system afghanistan after fifty years off war and lawlessness and no government practically were different kind of government. as now system democratic process is taking roots but you know you cannot make democracy in one day in your country especially in a country that had been no war for fifty years so i think that there are probably going to be problems and i think the problem on election is not only in a specific in afghanistan a lot of countries even more developed countries have had a problem in that action but the process is going on and people. believing in democracy that's the reason people are complaining millions of people anybody difficult condition of security when to vote a lot of women for the first time in afghanistan or in the election to be men a lot of priests do you know good news with afghanistan but afghanistan cannot be so it's a learned. in nine years as

a foreign minister thank you very much for this interview and i wish you and your people every success in achieving peace and democracy in your country. you know. we. know from. all over the country. virtually all terrorists today. do we have the right to make such provoking of statements and the muslim schools have the right to exist. do you find new york city.

could have been with the top stories now more than four hundred people remain stranded on russia's far east coast after a fleet of ships was imprisoned in ice a week ago a rescue mission is underway in the bay of. the gazans struggle to find employment in the land under siege as economy fails to despite israel's easing at the local force to take up hard labor to provide for their families. and many american

muslims say they're fighting a daily battle against prejudice claiming islamophobia still going strong in the u.s. ten years off the nine eleven accuse authorities of failing to stop bias against arabs in the. next joint guests in a debate on whether the un is still relevant today that's next on r.t. .

hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle what is it the world's most important international body or a dysfunctional global organization the united nations is often criticized for its many shortcomings with the world be a better place without him. and. discuss the role of the united nations today i'm joined by peter to cross so in hong kong he's an analyst and the author of custom made knowledge in new york we have stephen sless injure he's an adjunct fellow at the century foundation and in greensboro we go to nathan tauber he is the founder and c.e.o. of the conservative voice dot com and another member of our cross talk team hunger all right. i'm going to tell my viewers right up front is two against one not in counting me in this program cross talk rules and in fact so stephen i'm going to go to you first. as i said in the introduction there

a lot of people criticize the united nations for its shorts and shortcomings but what is most important value in light of those shortcomings well the united nations was set up originally to control and maintain security around the globe that was the prime mission in one nine hundred forty five when they chew and charter was adopted and in fact you have to give it credit there has a mini third world war in the last sixty five years there have been skirmishes and been conflicts but by and large the world has not spun out of control in terms of a kind of military confrontations today the un is maintaining seven dangerous so peacekeeping missions around the globe which means. that these crisis what will stay stable because we have u.n. troops there the u.n. is basically been a. word shop for diplomats to come and talk and work out deals to settle

conflicts that have affected parts of the of the globe and it's helps it's also brought peace to a number of different countries in say guatemala or el salvador or mozambique or cambodia so despite the evident flaws and there are flaws in the u.n. by and large i think you have to give it credit for maintaining some sort of security around the globe ok if i go to you peter in hong kong to follow up on what stephen had to say and maybe if i can extrapolate i mean this was the during the cold war there wasn't a major conflict there wasn't a war between the united states and the soviet union and do should we give credit for the united nations for that at least partially in that and then after that maybe the u.n. looking for a mission no i don't think the u.n. deserves any credit for the lack of any conflicts from forty five on words if anything it was the individual members

individually and collectively that basically prevented wars if you look at take any of the major conflicts if you go back to suez or the suez crisis it was the brits and the french and the americans who finally put the cup bhatia on it conflicts were ongoing while the un was basically a talk shop of unemployed bureaucrats and government officials from third world countries basically doing what they were told by their puppet tiers but not one of their resolutions that i know off was ever unforced. anywhere and to me the ultimate. nail in the coffin was on march twenty three two zero three when american president george bush basically gave saddam hussein forty

eight hours to get out and even america decided to bypass the u.n. and not wait for resolution number eighteen when it comes to going to war with iraq and at the same time another classic example was france was objecting to invading iraq at the time just went ahead and invaded the ivory coast while it was telling the u.s. not to go into iraq and there are parallel and similar examples dating all the way back to forty five so i can't think of one conflict or know of one conflict that the u.n. can take credit for stopping ok nathan if i go to you where do you stand on this here and i'd like to inject here i would basically agree with peter maybe for very different reasons that western countries will use the united nations to its advantage it will follow u.n.

