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Comment by rblatz | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why you are downvoted, but you are correct. The UN was created to prevent another world war. Which it has been successful at.

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Nuclear weapons and basically nothing else is why there has not been another world war. The UN has had absolutely no part in this outcome and I struggle to think of any positive thing it has been successful at, beside possibly peacekeeping missions, for the entirety of its existence.

The UN is to international peace what the FIFA is to soccer: Somewhat involved in nurturing it to a higher level, although that would have happened without it anyway.

Beyond that completely devolved into a curruption feast.

Look no further than what entities made it into the current "UN human rights council": Usbekistan, Cuba, Russia and China.

And its not a coincidence: Prior to them Sudan, Lybia, Mauretania, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela got to be the Champions of Human Rights. A complete joke.

Meanwhile the same UN issued more condemnations of the democratic state of Israel than of all other nations combined (2006-2015: 61 against Israel, 54 all others, none against China).

> Meanwhile the same UN issued more condemnations of the democratic state of Israel than of all other nations combined (2006-2015: 61 against Israel, 54 all others, none against China).

I don't see what democracy has to do with it. Plenty of democratic countries have and still do violate human rights, and Israel is particularly egregious. Maybe the UN considers they have more authority/clout over Israel than Myanmar? Maybe it's due to this usually happening via the General Assembly, where there are quite a lot of Muslim countries who have a bone to pick with Israel by default, so jump at any opportunity ( and there are plenty of them)?

Indeed, that human rights thing in particular is a total joke. I'm sure those awards were the result of some kind of negotiation but by doing this the UN just completely undermines itself in the public eye.

The Cuban Missile crisis got pretty far with nuclear weapons, and UN embarrassment and pressure played a part in the USSR's response and ultimate back down.

Actually the us backed down. The crisis was triggered by the installation of us nuclear missiles in turkey, a arm length away from russia. They responded by putting missiles in Cuba. The end game was us pulling its missiles from Turkey and ussr from Cuba.

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