Don't take this the wrong way...

[KissMyAsscroft]

But what's the point of the UN?

It's starting to appear that they are just America's enablers in pretty much doing as they please. It seems like they have no real power to oppose anything we are going to do anyway.

I support the idea of the UN, but recently with the Haiti situation it seems that they were pretty much an extension of our will.

Was Aristide hated throughout the world? Was there an international will to get rid of him, or are we calling the shots?

It seems that America gets what it wants no matter what the UN thinks so I guess I am trying to figure out why other countries aren't speaking out and leaving the UN, etc...

Just sort of thinking out loud, wondering what you guys' opinions are.

[Rationality]

1. It was designed to be that way...

And when other nations finally stood up against us, as what happened with the war in Iraq, we simply step over their objections.

You raise a good point.

[Festivito]

2. Jawboning is better than no jawboning.

Who knows how many world problems have been avoided just because people were allowed to speak in an open forum with listeners from many and even all nations.

Yes, they are as weak as paper. Books are made of paper, and yet, are at times mightier than the bombs.

[PurityOfEssence]

4. Well said!

Speculation about a world without this or that is all very amusing, but lacking a control world to experiment against, it's just guesswork.

It's better than the League of Nations, but that's largely because we joined this time.

The recurring motif when I hear people disparage the U.N. (I'm not taking the thread starter to task here, that sounded like an honest query) is the picture of Gulliver staked down on the beach that was used in some early position paper by the Bushies: somehow we are this big super-organism, and the rest of the world is just a swarm of pesky inferiors.

Yakking is much better than no yakking; it at least gets some things aired. The noble failures and feeble attempts of the body may well serve us well in the future: they may give us obvious illustrations for why its powers should be increased.

[izzie]

5. I am with you on this.

American's of the right do not seem to understand we are just part of the world and some how we must learn to live together. I do not think we will make it as an Empire and try to rule the world.

[bowens43]

3. The fact that the UN's most powerful member

has no integrity in no way diminishes the UN.