Replace the UN with something not involving Russia?

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

They US would have the right to shoot it down. Self defence is the only form of armed violence not requiring a UN mandate to execute. It's entire legal to shoot down a jet, if it's clearly an attack. Now, this even was unfortunate, and I'd rather have those persons responsible being somehow reprimanded, but the US would have the right to shoot it down if it was a military jet.

Self defense?
How is shooting down an Iranian jet in its own airspace self-defense?
That's like the Russian navy shooting down a NATO fighter on patrol over Germany's shores.

It's like the Russian navy shooting down a German fighter in an attack vector towards it. If you just chased some boats who reportedly opened fire on you (a legitimate manoeuvre in the eyes of the UN sea treaty) and an aircraft of that nation heads straight for your ship, then yeah, it's self defence. Of course, it didn't turn out to be self defence, but had the airliner been a fighter jet, the response would have been reasonable.

[Qart chadast]

Ah yes, becouse foreign people are much more important then local people heh...

The sinking of the Lucitania brought the United States into World War One.

Such incidents and the fallout of them are hardly without precedent.
I see little meaningful difference between this incident and Israel's shelling of Palestinian schools with phosphorous. Civilians, not at all a part of the fighting, were killed by the fighting and not even as collateral damage to legitimate targets.

I fully agree with that, still i don't see the entire point why people put so much value on this aircraft full of people while pretty much ignoring all those people living there who got killed by the bombs and such.

[Imperializt Russia]

The sinking of the Lucitania brought the United States into World War One.

Such incidents and the fallout of them are hardly without precedent.
I see little meaningful difference between this incident and Israel's shelling of Palestinian schools with phosphorous. Civilians, not at all a part of the fighting, were killed by the fighting and not even as collateral damage to legitimate targets.

I fully agree with that, still i don't see the entire point why people put so much value on this aircraft full of people while pretty much ignoring all those people living there who got killed by the bombs and such.

Because their deaths are tragedy. I personally do care.
MH17 was catastrophic.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

The sinking of the Lucitania brought the United States into World War One.

Such incidents and the fallout of them are hardly without precedent.
I see little meaningful difference between this incident and Israel's shelling of Palestinian schools with phosphorous. Civilians, not at all a part of the fighting, were killed by the fighting and not even as collateral damage to legitimate targets.

I fully agree with that, still i don't see the entire point why people put so much value on this aircraft full of people while pretty much ignoring all those people living there who got killed by the bombs and such.

It's about expectancy. We expect a daily death count of civilians from an active war zone. We see bombed out cities, burning villages, and we expect a death toll among civilians. It's what always happens. But when, out of the blue, an airlines gets shot down, filled with people returning home, going on vacation, or attending an AIDS conference, that hits us. It's something we didn't foresee. We can imagine all those people going on a plane like any day, something many of us have done a few times already. And, for me, it's about a couple of hundred people from my own country, which always hits harder than it being about foreigners somehow.

[Qart chadast]

I fully agree with that, still i don't see the entire point why people put so much value on this aircraft full of people while pretty much ignoring all those people living there who got killed by the bombs and such.

Because their deaths are tragedy. I personally do care.
MH17 was catastrophic.

I do care aswell, though i don't care more about them then i care about the locals.

I fully agree with that, still i don't see the entire point why people put so much value on this aircraft full of people while pretty much ignoring all those people living there who got killed by the bombs and such.

It's about expectancy. We expect a daily death count of civilians from an active war zone. We see bombed out cities, burning villages, and we expect a death toll among civilians. It's what always happens. But when, out of the blue, an airlines gets shot down, filled with people returning home, going on vacation, or attending an AIDS conference, that hits us. It's something we didn't foresee. We can imagine all those people going on a plane like any day, something many of us have done a few times already. And, for me, it's about a couple of hundred people from my own country, which always hits harder than it being about foreigners somehow.

