[Drew]

Originally Posted by elstatec

i think this is the dumb ideology which see's america disliked so much around the world.


beer: to what ninty said

It's the same thing as a convicted murderer on death row being permitted to vote for a President.

When citizens commit atrocities, they are revoked some of their rights. Freedom. Free speech. The right to vote.

This is how it should be. When you commit horrible, horrible crimes, you should be denied a voice in whatever governing body is over you, in the case of a nation, the UN.

However, this is not the case. Syria, who slaughtered the people of Lebanon and export terror around the world, actually sat on the security council. One of the most violent and oppressive governments in recent history was given the right to obtain sensitive knowledge and to influence UN security policy. Meanwhile slaughtering its own people and the people of neighboring nations.

The problem with the world today is that no one wants to punish anyone. They don't want to punish anyone because they fear that someone innocent might be caught up in that punishment. But, as we all learned back in grade school, the world is never that fair. Sometimes innocent people must be punished in order to bring about a greater good. This is the basis of utilitarian theories of ethics. The UN refuses to enforce its sanctions and restrictions. It hesitates to send peacekeeping forces to prevent a slaughter, costing thousands of lives. It delays in sending aid to disaster-stricken countries.

The UN is sick. It is sick and it is dying, its weakness becoming more and more evident with each passing day. Each day it refuses to validate itself, it dies that much more.

And I'm not saying the US should be exempt from anything. So long as we choose to be a member of the UN, we should be vulnerable to the same punishments as others should we choose to defy the UN.

But I maintain that giving voice to governments which are brutal, oppressive and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their own people is even greater a crime, because the UN is simply telling that government that they can continue to do as they are with absolute impunity.

Anyway, maybe one of you folks will get elected and we can have serial killers and child rapists voting in the next election. They do, indeed, deserve to have a voice in such matters. They'll probably vote for a Liberal who will take them off death row in preference of living in a nicely decorated mental institution.

[ninty]

Your comparison isn't founded at all.

Criminals have a right to a trial. In this trial, they have the right to defend themselves. It is only after they are found guilty that rights are taken away.

The fact is that the discussion was not about what Iraq had done, rather what the US was going to do to Iraq, and if they had a right to defend themselves at the highest levels of international law.

If we go back to your prison example, once someone is convicted, do they lose all basic rights of a human? Are these people no longer human? Should it be legal to beat, mame and kill prisoners because they have lost their rights?

With Iraq, because they have human rights violations, is it appropriate to take away all rights of a country to defend itself legally? The issues between Iraq’s history of UN violations and human rights concerns have nothing to do with the beginnings of the Iraq war. They are two separate issues completely.

I don’t want to put words in your mouth so correct me if I’m wrong, but what I see you saying is that since Iraq has human rights violations, their rights as a country get thrown out. From this, other countries are now, without competition form international law, allowed to do what they please to Iraq because of this loss of rights. More specifically, the US gets to present a case stating why an invasion should take place, while Iraq can do nothing but stand idle waiting for the invasion to come, whether the invasion is justified or not.

Also, you might want to avoid personal attacks and speculation as to what “we” as “liberals” might do in the future because they really have no foundation for discussion in this topic.

[elstatec]

Originally Posted by ninty9

I don’t want to put words in your mouth so correct me if I’m wrong, but what I see you saying is that since Iraq has human rights violations, their rights as a country get thrown out. From this, other countries are now, without competition form international law, allowed to do what they please to Iraq because of this loss of rights. More specifically, the US gets to present a case stating why an invasion should take place, while Iraq can do nothing but stand idle waiting for the invasion to come, whether the invasion is justified or not..

werd

[Drew]

Originally Posted by ninty9

I don’t want to put words in your mouth so correct me if I’m wrong, but what I see you saying is that since Iraq has human rights violations, their rights as a country get thrown out. From this, other countries are now, without competition form international law, allowed to do what they please to Iraq because of this loss of rights. More specifically, the US gets to present a case stating why an invasion should take place, while Iraq can do nothing but stand idle waiting for the invasion to come, whether the invasion is justified or not.

The comparison was not about the revocation of all freedoms, but instead the revocation of having a voice in the decisions of a governing body. Most countries do not allow convicted felons to vote, there is a purpose for this. As for going to trial and losing their rights after being proven guilty.. that doesn't make sense. Everyone knows Iraq is guilty of human rights violations. The government admits to slaughtering Kurds.

I'm not saying they should lose all rights as a nation, but I am saying they should be excluded from the discussion regarding it.

[elstatec]

Originally Posted by Drew

The comparison was not about the revocation of all freedoms, but instead the revocation of having a voice in the decisions of a governing body. Most countries do not allow convicted felons to vote, there is a purpose for this. As for going to trial and losing their rights after being proven guilty.. that doesn't make sense. Everyone knows Iraq is guilty of human rights violations. The government admits to slaughtering Kurds.

I'm not saying they should lose all rights as a nation, but I am saying they should be excluded from the discussion regarding it.

Iraq is not guilty of human rights violations, its government was. So now they DO have the right to a voice/discussion regarding whatever they please about their own nations future as that government is no longer in power, rather then have dictated leaders from the Bush camp as you would happen if Iraq has no 'voice'


but anyway: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4365661.stm

[Drew]

Statec, how is that even relevant?

