Kerry's stance on the UN seems naive to me. He and others want more UN involvement. Fine. Let the UN spend their money on this too, such a large percentage of that is money straight from US it doesn't really make much of a difference. He also wants the UN to give a thumbs up to any military action in Iraq and elsewhere. This seems unlikely because the UN is predominantly Arab/Muslim.
There are 189 to 191 nations in the UN, depending on how you count it. Of these nations, forty-six are decidedly Muslim nations. They are either well over 60% Muslim or dominated by Sharia Law and Arab political systems. The other three in this list (the ones with question marks) are about half muslim and half every thing else, but still bare that strong Islamic presense. So, Islamic nations make up between 24% to 26% of the United Nations depending on which numbers you want to use. Many, many more nations than the ones listed below or included in these numbers are also strongly influenced by Islam.
I mention all of this because I feel that it is pretty silly to ask for world opinion or UN opinion when roughly a quarter of the nations probably feel a bit of a brotherhood with the country you are seeking to sanction, conduct weapons inspections, or attack.
Here's that list of Nations I was telling you about. It is pretty much in chronological order of admission to the UN: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, Afghanistan, 10. Pakistan, Yemen, Indonesia, Jordan, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Burkina Faso?, Chad?, 20. Mali, Cyprus, Somalia, Mauritania, Algeria, Burundi, Kuwait, Maldives, Democratic Yemen, Bahrain, 30. Bhutan, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Comoros, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Angola, Djibouti, 40. Brunei Darussalam, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina?, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Eritrea
I've been writing you for a while and I was just wondering if you would be interested in going out with me one of these days. Just a thought.
Posted by: jenn at October 7, 2004 08:28 AMWho's ivana? Hi, Ivana!
Hey David! I haven't heard from you in forever either. That's ok...Ivana and I will go eat ice cream together and feel better. Isn't that right girl?
Posted by: Jessica at October 8, 2004 03:13 PMI don't know who Ivana is. I've never met her before. I erased her comments earlier because I thought they were comment spam. Perhaps they are, but they don't have a company URL attached to them.
Ivana, who are you?
Posted by: David at October 9, 2004 06:52 PM