Well it could have been expected. We all knew the risk was there and still they decided to fly over that area.
Same here, I'm Dutch, but still i don't see any reason to put more value into this then into the locals who died during the conflict. These things just happen in a warzone and that plane simply flew right through it. A tragic event but still i don't see to understand why its protrait more important then the ones that died there already. Sure i could understand for the relatives and such that it would be more important, but not for anyone else. Its also not really the first time such thing happens so... But well, it might just be me being neutral on every person's life (except for a few groups who may perish in hell as far as i care) instead of pulling favours for certain people.

[Shofercia]

And now Russia has vetoed investigation of MH17.

At the very least, does the UN have the authority to strip Russia of its veto power?

They didn't veto the investigation of MH17. They vetoed the proscecution of the people the US accused of shooting down MH17. There is 0, 0 credible evidence as to who shot down MH17, just as there was no Evidence of Assad gassing his own civilians or Saddam's WMDs or who opened fire first on Maidan square, yet everyone in the western media was 100% sure about it.

In fact, the Russians supported the idea of an international body investigating into the matter.

Thank you!

And now Russia has vetoed investigation of MH17.

At the very least, does the UN have the authority to strip Russia of its veto power?

Russia has a veto because it's one of the five original nuclear club members.
That veto exists to prevent the likelihood of nuclear escalation.

Who cares? Novoboro wants Russia punished, and if nukes fly, oh well, there goes the planet.

Eh, I don't really agree with the idea of having a UN. I mean, it just doesn't seem right to have one. As long as humans exist, we will fight. To be honest, I wouldn't really like to be a part of the UN if I was a country like Russia. But, I mean hey, its their choice. Lol, I think that if Russia wants to stay, they should stay.

As noted by IR, the purpose of the UN is to prevent escalation of warfare. Thus far the UN has done a decent job of that, which is why Russia should stay, along with everyone else who doesn't want a major escalation.

One would think it would be in most countries' own interests to make examples out of countries that cause plane crashes involving people and airplanes that are not from those countries. Otherwise an airplane from their country and/or carrying people from that country could be next.

Did you miss the part where the plane was accidentally shot down over a warzone? You make it sound like Putin's going on plane hunting safaris like a certain dentist. That's utter nonsense.

Then put in North Korea.

Why in the hell would we do that?

Because it's still more logical than kicking Russia out

And there, realistically, is the end of the discussion.

It wouldn't be NSG without meaningless "debate" over a manufactured non-issue.

This year, probably the most important geopolitical event since the Cold War happened. But you probably don't know about it because it wasn't covered in the western press. On July 10th, there was a joint BRICS/SCO/EEU summit in Ufa. India and Pakistan are becoming full members of the SCO, and now that sanctions on Iran have been lifted it's quite obvious they will too. Do you know what that will make? An alliance of Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, and Central Asia. Factor in allies of the SCO countries like Belarus, Serbia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Syria (the government, not the rebels who eat human organs), Vietnam, Argentina etc. and you get a lot of land, a lot of resources to build things on the land, a lot of people to build them, and a lot of military to defend it. Good luck trying to invade that. And replacing the UN with something that doesn't include Russia doesn't make the UN seem very 'neutral'.

Yeah, India and Pakistan as allies. Central Asia wanting to work with Russia. Whohoo.

That's correct.

[Meryuma]

I could see removing them from the Security Council, but the UN? Absolutely not.

[Shofercia]

I could see removing them from the Security Council, but the UN? Absolutely not.

I can't see Russia being removed from the UNSC; I can see Russia leaving the UN altogether, if Russia's removed from the UNSC.

After all, the Korean War totally solved all problems on the Korean Peninsula /sarcasm

[Threlizdun]

Well that would completely abandon the universal element of the united nations, and so long as nations with humans rights abuses were rejected then that would prevent the passage of legislation forcing them to rectify there behavior. Of course, if human rights violations were enough to prevent UN membership then there may not even be any nations that could be in the UN anymore. So no, get rid of the Security Council but keep everyone in the UN.

