Bush: UN Must Respond Immediately To NK’s Provocative Act
US President George W. Bush has called on the UN to respond to North Korea’s nuclear test ASAP. He described the test as a “provocative act”. He also said that the US does not stand alone in this: China, Russia, South Korea and Japan all agree that the UN should act / respond immediately.
He could not yet confirm NK’s claims but said that “such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security.” Russia, however, did confirm NK’s claim: “Russia’s defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, said that the Russian military had confirmed the test and estimated its force at somewhere between 5 and 15 kilotons — much larger than estimates from South Korea.” Ain’t that nice.
Bolton said “that the United States was working with Japan on the text of a resolution under a provision of the U.N. charter that allows the use of military action to enforce Security Council rulings.”
20 Responses to “Bush: UN Must Respond Immediately To NK’s Provocative Act”
I thought the UN was “quaint” and “irrelevant.”
No, its “corrupt” and “irrelevant”, lol!
I thought that was the Geneva Conventions. I think you mean that the UN is corrupt and redundant. Or something like that.
We should exit the United Nations completely. It is an utterly worthless organization. We need to leave the UN and the UN needs to leave the United States. Let them set up shop in a more appropriate city like Beijing, or Tehran, or Paris, or Rangoon, or Khartoum, or Havana. They don’t belong in New York.
We should exit the United Nations completely. It is an utterly worthless organization. We need to leave the UN and the UN needs to leave the United States. Let them set up shop in a more appropriate city like Beijing, or Tehran, or Paris, or Rangoon, or Khartoum, or Havana. They don’t belong in New York.
Great idea! Then we can be totally isolated in our hillbillyism. That worked so good vis-a-vis the Leauge of Nation.
Some people are so scared of everything it is a wonder they dont hide under their bed all day.
Hey all you UN haters-we are still laughing about the UN coming to get all your guns on the 4th of July. Go back to Black Helicopter spotting.
Why bother lollygagging around wasting time on talk when we can easily bomb them into smithereens? After all one picture is worth a thousand words!!!
You’re right, Richard.
But still, Geneva Conventions, UN, Kyoto Accord… they’re all the same in the eyes of this administration. If it’s not of their making, it’s of no use to them.
The UN is only supposed to serve the US, and US interests people really crack me up when they do the flip flop.
hehe, nice one tommy. On the flip side of the extremes, we could just strengthen the UN into a hegemony and elect a international assembly(congress) an international president, and allow for a truely centralized international court system for war crimes. I find this solution to be better.
Tommys idea or this one doesnt matter both are nuts. The UN serves the purpose it was created, to provide an international forum where country leaders, or represenatives, and come and discuss on an equal playing field problems between them. The UN has never been intended for military action and the UN peacekeepers are nothing more but observers of war who are able to protect themselves.
So dont say the UN is pointless and we should leave, if we leave the UN then we leave any hope of international communication without bias.
And you cant blame the UN for what has happened in North Korea, you have to blame North Korea. In a world where the super powers are in the process of reducing if not destroying their nuclear programs, North korea has decided to build one. The question now is what are the super powers (china, russia, america, and the EU) are going to do about North Korea’s “sin”. And when we see nothign get done, then and only then does te blame game begin and fingers are turned from North Korea to teh super powers for doing nothing.
thank you,
randal
Ahh! An internationalist. Yes, we all know how well the European Union’s top-heavy, cumbersome, and remote bureaucracy has been. Combine that with the fecklessness, corruption, and lack of accountability we see at the United Nations every day and you’ll have a fantastic organization there! After all, this is an organization who’s standards are so low that Iran, China, and Cuba preside over its human-rights commission. What could possibly go wrong?
I’m not talking about being an isolationist. I simply don’t think we need Trinidad and Tobago’s opinion on many things and I think can do better entering into international bodies of more limited scope and function. NATO has been more successful than the United Nations as a military alliance, for example. We might do better with a few different NATO-like bodies in certain geographical areas of the world than some universal body like the UN. If we are going to have an international human rights commission, I’d prefer not to have Iran or Saudi Arabia leading it, for instance. And if we are going to do disaster relief, I think we can administer it much efficiently than the United Nations did after the tsunami in SE Asia.
One of the cardinal examples people always give of why the United Nations is supposedly so vital is the notion that the League of Nations was not successful in preventing WWII because of a lack of American involvement in that body. But if we look at how completely toothless and miserably ineffective role that the United Nations plays in world conflicts today, Lebanon and North Korea being recent examples, I have little doubt that United Nations could not have stopped Adolf Hitler if it had been around in the 1930′s.
The United Nations is a joke and a waste of billions of American dollars each year. End it. Don’t even attempt to mend it.
Snarky,
Oh yes! We must be part of the club! Can’t be left out! Heaven forbid we only resort to old-fashioned (but far more effective) things like embassies and more focused international bodies to accomplish what we need to accomplish in international affairs. That wouldn’t be hip! We must be down with rape in the Congo and oil-for-food and Third World tinpot dictators and unaccountable Secretary Generals to be considered cool. What could be cooler than hanging out and accomplishing nothing particularly useful with such international luminaries as Equatorial Guinea and Ecuador, with Suriname and Sudan, with Tonga and Trinidad, with Uruguay and Uzbekistan, with Guatemala and Guinea-Bissau? And all for the meager membership cost of $2 billion or so a year!