resolutions and in votes but if it doesn't like it and that's one of the big criticisms of the united nations is that the west particular united states will use it is for its own convenience and if it doesn't like it will just ignore it how do you feel about that. right i mean the united nations ultimately has no authority they have no military they have no court system that can really implement anything when you look at the conflicts that they have not resolved congo sudan rwanda i mean if a country wants to do something they're going to do it talking about weapons and i look at north korea iran former iraq i mean the united nations has literally just been a government bureaucracy full of the rape as you know the untold number of women that have been you know molested and raped by so-called you in peacekeepers is just a laughable joke that someone could actually believe that the united nations has

been able to keep conflict from happening what the u.n. has done a good job in is taking credit for what great leaders like ronald reagan and gorbachev have been able to come together own their own through their countries and through their leadership has to end the conflict and then the united nations steps in this is oh look what we've done when in actuality i don't think any conflict that i know of that the united nations has ever been able to resolve and if anything conflicts that have existed or currently do exist like the sudan the united nations has not even done anything at all it's ok stephen what do you think about that i mean a lot of cold war has. been born in the united nations in the last five minutes what do you think. i'm just amazed to hear what i'm what i'm hearing i mean first of all for. our friend in hong kong to suggest that the u.n. was not involved in suez actually it was the un that put in peacekeepers ensue

whereas in order to force the british and the french and the year israelis to withdraw and and make that settlement work at least for a period of time and on iraq yes it is true that bush sent the u.s. troops in without u.n. authorization and what he found is that he was totally isolated in iraq because none of the other countries in the world were except for a few maybe great britain were really supporting what he had done and so what did the george w. bush do he went back to the u.n. to get a resolution out of the security council to giving him the gentleman safe to occupy that country why did he do that because he realized that without that u.n. resolution he would not get worldwide support and as for the conflicts the the other speaker mention the congo the u.n. has troops in the congo is trying to bring peace there i mean come on give me one

credit for what it's trying to do it can't settle every crisis around the globe i admit that but even in places that no other country will deal with it has tried to show some authority some involvement in order to bring some sort of settlement to these conflicts you know if the if the u.n. didn't exist for example the seventeen peacekeeping missions that it's supporting right now would the u.s. be putting troops in there to keep those conflicts from spreading or spinning out of control and would this country be supporting u.n. mission that u.s. missions around the globe. pouring in defense dollars pouring in taxpayers' dollars no we much prefer to have the u.n. act in that role we don't want to get involved as as the policemen of the globe so i think you know these critics do not give sufficient in here credit is what the u.n. is achieved go ahead nathan jump in there go right ahead. so i mean i just one simple

question what has the u.n. done in sudan you see when you went to peru plight of that as i said. at the u.n. does not solve all the crises that are thrown in its lap and it is trying to work somewhat out of that and i want to do and i said come on give or take you know they're not they're not trying to do anything and so you know the reason is i know trying to settle sudan they're not no you said they are a peacekeeping efforts they said they're trying to do something in sudan there's been over there's been so you know people begin to heal and handle and they've not done anything. they know and then i'll go and meet only thing they did find a result was they did it they did two things in congo they raped children and women and killed innocent people and then covered it up in the media that's the only thing they've done in congo. you were going to say that they have thousand troops

go in there and. go ahead steve yes i did i said in fact they're trying to bring peace i'm not saying they're always successful and obviously there are cases in which u.n. soldiers have been terribly terribly misbehave but does that mean that you would therefore the u.n. should not put troops in anywhere ok. maybe they thought if i go to you i mean stephen brought up a point i mean should the united states be taking the place of the united nations in all of these conflicts that he pointed out i mean he brings a good point i mean the united states is the one who spend the treasury and spill its own blood for conflicts that are all over the world that the united states may have nothing to do with. true but the two issues exist they are what is the role of the united nations in the sovereignty of a nation the second is remember these are not you in troops most of these troops that are wearing a blue helmet and blue patch are already u.s. soldiers so we already have our young men and children young men and women as