[Shofercia]

Well that would completely abandon the universal element of the united nations, and so long as nations with humans rights abuses were rejected then that would prevent the passage of legislation forcing them to rectify there behavior. Of course, if human rights violations were enough to prevent UN membership then there may not even be any nations that could be in the UN anymore. So no, get rid of the Security Council but keep everyone in the UN.

If you get rid of the UNSC, who'd be doing the enforcement? "Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it!" comes to mind. How did that work out for the Native Americans? The reason that countries initially got on the UNSC, was because they were the victors of WWII. The reason that they stayed, is because they remained powerful after winning. If the UNSC tells you to do something, you do it. If the UN... I mean come on, even Max Barry extremely reluctantly obeyed the UN. Would a dictator of a country obey the UN?

[Shofercia]

A year ago, Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine shot down a civilian airplane, killing hundreds of people.

And yet, today, Russia still has a role in the UN.

I'm not privy to the details, other than that the UN supposedly doesn't have the authority to just kick a country out just like that. If that's the case, why not just start over, and create an organization for the express purpose of keeping Russia from having a role in it?

Well, let's look at History and facts, something the Russophobes hate.

League of Nations - kicks out the USSR, ends up failing miserably, in part because they kicked out the USSR.
G8 - kicks out Russia, becomes irrelevant
OSCE - suspends Russia, as a result Russian Courts stop listening to European Courts and Civil Rights in Russia deteriorate. I doubt that's what the OSCE wanted.

In each case that an organization kicked out Russia, either it ended up failing miserably, or one of its goals was severely hurt. Those are the facts. But those don't matter to Russophobes, who just want to punish Russia, much like Ben Carson: https://ucgsblog.wordpress.com/

Ben Carson has a uniquely unparalleled approach to foreign politics, in that it does not parallel anything in this reality. So what does Mr. Carson do? He makes the “fuck the facts” argument; he just states it more eloquently: “The one thing I don’t want to be lost on the American people is that leadership requires wisdom. You’re going to have access to a lot of experts in a lot of areas. You don’t want to devote all your attention to learning facts on a fact sheet.”

Sure, you don’t want to spend all of your time learning facts, but it appears that Carson spends none of his time learning any facts. Like the composition of NATO:

“Hewitt asked Carson that if Vladimir Putin “makes a move on the Baltic states,” should we go to war with Russia?

“Well, if we have them involved in NATO,” Carson replied. “We need to convince them to get involved in NATO and strengthen NATO.”

The problem? The Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – are already in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a security alliance that commits all its members to respond to an attack on one member.

Hewitt quickly pointed out Carson’s error. “Well, the Baltics, they are in NATO,” he said. Carson was spared the need to respond by a commercial break.”

And here’s Carson on the Middle East peace process: “We need to look at fresh ideas,” said Carson. “I don’t have any problem with the Palestinians having a state, but does it need to be within the confines of Israeli territory? Is that necessary, or can you sort of slip that area down into Egypt? Right below Israel, they have some amount of territory, and it can be adjacent. They can benefit from the many agricultural advances that were made by Israel, because if you fly over that area, you can easily see the demarcation between Egypt and Israel, in terms of one being desert and one being verdant. Technology could transform that area. So why does it need to be in an area where there’s going to be temptation for Hamas to continue firing missiles at relatively close range to Israel?”

Indeed, why does the West Bank exist? Carson knows nothing about it, much like nationalist Ukrainian storytellers, erm, “historians”, know nothing about the Republic of Novgorod, so why should Novgorod Oblast exist? Salon summarizes Carson’s foreign policy rather beautifully: “He offers all sorts of suggestions for how we should conduct American foreign policy: namely, we should antagonize Russia, antagonize Russia, and antagonize Russia some more, until Russia… well… caves… Russia sucks, is the point.”