I'm talking about them having an opposing voice during the run-up to the invasion when Sadaam Hussein was still in power. Please read.

Why don't you try to involve yourself in a debate beyond tossing in some generic anti-American tag line. All you do is throw in little pot shots and agree with anyone with an anti-American opinion without ever contributing anything original of your own.

On a side note, it's good to see that UN reform may actually happen. I'm glad people are seeing that. That link may be a good first step to curing the above, even if it does do nothing to support your argument.

[Drew]

[quote:82a8e]
He is expected to accept that the UN Human Rights Commission needs reform and will propose that member states that violate human rights should not serve on the Commission. It should also be a much smaller group.[/quote:82a8e]

[elstatec]

well retract the so now part, my mistake i misread certain posts.

but the intention of when Iraq was invaded as of the WMD not Human Rights Case as you remember, so the US would not of had the same push/support whatever over into Iraq as say if they went just to overthrow the Government due to its Human Rights Violations.

[Maplegyver]

so you would take away somes ones freedoms and rights protected by your constitution without thinking, just becasue they made a mistake in life, but if someone went and took away your right to own the semi automatic assault rifle then you most likley would be on the streets protesting. or would you have your head so far up bush's ass that you wouldnt give t2 fucks?

[Drew]

Originally Posted by Maplegyver

so you would take away somes ones freedoms and rights protected by your constitution without thinking, just becasue they made a mistake in life, but if someone went and took away your right to own the semi automatic assault rifle then you most likley would be on the streets protesting. or would you have your head so far up bush's ass that you wouldnt give t2 fucks?

That doesn't make sense, Maple.

If I murdered someone in cold blood, I would expect my government to revoke my right to own an assault rifle. Or any firearm, for that matter.

So if you are asking if I support criminals having their right to vote revoked, of course I do. Why would I want a serial killer voting for the most influential position in the world?

[Coleman]

wow interesting thread. I just remembered we had this forum lol.

We sort of had an interesting discussion about this in my AP Gov't class.

I sort of have the same views as Drew on this one--not totally though.


In my view, I believe the US joining the UN is unconstituational...period. Our constitution states that it is our supreme law of the land and within it it gives the president certain powers under certain circumstances. If we go by this, then what we did in Iraq isn't comparable to the other view of the UN being supreme law. It was a long discussion noneoftheless, so it doens't really do me much good to try to explain the whole thing.

To answer Drew's original question, I don't think the UN would be able to continue playing the same role as they do presently. Their power will definately be diminished.

I just don't think that it is right that some 3rd world country's vote is worth the same as the US vote. It just doesn't make any sense. But here we go again with going back to the creation of the US Senate to give representation to the smaller states.

Don't know if it's a possibility, but if it had something like the American Congress I think it would be better off with representing each countries' interests.

[ninty]

Originally Posted by Drew

The comparison was not about the revocation of all freedoms, but instead the revocation of having a voice in the decisions of a governing body. Most countries do not allow convicted felons to vote, there is a purpose for this. As for going to trial and losing their rights after being proven guilty.. that doesn't make sense. Everyone knows Iraq is guilty of human rights violations. The government admits to slaughtering Kurds.

I'm not saying they should lose all rights as a nation, but I am saying they should be excluded from the discussion regarding it.

We're not talking about voting here, we're talking about the right for a country to defend itself in a court.

How should have the proceedings taken place? The US presents its case for war to the UN and Iraq should not have been allowed a rebuttle because of violations that have nothing to do with the current situation the US is presenting?

[Drew]

Okay, let me be very specific in the instance to which I was referring:

When I said that Iraq had a voice in opposition to the US invasion in the UN, this was during the time when the UN was not debating whether or not Iraq was guilty of anything, but whether debating whether a US invasion was permissable under UN guidelines.

Iraq had already broken its committments to inspectors. Everyone always talks about how there were no WMDs, but from what I've seen out of most military experts, they all believe they crossed the unsecured border in the first hours of the American invasion. I'm not saying anyone was running around with nukes, but there is a whole shit-ton of chemical and bio weapons that were tagged by the first UN inspectors that have yet to be found.

Anyway, of course Iraq can defend itself against allegations of this or that, but that is not to what I am referring. Iraq had already violated the terms set forth. At this point, it was an academic debate on whether the US (under UN guidelines) could legally invade Iraq. They also lobbied the Security Council to strike down any US proposal for invasion. At that point, being that they were guilty of a decade's worth of violations, slaughtering their people and breaking every human rights standard on the books, they should've been told to sit down, shut up and let the big boys have some adult time to decide what would happen to the country.

[ninty]

You do remember that there were weapons inspectors in Iraq before the invasion began. They stated many times that there were no weapons in Iraq.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/21/iraq.weapons/

[quote:67c04]"I think they chose to ignore us," Blix said[/quote:67c04]

As for the other part, lobbying against the invasion of their own country? Its not really tough to understand why they would do this.

[Pyro]

I could care less if the UN exists or not. But I don't see why americans have such a big problem with it.