soldiers playing peacekeepers in these nations so who does he think is already on salary there still is not who we are for most of these. are not a major a miss out of the united nations. we're funding forty percent on average of the united nations budget and they vote against the united states ninety two percent of the time all right gentlemen we're soldiers that are already going to the ceremony you know it's very short break and after week after our break we'll continue our discussion on the relevance of the united nations today stay with our team. and.

just. children now see how eight thousand by the end of elementary school five hundred sounds of violence by the age of eighteen. movies television shows video games. twenty four hour news channels.

every day formulate a stable. shakespear those while those who say this is. think about it while it was a legitimate artistic journalistic feature but most of the violence you see is what i call happy. god came down from heaven and stopped. at the. moment in a pretty while but you were makes the pill easier to swallow. everybody loves come down.

to peter lavelle remind you we're talking about the u.n. today and in the future. but before let's see what russians think about this organization the un was established in one thousand nine hundred forty five to replace the league of nations mission was set to facilitate corp promote world peace and provide a platform for dialogue however recently the relevance of the un to keep global issues has come into question critics say it is unable to handle international conflicts for example and that it fails in its primary mission the russian public opinion research center assessed attitudes of citizens told us thirty eight percent of the respondents felt positive about their organization twenty and then percent

expressed and negative attitude but despite growing criticism the un remains the world's premier supranational forum he took. all right gentlemen let's change the subject a little bit let's talk about presentation i mean the united nations like to calls itself a democracy or. supporting democratic ideas and expression for nathan and peter in hong kong if the united nations were to democratize itself change the united nations security council again that's a reflection of the end of the second world war would that make the united nations a more viable organization for its critics making it more democratic leaning more countries onto the united nations security council or somehow making it a rotating. system peter in hong kong if i go to you first on that. no i think in theory it's very democratic with the general assembly and trying to expand the security council doesn't make any sense to me

the un is built on what was one of new york's premier of a two r.'s and i think the un should be buried right there and start with a new global organization that is representative of the world today not the world of one thousand nine hundred forty five and i think we can replace the organisation or restructure it completely and i wouldn't even call it a united nations because it is anything but united i think that is one of the greatest misnomers of all international organizations what i have proposed in my book custom made knowledge was an inter local security council where you basically have the major civilizations represented at that level namely china russia america india and then

representatives of all the other civilizations europe via the e.u. in latin america the organization of latin america or organization of american states you can out of africa through the african union let each region and from the middle east the arab league have each region sent a representative to this global organization and let that organization be democratic to try and have an organization with one hundred ninety two countries is a nonstarter we have a regional organizations that can address regional problems and each one of those regional. going to zation it's going to have one of their members states rotate annually at what i call the see the intro to local small community council and i

think we get that we get the gist of your idea if i go to use even there i mean let's that's an interesting idea do it on a regional basis but with all regions be interested in other regions in the world ok i mean the americans would say well that's a problem in africa i mean do you guys take care you africans take care of we don't need to get involved i mean that's what a lot of people would say what do you think of the about this idea well actually it was it's a variation on a on the idea that winston churchill originally had he wanted to do a regional authorities and make that kind of notion of a global security organization it was franklin roosevelt and harry truman who in and along with stalin who insisted that it actually be a more centralized body but the fact is that regional organizations do operate within the u.n. in fact it's part of the article fifty one of the un charter allows that to happen and i think it's simply a pipe dream to think you're going to organize a new global security body under any variation you're never going to get one