At this point you’re probably thinking, “hey, this guy’s a neurosurgeon, he won’t come on again until he studies up after those humiliations,” and yet, you’re wrong. He’s back at it, this time wanting to review Russia’s UNSC position: “I certainly think it’s a question that needs to be examined,” he said. “I don’t think that just because you’ve been on the Security Council that you’re entitled to stay there if you don’t act responsibly. Certainly, it’s something that should be up for discussion.”

Wait, what’s that? If you don’t act responsibly, your UNSC seat should be up for discussion? Erm, that’s not a very responsible thing for any veto-wielding representative to say, especially an American whose party supported the War in Iraq and wants to continue utilizing the veto power to protect Israel. And that’s certainly America’s Privilege, provided a dummy like Carson doesn’t get elected and place some of his policies, like ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, into effect. Carson continues explaining his version of ‘wisdom’: “This one came to NATO in 1968, this one came in 1949–I mean, is that information important?” said Carson. “Of course it is. But it is probably not as crucial as determining what Putin’s goals are, and how to stop them.”

Erm, Carson, if you want to determine what Putin’s policy goals are, then numbers are crucial. “This Republic wants to join us with 75%”, is extremely crucial to determine the extent of potential annexation. But Carson disagrees: “My hope is that at some point people will start listening to the overall tenor of what’s being said”. That’s right, if something’s the overall tenor of his “experts”, then he’ll act upon it, no matter what’s going on in reality. And that’s the Ben Carson Approach in a nutshell. And here is one result of said approach:

When asked about the origins of the rage felt by Islamic fundamentalists against the West, Carson said “You have to recognize that they go back thousands and thousands of years — really back to the battle between Jacob and Esau.”

“Dr. Carson,” Hewitt said, “you know, Mohammed lives in 632 A.D. So it’s a 13, a 1,400-year-old religion. How do you go back to Jacob and Esau, which is B.C.?”

BC, AD, numbers, letters, it’s all so confusing! Where’s the overall tenor when you need one? Clearly, there aren’t enough revisionist “experts” to take Palestinians back into Egypt, which removed Israelis sometime in AD, at the behest of Putin; the duo met while the latter was delivering babies in Switzerland, after being paralyzed due to his health and couped by his generals.

[Threlizdun]

Well that would completely abandon the universal element of the united nations, and so long as nations with humans rights abuses were rejected then that would prevent the passage of legislation forcing them to rectify there behavior. Of course, if human rights violations were enough to prevent UN membership then there may not even be any nations that could be in the UN anymore. So no, get rid of the Security Council but keep everyone in the UN.

If you get rid of the UNSC, who'd be doing the enforcement? "Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it!" comes to mind. How did that work out for the Native Americans? The reason that countries initially got on the UNSC, was because they were the victors of WWII. The reason that they stayed, is because they remained powerful after winning. If the UNSC tells you to do something, you do it. If the UN... I mean come on, even Max Barry extremely reluctantly obeyed the UN. Would a dictator of a country obey the UN?

Sorry, I definitely worded that wrong. Get rid of the permanent member status within the Security Council. Reform it to make it more open and accountable to the rest of the member nations, though at the same time grant more executive authority to carry out legislation and actions approved by the General Assembly.

[Qart chadast]

Well that would completely abandon the universal element of the united nations, and so long as nations with humans rights abuses were rejected then that would prevent the passage of legislation forcing them to rectify there behavior. Of course, if human rights violations were enough to prevent UN membership then there may not even be any nations that could be in the UN anymore. So no, get rid of the Security Council but keep everyone in the UN.

I don't think removing the Security Council/permanent members is a good idea. I think that if the UN Security council wouldn't exist anymore powerful nations would persuade other nations to vote in certain ways wether its by bribes or by threats. Today all nations can vote what they want to vote and the security council has enough different views to make sure that when they come to an agreement that agreement is not simply based on one nation's wish.

