In college I went to Harvard twice and participated in a mock UN event. If that is anything like the real one, which I suspect it is, it is just a bunch of people with different cultures, aims and ideas trying to rule the world. And they get no where! I think they keep the dialog open between most countries, but other than that they are worthless. It is nice to have a place where they can come together and make decisions, but in the end the US is more powerful.

It seems to me the UN has just gotten to the point where it's never capable of really taking any action because it can never agree on anything, usually because of deals each country has with others.

Case in point, after countless resolutions that were never enforced regarding Iraq, we still couldn't get a deadline for action approved because countries like France and Russia would never agree to it.

It's no secret they were owed billions of dollars from Saddam, and had a lot of business interests in keeping the status quo in Iraq.

I only use this as an example, I'm not looking to debate whether we were right or wrong with Iraq. My point is just that you can't allow people who don't have your own best interest or the best interests of the world as a whole at heart dictate what you do.

Mz, I'm assuming (and we know what happens when I ASS U ME things) that you are referring atleast in part to the US thinking it's too good for the U.N., if I'm wrong I apologize for my assumption.

But I think that it's not so much that we're too good for them, as it is the U.N. is never willing to back up it's talk, and at some point we have to stop letting a bunch of little countries dictate what the U.S. policies are.

I can't think of a single recent situation in which the U.N. made a positive difference. I'm not talking about peace-keeping forces and keeping the status quo in an area, but rather where they positively affected the outcome of an area in strife.

If someone CAN point to a solid example I'd love to hear it.

That's a very good point.

I definately don't think countries involved with it think of the UN as one body as much as a collection of individual bodies with individual interests (which is what they are).

This Iranian thing will be yet another test of just what the UN stands for.

Iran is completely ignoring the UN's decisions and now with the 15 British soldiers being held I think it's going to be put up or shut up time.

You can send all the threatening letters you want. You can impose as many sanctions as you want (which really only hurt the citizens usually and is NOT the intention of sanctions). At some point the UN has to decide if it's going to keep waiting until it's too late and Iran has nuclear weapons or if they're going to do something about it.

This time Russia and France are showing a little backbone (not much) so we'll see what happens.

This is exactly what I meant when I said I think the UN is becoming irrevant.

All the points you've made are exactly why I think it is.

It's like you go to the UN and hope they support you, but if not you have to go on your own anyway, so really, what's the point?

I can see both sides of it. It's not right for a UN member to act unilaterally and yet it's not right for the UN to have it's decisions dictated by the political dealings of a few member nations either.

I really think it's darn near a useless organization at this point.

Actually, I answered the poll wrong, and it doesn't look like you can undo. I read the subject, "Do you think the UN serves a purpose anymore," and marked "no," and then I saw that the question was actually, "Has the U.N. become irrelevant?" so I should have marked "yes."