Besides, you bring up the League of Nations. Yes, that organization was a tremendous success! That is why we are doing it all over again. You know that old definition of insanity…
Tommy:
You quoted me saying as such:
hehe, nice one tommy. On the flip side of the extremes, we could just strengthen the UN into a hegemony and elect a international assembly(congress) an international president, and allow for a truely centralized international court system for war crimes. I find this solution to be better.
After quoting my opening statement you said:
Ahh! An internationalist. Yes, we all know how well the European Union’s top-heavy, cumbersome, and remote bureaucracy has been. Combine that with the fecklessness, corruption, and lack of accountability we see at the United Nations every day and you’ll have a fantastic organization there! After all, this is an organization who’s standards are so low that Iran, China, and Cuba preside over its human-rights commission. What could possibly go wrong?
But you left out what i said after that:
Tommys idea or this one doesnt matter both are nuts. The UN serves the purpose it was created, to provide an international forum where country leaders, or represenatives, and come and discuss on an equal playing field problems between them. The UN has never been intended for military action and the UN peacekeepers are nothing more but observers of war who are able to protect themselves.
So tommy i ask you this question, do you often misrepresent people when quoting them to make them out to something their not? if so try not too is kinda discredits. I do suppose that my satire has gone rusty perhaps, but i seriously question your motive behind that.
Now in response to you comment. I agree with you whole heartedly. The UN is not as successful as NATO in millitary exercises. But again i stress thats not the point of the UN. The UN was constructed to be an international forum where different represenatives from different countries can come to discuss diplomacy.
the united nations isnt a joke, just because diplomacy doesnt have effects in a day like war does, it also doesnt cost recklace loss of life. I think NATO is as important as the UN is to america. We cannot give up our diplomatic power in the UN for sheer bronze of military might, thats illogical. Not to mention NATO would go to crap if we pulled out of the UN because the EU would be so freaking pissed they would disband NATO as well and possibly FORCE US into isolationism.
So yeah tommy i agree NATO is important but the UN has done its job and please let it continue to do its job.
thank you,
randal
Randall,
I didn’t mesrepresent you, at least, not intentionally. My impression was that you didn’t think your idea or mine was practical, not that it wasn’t ideal. That has no bearing on my thinking you are aiming in the wrong direction.
If you were being sarcastic, I apologize. But if you really would like to the see the UN ideally set up the way you described, then I’m strongly opposed to that.
My response is that diplomacy is not an end to itself. What is all this UN diplomacy resulting in that ordinary diplomacy could not accomplish and is it worth the price of $2 billion/year?
The UN is a joke.
Sorry Randal, if the UN was a US corporate entity, many of the employees and manageement would be in jail with he Oil for Food and Food for sex scandels. And many in the comment section would be insisting on it. As it is now, they seem to ignore it.
Wilky- Sorry but I don’t think we have the monopoly on moral or ethical rectitude.
jail with heSorry Randal, if the UN was a US corporate entity, many of the employees and manageement would be in jail with the Oil for Food and Food for sex scandels
And if the US Congress was a corporate entity?
I believe that everyone here is trying to replace them, are we not Kim!
Wilky i understand the faults that men play in the UN. But just as congress has grown corrupt you dont destory the medium. Everyone here is trying to replace the men in congress, not the institution. As the same should be constructed for the UN. But the concept of an international diplomacy forum is not a joke. Granted maybe funding to such an organization needs to be rethinked but nonthe less how can you say that a diplomatic forum is worthless? And Tommy i understand how diplomacy is not an end to itself, but neither is military action. Military action never produces the expected outcome, and its outcome is, while being quicker, often more unstable then inaction on both diplomatic and military fronts.
I will say this, military action in the face of nuclear weapons is pointless and a waste of life. When dealing with nuclear weapons, you can not expect to succeed in invasion without massive calsualties. And no i dont think a country half way around the globe is worth the lives of americans. So if america is to commit to an action i hope its either neutral (which it cant be thanks to bush’s speeches) or that of diplomacy (which probably wont happen because of bush’s speeches). Military action is just not in america’s best interest.
I’m not against a diplomatic forum Randal, and I don’t really care about the funding. Its the layers upon layers of protection they have for themselves so that accountability can not be had when we have major abuses. And frankly, I find the food for sex scam much more appalling then the largest scam in the history of the world, the oil fo food program. And the only reason we found out about oil for food scam was because of the war everyone is so pissed about, and no one will acknoledge that Saddam had one over on us. But they will blame us for the Iraqi childeren dying. Doesn’t it make you wonder what other scams the UN has pulled off in the name of keeping the world safe?
So how do we get this reform that is so badly needed. Isn’t this one of the main things Bolton is doing there? You won’t find much support for Bolton here.
Wilky – that is exactly the way I feel about Congress! “Layers upon layers of protection they have for themselves so that accountability can not be had when we have major abuses”.
Yes, I agree that the scandals were horrible, but I feel that if we can’t control it in our own government, how can we control it in an international body?
I agree with Randal- we need to reform it, not resign from it. Just as we need to reform Congress not just keep rotating the two parties in and out when waves of scandal hit.
What has Bolton done to reform it? He mostly seems frustrated with trying to work within its limitations.
Besides, you bring up the League of Nations. Yes, that organization was a tremendous success!
That organization was a dismal failure exactly because of what you propose. That is, the US was not a part of it.
And now you want to go back to that failure.
Nice plan.