[Shofercia]

If you get rid of the UNSC, who'd be doing the enforcement? "Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it!" comes to mind. How did that work out for the Native Americans? The reason that countries initially got on the UNSC, was because they were the victors of WWII. The reason that they stayed, is because they remained powerful after winning. If the UNSC tells you to do something, you do it. If the UN... I mean come on, even Max Barry extremely reluctantly obeyed the UN. Would a dictator of a country obey the UN?

Sorry, I definitely worded that wrong. Get rid of the permanent member status within the Security Council. Reform it to make it more open and accountable to the rest of the member nations, though at the same time grant more executive authority to carry out legislation and actions approved by the General Assembly.

Fair enough, but let me ask you this. Imagine a hypothetical country of Twerkistan, (I hope no one thinks that name is real,) a poor country with a lot of people but no natural resources. And let's say that its leader, Bzorka Twerk, decides to promote public hanging of any liberal democrats in his country, unless they recant and leave, whipping of women, if they're convicted of actual crimes by a jury of their peers, and banishing people whom he considers pigmies, but taking great care not to kill any of them. So not reaching actual Genocide, (which causes instant intervention,) not even close to that, but gross Human Rights violations nonetheless. There's a Rebellion against him. The General Assembly is appalled, and passes the Aid to the Rebels act. What incentive is there for the permanent UNSC 5 to intervene? Furthermore, to make matters worse, let's say the Rebels have allies in countries that oppose the SCO, and Bzorka wants to ally his country with a NATO member state.

Do you think that there will be an intervention? Because if there's no intervention, then the General Assembly Resolution looks like a joke.

Under the current circumstances, they might actually intervene. Let me explain. GAR passes, goes up to the UNSC, where it gathers 9 votes, but not a single permanent UNSC member state vote. NATO and SCO want to make each other look bad if their side vetoes, so neither side vetoes. Prisoner's Dilemma. The current UNSC Resolution passes. Now they have to act, or they'll be the ones looking bad.

[Qart chadast]

Sorry, I definitely worded that wrong. Get rid of the permanent member status within the Security Council. Reform it to make it more open and accountable to the rest of the member nations, though at the same time grant more executive authority to carry out legislation and actions approved by the General Assembly.

Fair enough, but let me ask you this. Imagine a hypothetical country of Twerkistan, (I hope no one thinks that name is real,) a poor country with a lot of people but no natural resources. And let's say that its leader, Bzorka Twerk, decides to promote public hanging of any liberal democrats in his country, unless they recant and leave, whipping of women, if they're convicted of actual crimes by a jury of their peers, and banishing people whom he considers pigmies, but taking great care not to kill any of them. So not reaching actual Genocide, (which causes instant intervention,) not even close to that, but gross Human Rights violations nonetheless. There's a Rebellion against him. The General Assembly is appalled, and passes the Aid to the Rebels act. What incentive is there for the permanent UNSC 5 to intervene? Furthermore, to make matters worse, let's say the Rebels have allies in countries that oppose the SCO, and Bzorka wants to ally his country with a NATO member state.

Do you think that there will be an intervention? Because if there's no intervention, then the General Assembly Resolution looks like a joke.

Actually it doesn't really... Never forget about how things went in Rwanda.

[The Cakitar Trade Conglomerate]

Can we just call the US's army the UN Peace Keepers because a that's what they are

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Can we just call the US's army the UN Peace Keepers because a that's what they are

....

No?

[Qart chadast]

Can we just call the US's army the UN Peace Keepers because a that's what they are

Pff, the US doesn't even contribute that much to the UN at all.

The US contributes 80 people to the UN (39 police, 5 military experts and 36 soldiers), its pathetic compared to other nations. Take for example the top 5 on the list:
Bangladesh - 9,434
Pakistan - 8,456
Ethiopia - 8,141
India - 8,008
Rwanda - 5,595

Only 80 Americans are UN peace Keepers and not a single more.

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml

[Imperializt Russia]

Can we just call the US's army the UN Peace Keepers because a that's what they are

Pff, the US doesn't even contribute that much to the UN at all.

