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sebster wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Quite simply, I do not believe that an Islamic state of any sort should ever have the veto power that comes from being a permanent member of the UNSC.

That is my personal opinion based on my personal observations and experiences, nothing more.

Yeah, but they’re personal observations that have nothing to do with how the UN works.

I never said that it did.

I just don't believe that it is in the best interest of the world to have Muslim states as permanent members of the UNSC.

You're the one blowing this up into something else.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Well, what *else* could it be?

After you called me a bigot, the only other responses I could make would degenerate things into tit-for-tat "so's your mother" exchange that I want no part of.

I assumed that's what you wanted all along, honestly. Especially after you decided to classify Indonesia as a theocratic state just because it has a Muslim majority.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I never said that it did.

I just don't believe that it is in the best interest of the world to have Muslim states as permanent members of the UNSC.

You're the one blowing this up into something else.

Don’t try and change your story. You said;
“Indonesia is Muslim, so they cannot ever be part of the UNSC.”

I guess you meant permanency, because there are currently two Islamic countries on the UNSC (Turkey and Libya).

Regardless, you said a country shouldn’t get permanency on the UNSC because it’s Islamic. It shows a chronic misunderstanding of how and why permanency is granted.

I’m not blowing it up into anything more than what it is. I’ve made no comment on how or why you picked Islam out as being unacceptable, and not, say, Stalinist Russia. I’ve kept to a simple argument that permanency has nothing to do with how nice a country it is. In each post you’ve failed to refute that, accept that or address it in any way. Really, you’ve done nothing but repeat your original premise, except this last time where you tried to slightly change your argument.

Either form an argument to dispute my point, or accept you got ahead of yourself and said something that didn’t make any sense.

86% Muslim isn't "just" a majority, particularly when it extends to things like Muslim-bloc anti-Israeli national policy and action.

That is, it's one thing to have a religious majority (the US is majority Christian). It's quite another to have it dictate political and social norms that drive day-to-day mainline discrimination.

And I completely recognize that Indonesia is relatively benign as far as such states go. But even so, with the brewing fundamentalists (Aceh), it's far too dangerous to make them permanent.

Heck, if it looked like fundamentalist Catholics were going to take over France, I'd be worried there, too!

sebster wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I just don't believe that it is in the best interest of the world to have Muslim states as permanent members of the UNSC.

Don’t try and change your story.

You said; “Indonesia is Muslim, so they cannot ever be part of the UNSC.”

Regardless, you said a country shouldn’t get permanency on the UNSC because it’s Islamic.

Either form an argument to dispute my point, or accept you got ahead of yourself and said something that didn’t make any sense.

How about you try to post while understanding context rather than claiming victory on the basis of nothing? Such as the fact that everybody was shorthanding "UNSC" and "SC"to mean "permanent members of the UNSC", and that my initial comment was in that vein.


So I've never changed any story.

Now, I said that, and I believe that. You seem to think that I believe that non-Muslim is a de jure or de facto requirement of UNSC (permanent) membership. That is clearly false. You are taking the word "can" far too strongly and literally in the sense of 'can-able'. My opinion is that it would be a terrible thing if a Muslim country ever received permanent membership. So perhaps I ought to have worded it as “Indonesia is Muslim, so they should not ever be part of the UNSC.” Or maybe “Indonesia is Muslim, so they cannot ever be part of the UNSC and have things go well.”

I will continue to state that "(it is my continuing personal opinion that) a country shouldn't get permanency on the UNSC because it's Islamic". That means that I cannot think of a single majority-Muslim country that I would like to see as a permanent member of the UNSC. Do you understand that?

JohnHwangDD wrote:[How about you try to post while understanding context rather than claiming victory on the basis of nothing? Such as the fact that everybody was shorthanding "UNSC" and "SC"to mean "permanent members of the UNSC", and that my initial comment was in that vein.

So I've never changed any story.

Now, I said that, and I believe that. You seem to think that I believe that non-Muslim is a de jure or de facto requirement of UNSC (permanent) membership. That is clearly false. You are taking the word "can" far too strongly and literally in the sense of 'can-able'. My opinion is that it would be a terrible thing if a Muslim country ever received permanent membership. So perhaps I ought to have worded it as “Indonesia is Muslim, so they should not ever be part of the UNSC.” Or maybe “Indonesia is Muslim, so they cannot ever be part of the UNSC and have things go well.”

I will continue to state that "(it is my continuing personal opinion that) a country shouldn't get permanency on the UNSC because it's Islamic". That means that I cannot think of a single majority-Muslim country that I would like to see as a permanent member of the UNSC. Do you understand that?

Sorry, I was unclear there. In my earlier post I was just pointing out the difference between UNSC membership and permanency. I had assumed you were talking about that and was just clarifying that. I wasn’t saying that was you changing your story.

My comment on the change in your story was on you moving from ‘can’t be’ to ‘it would be bad if’. These are considerably different statements.

The latter can be argued on grounds of ‘Muslims be bad’, as you’ve been doing. There’s a whole pile of bigotry in there, but I can’t really bothered going into it. I’d rather just stick to talking about the UN.

The former can’t be argued on those grounds, because permanency has nothing to do with how nice a country you are. It’s about how powerful you are, plain and simple. As such, it’s irrelevant if you’re Islamic or not, if you’re powerful enough you get a spot. Even still, you’re arguing based on ‘it would be bad if they were given permanency’, which is still indefensible because once a country is powerful enough to demand veto power, its best for everyone to get it. The alternative is to allow the UNSC to authorise military operations that world powers disagree with, and that’s the path to disaster. You need to shift to some kind of ‘it would be bad if Indonesia became powerful enough to need permanency’.

I’ve tried to get you to retract that claim and go with ‘shouldn’t be’, and then form a ‘shouldn’t be’ argument that acknowledges the basic workings of the UN, but you’ve been obstinate to say the least.

IMNSHO, the biggest problem with the UN is the veto power the security counsel has. I'd like to see that removed, along with the idea of permanent members, but that's never going to happen. The UN is a messy hodgepodge of compromises, but it's likely the best super-national organization we're likely ever gonna get.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:IMNSHO, the biggest problem with the UN is the veto power the security counsel has. I'd like to see that removed, along with the idea of permanent members, but that's never going to happen. The UN is a messy hodgepodge of compromises, but it's likely the best super-national organization we're likely ever gonna get.

Except, as I was saying to Jon, if a motion is passed authorising a troop deployment that one of the big boys disagrees with, you’ve got real problems. What if a motion had been passed where UN troops were to force the Russians out of Chechnya. Or if a motion were passed tomorrow that ordered the US out of Iraq.

Nothing to do with right or wrong, just a way of ensuring things don’t go through the UN that are likely to lead to war between major powers.


But I agree in general. It's a hodge podge, and has a lot limitations. Still does a lot more good than most people to recognise.

Moderation on
I am closing this thread. As I have been an active participant thats all I am doing. However, the discussion of whether a Dakka member is a bigot is borderline trolling on Dakka and I remind everyone of the Dakka forum rules.
Moderation off.