutions, training human rights officials, and transforming armed movements into political parties have contributed significantly to democratization worldwide.

The United Nations is also a forum in which to support the right of women to participate fully in the political, economic, and social life of their countries.

See also: United Nations Convention on the Abolition of Slavery


United Nations System
Main article: United Nations System

The United Nations System has six principal organs:
UN General Assembly
UN Security Council
UN Economic and Social Council
UN Trusteeship Council
UN Secretariat
International Court of Justice

For more information on the organizational structure see the main article.


International conferences
Kofi Annan, from Ghana.]] The member countries of the UN and its specialized agencies — the "stakeholders" of the system — give guidance and make decisions on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout each year. Governing bodies made up of member states include not only the General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, and the Security Council, but also counterpart bodies dealing with the governance of all other UN system agencies. For example, the World Health Assembly and the Executive Board oversee the work of WHO. Each year, the United States Department of State accredits United States delegations to more than 600 meetings of governing bodies.

When an issue is considered particularly important, the General Assembly may convene an international conference to focus global attention and build a consensus for consolidated action. High-level United States delegations use these opportunities to promote United States policy viewpoints and develop international agreements on future activities. Recent examples include:
The UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992, led to the creation of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development to advance the conclusions reached in Agenda 21, the final text of agreements negotiated by governments at UNCED;
The World Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo, Egypt, in September 1994, approved a program of action to address the critical challenges and interrelationships between population and sustainable development over the next 20 years;
The World Summit on Trade Efficiency, held in October 1994 in Columbus, Ohio, cosponsored by UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the city of Columbus, and private-sector business, focused on the use of modern information technology to expand international trade;
The World Summit for Social Development, held in March 1995 in Copenhagen, Denmark, underscored national responsibility for sustainable development and secured high-level commitment to plans that invest in basic education, health care, and economic opportunity for all, including women and girls;
The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China, in September 1995, sought to accelerate implementation of the historic agreements reached at the Third World Conference on Women held in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985; and
The Second UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), convened in June 1996 in Istanbul, Turkey, considered the challenges of human settlement development and management in the 21st century.


Financing
The UN system 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. In the case of the UN, 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 agreed to revise the scale of assessments to make them better reflect current global circumstances.

As part of that agreement, the regular budget ceiling was reduced from 25 to 22 percent; this is the rate at which the United States is assessed. The United States is the only member that is assessed this rate, though it is in arrears hundreds of millions of dollars;(see also United States and the United Nations) all other members´ assessment rates are lower. 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 U.K. (5.57%), Italy (5.09%), Canada (2.57%) and Spain (2.53%).

Special UN programs not included in the regular budget (such as UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, and WFP) are financed by voluntary contributions from member governments. In 2001, it is estimated that such contributions from the United States will total approximately $1.5 billion. Much of this is in the form of agricultural commodities donated for afflicted populations, but the majority is financial contributions.


Communications
The six official languages of the United Nations include those of the founding nations: Chinese, English, French, Russian. In addition, two widely spoken tongues -- Arabic and Spanish -- were added in 1973. All formal meetings are interpreted at least in these official languages. And all official documents, in print or online, are translated in all six languages.


Successes of the UN
Raising consciousness of the concept of human rights through its covenants and of its attention to specific abuses through its resolutions or rulings
Health successes such as the World Health Organization´s elimination of small pox.


Criticism of the UN
Over the past decade, an increasing number of voices have questioned the overall direction that the UN has taken. Many now see it as ineffective, overly bureaucratic, prone to corruption, and acting outside the intended limits of its original charter (or, on the converse, not acting sufficiently within its charter or that the charter is too weak for present-day needs).

Some respond that much of the blame can only lie with the member states that support it (or fail to support it), including their perceived failure to make needed systemic changes to the institution (whether in its own administrative bureaucracy or in its structure governing member countries). See the reform section below on proposals for addressing the perceived systemic failures of the latter type.

General criticisms of its structure governing member countries:
Charges that the UN is increasingly attempting to usurp national sovereignty.
Charges that the UN is not doing enough to override national sovereignty.

* In general, the UN has shown a reluctance to act upon its resolutions, making it weak and evoking comparisons to the League of Nations.

* Some charge that the UN is powerless should member nations ignore UN resolutions, or also, proceed with actions without UN support. This was especially highlighted with the United States´ invasion of Iraq.