The US contributes 80 people to the UN (39 police, 5 military experts and 36 soldiers), its pathetic compared to other nations. Take for example the top 5 on the list:
Bangladesh - 9,434
Pakistan - 8,456
Ethiopia - 8,141
India - 8,008
Rwanda - 5,595

Only 80 Americans are UN peace Keepers and not a single more.

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml

Because America contributes heavily to NATO, not the UN.

[Qart chadast]

Pff, the US doesn't even contribute that much to the UN at all.

The US contributes 80 people to the UN (39 police, 5 military experts and 36 soldiers), its pathetic compared to other nations. Take for example the top 5 on the list:
Bangladesh - 9,434
Pakistan - 8,456
Ethiopia - 8,141
India - 8,008
Rwanda - 5,595

Only 80 Americans are UN peace Keepers and not a single more.

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml

Because America contributes heavily to NATO, not the UN.

True, but NATO isn't the UN nor does it have anything to do with the UN for that matter.

[Kubra]

Ah yes, becouse foreign people are much more important then local people heh...

The sinking of the Lucitania brought the United States into World War One.

Such incidents and the fallout of them are hardly without precedent.
I see little meaningful difference between this incident and Israel's shelling of Palestinian schools with phosphorous. Civilians, not at all a part of the fighting, were killed by the fighting and not even as collateral damage to legitimate targets.

actually, that's untrue, but its a pretty common misconception. The lucitania was sunk in 1915, two years before americas entry. In the immediate lead up to their entry, germany had begun attacking american merchant vessels en route to britain, and had sent a leaked telegram to mexico trying to get them to invade the states.

[Imperializt Russia]

Which is why that guy was wrong.

[Imperializt Russia]

The sinking of the Lucitania brought the United States into World War One.

Such incidents and the fallout of them are hardly without precedent.
I see little meaningful difference between this incident and Israel's shelling of Palestinian schools with phosphorous. Civilians, not at all a part of the fighting, were killed by the fighting and not even as collateral damage to legitimate targets.

actually, that's untrue, but its a pretty common misconception. The lucitania was sunk in 1915, two years before americas entry. In the immediate lead up to their entry, germany had begun attacking american merchant vessels en route to britain, and had sent a leaked telegram to mexico trying to get them to invade the states.

It didn't bring them directly into the war, but IIRC America did lend support after this, and it led to international outrage which harmed Germany's position.

[Kubra]

actually, that's untrue, but its a pretty common misconception. The lucitania was sunk in 1915, two years before americas entry. In the immediate lead up to their entry, germany had begun attacking american merchant vessels en route to britain, and had sent a leaked telegram to mexico trying to get them to invade the states.

It didn't bring them directly into the war, but IIRC America did lend support after this, and it led to international outrage which harmed Germany's position.

it certainly helped put public opinion against Germany, but, y'know, these sorts of incidents are always played up after the fact. Universal condemnation of its sinking in the states would only be come to be after the American entry. I'm willing to bet that if the NATO-Russia war materialized we'd be talking about MH370 differently.

[Andarro]

If you get rid of the UNSC, who'd be doing the enforcement? "Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it!" comes to mind. How did that work out for the Native Americans? The reason that countries initially got on the UNSC, was because they were the victors of WWII. The reason that they stayed, is because they remained powerful after winning. If the UNSC tells you to do something, you do it. If the UN... I mean come on, even Max Barry extremely reluctantly obeyed the UN. Would a dictator of a country obey the UN?

Sorry, I definitely worded that wrong. Get rid of the permanent member status within the Security Council. Reform it to make it more open and accountable to the rest of the member nations, though at the same time grant more executive authority to carry out legislation and actions approved by the General Assembly.

You're joking right?

If you abolish the permanent members you risk having sociopaths like North Korea to replace them, or countries with disgusting human rights like Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea and Sudan.

I'm in no hurry to have the UN voting on resolutions for approved haircuts or whether or not women can use bicycles.