U.N. needs authority
Add comment July 14th, 2006
U.S. vetoes U.N. resolution on Mideast
This is disturbing on several levels, but I’ll focus on two.
First, it again calls into question the wisdom of allowing veto power for the five permanent members of the U.N. It has to be considered a deterrent to real diplomacy. A harm-reduction approach might be to not do away with it entirely, but to give that council of five collective veto power and require 3 of the 5 to agree (like a supreme court decision).
Second, the implication put forth by John Bolton is that a call for cessation of violence would deter the progress the violence is making. One side abducts a soldier, an act in itself the amplification of many non-violent but intrusive exchanges between Israel and Palestine. The other abducts officials and lawmakers. The next thing you know, bombs are going off. I can recognize the validity of a controlled burn metaphor in some situation, but there is nothing controlled about this most recent mess. To suggest that interrupting the “fluid events on the ground” with a call for peace would inflame tensions is ridiculous.
Personally, I believe in the need and potential of the United Nations. Some do not and want it eliminated. Either way, we can agree that the current state of the organization is not functioning well and needs some kind of change in its structure.