Time to dispel the myth of the "United Nations"

[Geckko]

Isn't it time people stopped waving around the title "UN" as some sort of moral ruler in global issues? Let's face it, it never was a real world version of the League of Justice, nor was it ever intended to be. It was supposed to be a talking shop to try and give countries some potential outlet before moving to force or conflict.

Face it, the organisation is comprised of more representatives of despotic, undemocratic or completely corrupt sovereign countries than democratic ones (just look at the composition of the "human rights" committee over time).

Moreover, UN programs on the ground tend to attract political idealogues who only too readily take sides and perpetuate misinformation to confirm with their own personal views.

Example 1:
The charter of the IPCC (a UN body) explicitly states that its role does not extend to recommendations or statements with regard to policy.

Exhibit1: from the IPCC charter IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy

THe IPCC is supposed to collate and process information and summarise policy options, not recommend policy, not promote policy. That should be left to those who report to the electorate - our elected leaders.

Exhibit 2: example statements from the Chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri

I'd like him [Obama] to suggest something akin to what the European Union set as a target

"It's very important for the U.S. to lead," said Pachauri. "Otherwise we won't reach global stabilization targets."

Example 2: Behaviour in regions of conflict and use of UN funded resources.
Here is the delightful Mr John Ging (an Irishman as it turns out) UNRWA’s operations director in Gaza. Here is what he said about the supposed IDF bombing of a UNRWA funded school in Gaza, when insisting to the world that 43 civilians had been killed in the UN funded school by bombing of the school:

“Those in the school were all families seeking refuge. ... There’s nowhere safe in Gaza.”

But of course, the news (strangely not widely reported on this site) that the school was not bombed and that nobody inside the school died and what tragic death did occur were outside the school at the site from which two terrorists had just fired on Israeli troops is not something John Ging ever seemed keen to point out.
GLobe and Mail

While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed....

OK. fog of war and all that and information is still trickling out, but I am less forgiving when I read this in the same report:

The teacher, who refused to give his name because he said UNRWA had told the staff not to talk to the news media, was adamant: “Inside [the compound] there were 12 injured, but there were no dead."…

Presumably so the media "gets its facts right" - straight from UN officials like John Ging.

Example 3: THe "good works" of the UN. Surely "UN" is a gaurranteed badge of goodness and right. Let's see what apparently goes on in some UN funded schools and who does the teaching:
UN's role in Gaza rises among the rubble - Yahoo! News

In one classroom Saturday, when UNRWA schools reopened, a Palestinian teacher was filmed asking children about their trauma during the war. The unidentified teacher then told the children that Palestinians have to “wage war against them (Israelis) until they leave their land,” and asked her students, aged about 8, how they should react.

Two children in the class suggested hurling stones or rockets back at Israel. “Okay,” the teacher said, apparently summing up her class’ position. “We throw rockets at them, we throw stones at them,” she said.

It makes more sense if we just accept the political reality, that anything operating under Hamas will have to comform with what Hamas believes is right

Robert Blecher, the senior Middle-East analyst for the Washington-based International Crisis Group think-tank, says UNRWA's staff comes from a cross-section of society and it's "logical that this staff reflects the political spectrum of Gaza, of which Hamas is obviously an important component."

And this isn't some isolated incident. In the past highly textbooks containing anti-semetic material used widely in UN schools in Gaza and the West Bank were replaced only after they were uncovered to the world (not by the UN mind you).

Can we not accept the UN as just another political organisation rather than some neutral body whose reports, actions and opinions (which may in fact simply be personal opinions of those working in the organisation) has some elevated moral status and instead recognise that they should be scrutinised as closely as any others.

[PhoenixIreland]

What annoys me about the UN is people speak of it as if it's an independent entity that can do it's own thing, when in reality it's at the corrupt mercy of it's 3 most powerful members (and the UK and France are allowed tag along for some reason).

Beleive it or not, there are other places on the planet besides Gaza, shocking I know and you'd never know it by reading this board but it's true, and in those areas UN agencies do great work.

The real problem with the UN lies with security, both the security council and a critical flaw in it's charter that prevents any UN sanctioned force from interfering with a country, no matter what they're doing within their borders.

In the 1990s the US, Clinton himself in particular, made a complete mockery of the UN by constantly referring to it as if it were an independent force capable of carrying out military interventions (or refusing them), then mandating UN forces through security council resolutions to do things that US forces refused to do when they themselves were in charge before a UN force took over.