hundred ninety two nations together to do anything of that sort we're lucky that we had fifty one nations come together in one thousand nine hundred five to agree on the united nations we're stuck with the united nations the best we can do is try to improve this organization but we're never going to get anything better at this point and as for security council reform that's not going anywhere either none of the five countries that have the veto will ever give up their power and they're never going to really let mitt the other countries are to the council with the veto they're happy the way it is status quo reigns and i think it's going to be very difficult for any changes along those lines anyway to be happening in the coming years nathan if i go to you if i can follow up on what stephen said we're stuck with the united nations what do you think about that comment. well i mean that kind of goes to our argument what peter and i would be saying and others is that you know while the united nations is the best thing that we have it's also the

absolutely worst thing that we have and when times like that when an organization has proven itself to be ineffective you know have no authority corrupt to its you know skeleton it's time just to let it go dissolve it and work on putting something into effect that protects the sovereignty of nations but at the same time you know sets up some type of realistic security council all right gentlemen let's take i want to do that so i want to live that i want to look at a proposition here ok here is the proposition the world would be a better place without the united nations stephen you first it says this and it's a fantasy to think you're going to replace you when with any other organization and the fact is that i'm not sure where these two individuals on speaking do come for come from in the political spectrum in the united states but you have both democratic and republican presidents since one thousand nine hundred five not only

supporting the u.n. but working with you when they understand the reality that they have to deal with this organization if they're going to get complex anything on the foreign policy scheme scheme and therefore to this notion that the u.n. can be considered fade away or drift away or be abolished seems to me ridiculous and that's why as i said every president since one thousand nine hundred five has not only dealt with the u.n. they've sent emissaries there they work with they worked out agreements they work through the u.n. and this is the way our foreign policy is going to be conducted the future two ok peter in hong kong the same proposition the world would be a better place without the united nations what do you think. i think it would the world would be a much better place without the united nations stephen just because presidents of the united states think the u.n. is a very convenient tool to help execute u.s. foreign policy doesn't make the organization

a necessary tool for the rest of the world as we go into the world and look into the future today i mean the u.s. the u.s. was a global superpower in one nine hundred forty five and has been one until recently it is no longer the world's sole superpower it may be so militarily but not politically or economically you've got other powers like russia like china and other regions that are saying you know what we don't like this organization you have most americans saying they don't like this organization the organization is an working so why the propecia weight something that is dysfunctional and as nathan pointed out corrupt it is basically the employment agency of corrupt officials from the third world with their mistresses and girlfriends or wives had

this serves no valued political military or economic purpose it is very easy to either restructure it tirelessly or come up with an organization where he has if there are problems in africa let the africans deal with it but you know what they can have a representative in the new global organization that has a body that can not only agree as to what the other members of the organization should do on that continent or that region but actually have some kind of security force that works as a cohesive military unit. what happens today is you all know whenever there's a crisis they throw any number of armies that have never worked together never trained together their equipment is not compatible they throw them into a region and all they wind up doing is perpetuating the problem or engaging in

other corrupt activities stephen what do you think about what we just heard i think that he'll land is a very valuable organization and i'll tell you why first of all it's the one place that any country can go to in order to try to either stave off a conflict or settle a conflict there's just simply no other organization around the globe that can do that and it's a neutral meeting place that allows people from different ideologies to come together and that simply is not possible in any other organization it also extends the the possibility of some sort of collective security operations to ward off few future. vacations of any sort after after all president bush the first president bush used the u.n. in order to oust saddam hussein from his invasion of kuwait harry truman use the u.n. to put in u.s.

troops it collectively with other foreign countries to stop the invasion of south korea by north korea these are real realities this is what the u.n. has achieved the u.n. has sanctions now on both north korea and iran because that's the way of trying to prevent them from developing a nuclear capacities all these things don't necessarily work all the time but there simply is no other organization that has the capacity to do these kind of a gentleman there's an incentive thank you see me jump in here i'm sure we can discuss the united nations and people will discuss united nations for a long time many thanks to my guest today in new york greensboro and in hong kong and thanks to our viewers for watching this here dark. see you next time and remember crosstalk rules.