Time for Ireland to leave the U.N.?

[Keith-M]

Some of the more blinkered members to this board may take this as a troll, but I am deadly serious.

There recent war in South Ossetia is the latest in a long line of disputes that has only served to show how inept the United Nations is. In the end, it was a E.U. delegation that brokered the peace agreeement. No one needs to be reminded how useless the U.N. was in resolving disputes in Bosnia, Kosovo etc etc and how it continues to be be a spectator in disputes between Israel and the Palestinians and the abuse of the people of Zimbabwe.

The question is, is Ireland gaining anything by being a member of the U.N. From my persepective, it a waste of money and the only direct impact it makes on this country is to put our army in dangerspots as "peace keepers". Without a commitment to the U.N., we could scale back our defence spending or eliminate our army completly (Costa Rica exists quite securely without an army).

Instead we could join with our neighbours in the U.N. in developing a common foreign and defence policy, knowing that countries like Russia, China, the U.S. etc., will not have the power to veto decisions.

[Rocky]

The UN is an immensely flawed organisation and I think one of its biggest problems is people give it far more authority then it deserves. It can’t solve all problems. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t try, but it can’t and often (if not most of the time) other means of solving conflicts work better and should be used.

However it does do some good. Mainly:

1. Many of its peacekeeping missions have been fairly successful and have saved lives. Some have been complete disasters and in many other cases the UN has failed to act when it should have. However if there was no UN these failures still would have happened, but instead the successes would not have had.

2. It has helped to increase the number of democracies and the standard of democracy in many states, mainly by helping states hold elections and by monitoring election.

3. It has done a lot a lot of good humanitarian work.

If there was no UN, none of this would be achieved. As I said one of the problems with the UN is people expect far too much from it and give it far more authority. It has problems, but it is as a whole a good thing. Of course that doesn’t mean that countries shouldn’t try to improve the UN.

We are more then welcome to make a common foreign and defence policy with whoever we like, while we are members of the UN.

Finally Ireland processes the ability to help other people who are in desperate situations with our troops and we are doing that today and have done it in the past and I feel that since we can do that, it is our duty to do so.