Originally posted by Babak
Why do some people believe the UN to be the be all and the end all concerning international matters?
IMO, the UN has all the faults of any government, the lust for absolute power, the grandstanding, the bureaucracy, and the comical chattering about hyper-PC causes. However, it's the mechanism for global governance available now.
The theory is that cooperation and negotiation of disputes is ultimately more beneficial than isolationism and warfare, and that if a country wishes to benefit from having a system of global governance that country should participate in it, even if inconvenient for some special interest groups.
As an aside, this is what seems so shocking about the Bush adminstration's stance - it essentially requires one to dismiss as irrelevant the entire non-US world. They have stated publicly that they will proceed independent of what anyone else thinks, and they will kill whomever they please, because based on secret evidence they feel justified in doing so.
yes - I know: Saddam is a ruthless, maniacal dictator, he commits atrocities satan himself never imagined, etc. - we have heard it all. But even the patently guilty criminal defendant is guaranteed a trial in the US -- and for very good reason. The purpose of a trial is to require the prosecution to prove guilt, in an open venue -- what proof requiring war have we seen here, besides the ranting of politicians? If the case is so strong, is every single non-US country somehow blind to it?
What Bush is proposing is that the US is above the law followed by everyone else - and as Candle said, it should not surprise us if everyone else is severely offended by that.
