From: Noah Horton (nhorton@ectropic.org)
Date: Mon Mar 17 2003 - 13:01:15 MST
On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Greg Jordan wrote:
> The US Bush administration talk of the UN (and even NATO) being
> "irrelevant" is, I think, also a major new precedent for a superpower
> member of the Security Council, especially in its context of justifying a
> war of aggression.
Um, not really. Pre WW2, the USSR dropped out of the League of Nations
because it would not take action against Hitler. Actually, the current
situation has a lot in common with the diplomatic situation immediately
before and at the start of WW2.
Furthermore, the concept of the irrelivence of these two bodies is pretty
old news, it just has started getting headlines. Any historian will tell
you that NATO is a cold-war era relic, and in fact that body has been
working for some years to redefine itself. As for the UN, it has really
not taken very much action over the years. It has a few successes, but
not many. There are also some issues with it that have always made it a
little suspect with regard to relevence and legitimacy, such as Libya
heading the UN Human Rights commission.
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