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Monday, June 02, 2008

League of Inaction

Perhaps tired of the Star Wars bar of rogues and thugs that we must deal with in much of the United Nations, a number of people are calling for a League of Democracies to replace the UN.

Mad Minerva thinks it might be nice to have a counterweight to the UN and wonders what people think of the idea.

I'll just link to a past post on my opinion of the idea.

In my opinion, America is the counterweight to the UN. And given all the gulags with UN seats that inhabit the current body, it is relatively easy for us to ignore the sainted international community when we need to act.

A League of Democracies that exists along with thug states won't be much more likely to support us in the face of real evil that requires real military action, yet we'd have a harder time ignoring their opposition.

So try to reform the UN, by all means. Support the decent parts that provide technical help and work to strip away the authority for the bodies that make a mockery of the body--like anything tasked with human rights.

But if we can't have a better UN, better the devil we know, in our current system.

UPDATE: Mad Minerva doesn't think that the UN can be reformed. I think she is probably right and I am too optimistic to think that might happen. I still think that India, Japan, and the EU should get permanent Security Council seats, with the provision that sub-parts don't get to keep their permanent seats. My hope is this would prompt at least Britain and maybe France to abandon the EU. Without Britain, we at least keep a solid ally. Without France, the whole rotten concept probably falls apart. Recent pacifism aside, few in Europe want Germany to be the sole dominant power in the EU.

That proposal is more reflecting reality than reform, however. Perhaps instead of "reform", I should say "triage." Can't we steer money away from the politicized and anti-Western/democracy bodies and toward the technical bodies that support farming and health issues and other such entities? Over time, can't we starve the mockeries of justice and freedom that use UN stationary to hide their nature?