* The UN gives precedence to government authority over individual liberty, regularly seeming reluctant to challenge member states´ behaviour regarding their own people.

Some specific complaints are as follows:
Internal institutional failures: * The exploitation of UN facilities and workers in the aid of terrorism. Concrete allegations were against UNRWA and UNIFIL (the involvement in the October 2000 Lebanon abduction of three Israeli Engineering Corps soldiers, by Hizbullah, [ [link to www.maarivintl.com]

* Allegations of mismanagement and corruption regarding the Oil for Food program for Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Structure governing member countries

* The inclusion on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights of nations, such as Sudan, Cuba and Libya, which are claimed to have very poor records on human rights. Libya´s chairmanship of this Commission.
Failure to act (or succeed) in security issues: * A failure to act during the ethnic cleansing campaign in Rwanda, when current Secretary General Kofi Annan oversaw peacekeeping forces there.

* A failure to intervene during killings in Srebrenica, despite the fact that the UN designated it a "Safe Haven" for refugees and assigned 600 Dutch peacekeepers to protect it.

* A failure to successfully deliver food to starving citizens of Somalia; the food was usually siezed by local warlords instead of reaching those who needed it.

* The failure of UNIFIL to restrain Hizbullah and achieve security and order in south Lebanon.


Reforming the UN
The Definition of “UN Reform”
In recent years there have been many calls for "reform" of the UN. But there is little clarity, let alone consensus, about what reform might mean in practice. Both those who want the UN to play a greater role in world affairs and those who want its role confined to humanitarian work or otherwise reduced use the term "UN reform" to refer to their ideas. The range of opinion extends from as far as those who want to eliminate the UN entirely, to those that want to make it into a full-fledged world government.
Security Council reform
A very frequently discussed change to the UN structure is to change the permanent membership of the Security Council, which reflects the power structure of the world as it was in 1945. One proposed change is to admit more members: the candidates usually mentioned are India, Japan and Germany. Another is to abolish the United Kingdom and France´s seats and give a seat to the European Union: but since the EU is not a state this would require a change to the UN Charter (or it would require that the EU become a state).

Another change frequently suggested is to remove the veto power enjoyed by the permanent members of the Security Council. It is hard to see any of the current members surrendering the veto power. The United States in particular would strongly oppose this on the grounds that it would make the actions of the United States subject to international approval, and would also increase the likelihood of resolutions critical of Israel being passed. (See also Israel and the United Nations.) One of the main drives behind this are situations in which all but one of the fifteen nations on the Security Council vote to support a measure that is relatively unimportant, such as administrative decisions. (This was the case with the battle over re-election of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.)
Bureaucracy
At another level, calls for reforming the UN demand to make the UN administration (usually called "the bureaucracy") more transparent, more accountable, and more efficient. In the United States, and particularly in the United States Congress, this is linked to demands that the UN adopt policies which encourage the development of free market economies and cease what are seen as socialist and anti-American policies and actions.
Enhancing its democratic nature
Another frequent demand is that the UN become "more democratic." This raises fundamental questions about the nature and role of the UN. The UN is not a world government, rather a forum for the world´s sovereign states to debate issues and determine collective courses of action. Since the large majority of the world´s states are now democracies, the UN is in a sense an "indirect democracy" already — the majority of countries cast votes at the UN in accordance (at least in theory) with the wishes of the electorates that elected them. A direct democracy would request the election of the UN Secretary-General by direct vote of the citizens of the democratic countries (World presidentialism) as well as the General Assembly (just as cities, states and nations have their own representatives in many systems, who attend specifically to issues relevant to the given level of authority) and the World Court. Others have proposed a combination of direct and indirect democracy, whereby national governments might ratify the expressed will of the people for such important posts as an empowered World Court.

For the UN to become more democratic in a direct sense, four things would presumably have to happen:
Representation would need to be based more on population vote and UN democratic and free elections to the Secretary and Assembly, rather than the present strict one-state-one-vote principle. Another proposal is to establish a consultative United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) as an intermediary step towards a world parliament within the UN structure. An assembly where Liechtenstein has the same voting power as the People´s Republic of China is far from equally representational (generally considered a key aspect of democracy).
The veto power of the Security Council would have to be removed. Again, this would remove a form of counter-representationalism, where the permanent Security Council members have their opinions weighted above others.
The UN would have to be given some power of governance over its members, just as a national government has power of governance over its citizens. In other words, it would have to become, to some degree, a world government. This would imply having the power to impose sanctions on members who would not follow the UN´s determined courses of action and resolutions (including the human rights´ resolutions).
As implied in the previous item, the UN might also exclude from its membership those nations which it determined to be grossly violating the human rights of its people, including the right to periodic democratic, universal, secret-ballot elections (upheld in Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).

