OT: US Pres election

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Well there is a great irony there, really. For example, the US has historically paid 22% of the funding for the UN, yet of course only comprises 5% of the world population. The US also tends to shoulder most of the financial, material, and human costs of these so-called "peacekeeping" actions.

Irony for sure. I cant believe you brought that up. The UN dues is not due to population (that would be ridiculous since the most populated are often the poorest). Its set by the nations economy as the US help to set it up to do. Besides which, the US has continually been one of the biggest defaulters refusing to pay their dues in order to try and force the UN to swing in US concerns.

If I were the cold-hearted, business-minded politician that we generally see running the US, I would be hard pressed to send our young men out, armed and funded entirely on the back of the US tax rolls, to be the moral fiber of the world.

I totally agree altho probably for an totally opposite reason. I would have no problem with sending US troops out to be the moral fiber of the world IF they went out in support of UN actions instead of their own idea of what is "good and right".

Perhaps if other nations were to invest similarly (in proportion) of their blood, sweat, and toil, to achieve a more peaceful and proud world, then we might see these other "non-economically beneficial" situations dealt with more readily.

There are nations whose entire military history for the last few decades is entirely in support of UN actions. Those are the nations to look up to.

As it stands, if you look at the wartime costs of the US military budget, as well as the state that our military personnel are in, I can hardly see how anyone could complain about which problems the US gets their hands dirty in.

Ummm... are you trying to say that because we are big and bad that other nations should shut up about what we do to other nations? Or maybe that the cost of such conflicts justifies the fact that the conflicts provide some cost-benefit back to the US?

Now, that said, I refer back to my earlier postulate, that if the other members of the UN had invested a comparable and proportionate amount of their budget and manpower towards resolving the conflict - it likely would have been long over, as even if we had borne 22% of the load (as we pay 22% of the cost of the UN itself), and the rest of the world had shouldered a comparative load, then we would have been looking at 4x the number of feet on the ground, and it seems unlikely that the true instigators of inter-continental terrorism would have been able to hide from that.

OK I might have slipped up. I remember that Bush started this without a declaration of war from Congress. That he used his access to reserves because he had no direct access to the deployment of active duty. I dont remember it being a UN action at that time.

But it still bears mentioning that if in the future such military engagements were more focused, thought out, and called for - that they would be awfully quick procedures, if the rest of the world cooperated in making such actions involve such overwhelming force.

I totally agree.
During the years of peace in the US I said that they should allow voluntary temporary duty to the UN. Many of the active US military would have taken up on that in order to use their training in real conflicts. They should allow voluntary maintaining of a UN uniform with UN insignia and voluntary participation in UN actions just as they now allow voluntary maintaining of a full-dress uniform for voluntary participation in formal and diplomatic dress balls. Allow the assignment with full US pay and benefits. It would benefit our troops in their training and experience, and benefit the standing of the US in world opinion.

Heck, if the evil-doers of the world saw how ferocious and thorough the good people of the world could be in eradicating such civil abuses, they might just start to straighten up themselves, knowing there is no way they can get away with doing wrong for very long - or escape from the rule of law once it comes their turn to be removed from power.

Beware of what you ask for. There are many such situations in the US which the world wishes to enforce actions on.