5 ms·
Pope Francis calls for reforms to the United Nations in new book
- Nomentatus 4y agoIs it really a shock that an institution designed largely by Stalin (although FDR's idea) isn't fit for purpose? Time to hit restart, and perhaps not to include the autocracies and miscreants.
- slater 4y ago
- Nomentatus 4y agoCompare and contrast Russian warcrimes with US conduct, however construed. I don't think you can make a close comparison. The Brits, when they led the world, were very considerably more nasty than the U.S..
- ninethirty 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses
- giraffe_lady 4y agoI think this comparison only stands if you narrowly view the US's actions in their own uniforms under their own flag. If you include covert assistance to coups and juntas, training fascist insurrectionists, supplying weapons to genocidal autocrats, and the proxy wars... well maybe still they aren't the same but they're playing in the same league for sure. It's not preposterous to make the comparison.
- amadeuspagel 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
- Nomentatus 4y agoLucky for Canada, there's no war crimes page on Wikipedia for us! Canadian soldiers in WWI were actually explicitly trained to kill prisoners unless ordered otherwise and were famous for doing that the whole war. WWII had many examples as well, that show up in Barry Broadfoot's oral history of WWII.
- epolanski 4y ago> Is it really a shock that an institution designed largely by Stalin (although FDR's idea) isn't fit for purpose? It was an evolution of the league of nations actually. Considering that during the last 77 years none of the 30 biggest economies in the world fought each other (I think there are minor exceptions like Argentina-Britain over Falklands/Malvinas), I think UN isn't that bad. > Time to hit restart, and perhaps not to include the autocracies and miscreants. And who gets to decide who those are? Also, what is the purpose of a club that doesn't include all the nations? It's just an alliance.
- Nomentatus 4y agoNo, it was a successor to the League. The League had been an obvious catastrophe; not something you'd want to copy or merely revise. A very big alliance beats a nothing burger - and remember that the United Nations did exclude Germany and Japan in the beginning, for obvious reasons. It was originally the instantiation of an alliance.
- Nomentatus 4y agoRussia and China fought - not a full war, but they fought. Iraq-Iran, very very bloody. And the list goes on and on. The cold war was an exceptionally bloody period with casualties not out of line with the WWII period, there were a **ton of proxy wars.
- Nomentatus 4y agoAdd extensive air combat between Soviet pilots and American pilots in Vietnam, and Korea I believe.
- epolanski 4y agoAs I said there are minor exceptions. Iraq and Iran were not top 30 economies when they fought the war.
- colechristensen 4y agoCasualties absolutely were out of line with WWII. Go find a graph of war deaths divided by world population by year for the last two hundred years and make the comparison yourself.
- la64710 4y agoThe biggest reform is to dissolve the security council and make it truly democratic.
- gus_massa 4y agoThey have nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons doesn't make their opinion right, but it's difficult to argue with them. Even if you are right, they have nuclear weapons. I think we should add India and Pakistan instead.
- SanjayMehta 4y agoGermany and Japan as well. Notice how the UNSC was just the winners of WW-2.
- bergenty 4y agoI agree about India. Pakistan doesn’t make sense besides being a nuclear power.
- cuteboy19 4y ago50 years of begging to be let in only to have your worst enemy tailgate behind you. Poetically cruel
- colechristensen 4y agoBut it’s not democratic, it is for show. Just an abstraction that organizes diplomacy, a method for legitimizing and coming to agreements or having conflicts with less chaos. Let us not give up our sovereignty to a small group of people very far from being accountable to the people they represent, let us not chase world government. If you dissolve the security council., the important members just walk away. The UN is a game played by major powers in order to achieve increased stability. It is not a world government and won’t be blind to the actual source and distribution of world power.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dirtyid 4y agoHow many divisions has the Pope? etc etc
- nyokodo 4y agoA quote attributed to Stalin whose empire Pope John Paul II helped topple forty years later by inspiring the formation of the Polish Solidarity Movement. So, how many divisions has the Pope? How many ya got?
- dirtyid 4y agoIf we're going by chaos theory handwaving, i.e. IIRC, CIA funnelled cash via Vatican 40 years after Stalin's death, then still around zero, but on par with the power of a flapping butterfly. Vatican as an institution has instrumental power sure, but let's not confuse them for the actual great powers behind great power competition.
- nyokodo 4y ago> let's not confuse them for the actual great powers behind great power competition. Yes, let’s not. The Papacy is a 2000 year old institution and the current great powers are only a small fraction as mature. I’m betting the Papacy will outlive them all.
- hulitu 4y agoHe shall start with his own garden.
- rich_sasha 4y agoPope Francis would do well to focus away from the speck in the UNs eye and on the beam in his own. The Roman Catholic Church is certainly and absolutely not in a position to lecture on good organisational practice.
- bheadmaster 4y agoIf the Christian Church wants to influence politics, how about they pay taxes first?