"Creating a League of Democracies
What he said:“We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact—a League of Democracies—that can harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.” —Speech at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, March 26, 2008
Why it’s a bad idea: As Thomas Carothers argues in the July/August issue of FP, “[T]he idea that democracies naturally align is only half right and risks being a dangerous oversimplification.” Carothers and other critics have noted that such a league might further weaken the United Nations. For the most part, world leaders have been cool to the idea, and rightfully so. A previous iteration, the little-known Community of Democracies, founded in 2000, has stumbled into irrelevance."
For me this just highlights how out of touch McCain appears to be when it comes to foreign affairs. And really how out of touch most Americans are when it comes to things like the United Nations and what it is that they do. It isn't that the United Nations is without flaws because we all know that, that just isn't the case. The United Nations is rife with scandal and abuses but if we as the USA one of the founding member of the group do not stay involved and work to fix these problems then the United Nations will become far more of a problem for us then they are now. I do not think the answer should ever be throw your hands up in the air and walk away.
So that is it for me, please read article or parts of it and let me know your thoughts.
2 comments:
The UN has pretty exhaustively proven that it's flawed design is not working like anyone had hoped (except maybe career diplomats and tyrants). At the same time, while I support the idea of a league of democracies, unless it can supplant and replace the UN it would not be worth the money and time spent on it. I wasn't even aware there was such a thing as the Community of Democracies, which proves how pointless such an organization is.
If major countries like the US bailed out of the UN and tossed them out of Turtle Bay, cut their funding and started to just work around the organization it could wither on the vine and a replacement could be implemented but they can't work side by side.
Valid points CT. I am just concerned about the abandoning of a sinking ship. There needs to be something in place to help these other countries out and as of yet that isn't happening. It would be interesting to see a legitimate scale weighing of the good and the bad the UN has done and to see what the final result is.
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