It is likely that the small countries, which make up the majority of the current members of the General Assembly, would oppose the first of these changes (some of these might oppose the fourth), while the current permanent members of the Security Council would oppose the second, and probably the third as well. However, reformers have proposed that with incremental and simultaneous attention to these points, it is possible that the interests of the large and small nations might be reconciled through compromise in order to avert the anarchy and relative powerlessness of the present system which hamper the interests of both large and small nations. For example, if the veto power were progressively limited while also basing the weighting of the General Assembly more on population, large and small nations might be more trusting of the system to assign more supranational authority to the votes of the General Assembly (and judgments of an empowered World Court).
=Diversity and democracy
= Implementation of population-based UN voting also raises the problems of diversity of interests and governments of the various nations. The nations in the UN contain representative democracies, absolute dictatorships and every shading in between. Allowing large powers to vote their population´s interests en bloc raises the question whether they really represent the interests and desires of their individual citizens and the world community. Anything like direct election would be impossible as well in the many nations where an accurate direct vote would be impossible or where the local government has power to influence the local voters as well as security of the ballot box. Giving the UN any kind of actual governance power raises the question of how these powers could be carried out. What would happen when a vote of the UN general assembly demands changes in the borders or political status of a nation, or requires citizens in some nations to tax themselves in favour of other nations, or demands the arrest of the leader of a nation, and is met by refusal?
Financing reform
On the subject of financing, an interesting proposal has been made by Paul Hawken in his book, The Ecology of Commerce. Hawken´s recommendation is to impose an international tariff on arms manufacturers worldwide. By his calculations, ´a tax on missiles, planes, tanks, and guns would provide the U.N. (sic) with its entire budget, as well as pay for all peacekeeping efforts around the world, including the resettlement of refugees and reparations to the victims of war.´

The main problem with implementing such a radical tax is finding acceptance. While most nations of the European Union and Japan would likely be willing to support such a tariff, it would be unpopular among consumers of arms. Nations such as these range from the United States, which spends a huge amount of its GNP on defence, to petty dictatorships who depend on arms to keep themselves in power. Arms producers would also oppose it, because it would increase their costs and reduce their consumer base. Like any large corporation, arms manufacturers have a great deal of political clout in most countries.

Another problem with the United Nations is that finances are not controlled by the overwhelming monetary contributers. In theory, democratizing the budget by allowing all members to vote on it would be the ideal. However, as in voting matters concerning non-fiscal issues, blocs are formed that effectively quell reform. In general, First World nations (which tend to have strong democratic systems within their governments) contribute the vast majority of finances for the U.N.; yet, Third World nations (which tend to have dictatorships for governments)have more control over where those funds go. This is due to the fact that the number of Third World nations is larger than the number of First World nations.
Committee reform
The United Nations Commission for Human Rights has come under some fire. The United States, in particular, was angry when it was ejected from the Commission in 2002. While it has been reelected to the Commission, several nations that have been guilty of gross violations of human rights have been in the organization recently. Examples of these countries include Libya, Cuba, Sudan, Algeria, and Vietnam.


International Years
Main article: United Nations International Years

The UN declares and coordinates "International Year of the..." in order to focus world attention on important issues. Using the symbolism of the UN, a specially designed logo for the year, and the infrastructure of the UN system to coordinate events worldwide, the various years have become catalysts to advancing key issues on a global scale.


Model United Nations (MUNs)
There are a number of "Model United Nations" events held each year, in which participants collectively simulated the workings of the United Nations in its various committees and the General Assembly for a short period, typically a weekend or a 5-day week. Prominent amongst these are The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN) (for secondary school students from many countries, taking place in The Hague each January), the National High School Model United Nations (NHSMUN), for secondary/high school students from across the world, held each March at the UN in New York City the American Harvard National Model United Nations (Boston each February) and the North American Model United Nations (various United States cities each April).


Kirk, You are an idiot!

and yet they still danced
danced in the blood of innocents for polictical gain.