Should the UN Replace ICANN?

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo news has a story on how some developing countries want control of the assignment of network names and numbers turned over to an international body, such as the UN's ITU (International Telecommunication Union)."

Comments

The UN?????

[rewt66]

You want control turned over to an international body. OK, that sounds reasonable. But the UN? I mean... how about somebody with a little more tech savvy and a little less politics?

Re:The UN?????

[Chirs]

Have you even heard of the ITU?

They manage the radio spectrum, satellite orbits, and distress/safety stuff. The reason why you can make a phone call to China is that telcos around the world generally abide by ITU standards (technically "recommendations"). They do a bunch of other stuff too (R&D, etc.).

If anyone is to be given control over the Internet, the ITU is probably the most appropriate organization.

Re:The UN?????

[rs79]

"If anyone is to be given control over the Internet, the ITU is probably the most appropriate organization."

AIIEEEEEEEEE!!

I wouldn't expect you to, but you obviously don't know anything about the ITU or it's recent history with the domain name system.

For a background on how bad and anti-internet spirit the ITU is, read Carl Malamud's "Exploring the Internet". In a nutshell, the ITU came very close to making the Interent illegal. It was only the forsight of then general counsel Tony Rutkowski that this was averted and is now safe by international treaty.

Despite ICANN's claims they're open and transparent, they are absolutely not and the wost of this is the "government advisory board" that meets in secret. The ITU was instrumental in this and sits on it. In fact the ITU, seeking relevance
in an internat age that makes it largely irrelevant was part of the shadowy crew that secrtetly orchestrated the origin of ICANN (when Ira Magaziners public spin was "hey you folks are in charge" while all time workig behind the scenes with IBM to create the ICANN we have now), and worse, it's evil predecessor, IAHC, an organization so awful even the US govt recognized it and shut it down. IHAC was formed by Don Heath of the Internet Society, Bob Shaw (who STILL owes me money and my wife a carton of smokes he nicked one night in Geneva when he was drunk and bragging about all this) and Albert Tramposch of the World Intellectual Property Association based on an idea they had when they met in Ottawa.

At the time Bob was a PC support droid there, and his only achievent was how to write X.400 addresses opn business cards. I am not making this up - it's as if a LAN administrator at the White House was involved in setting global policy.

I have never met a less honorable, more two faced man, ever.

ICANN or ITU is a trick question. The US congress will NEVER let administration of domain names and IP addresses leave US soil. I would stake my life and the lives of my children on this. It was crtated in the US and will stay there. (I'm in Canada and will stay here)

So having to choose between these too evils is a bad joke. The ITU will never get is, and ICANN, a $50M a year bloted organization that is a great sucking magent attracting every intellectual property wonk in the US into it's guts replaced John Postel who did this as a part time task. Jon measured consensus and set policy. ICANN is supposed to do the same but is in reality a tool now for intellectual property interests.

It's always bugged me that the/. crowd, who are rightly and naturally suspicious of the IP wonks never got this.

The ITU wants this and is using the UN to get it. This waythey can establish global laws governing the Internet. But, you seem you own your network and I own my part and we can talk like this because we all agree to use the TCP/IP protocol suite (that the ITU fought hard against infavour of OSI which never actually worked) - in other words, the Internet is a "network of networks" all privately owned, and we need global laws to regulate this?

As for ICANN's $50M budget to administer the list of top level domnains this is less work than administerng the list of all usenet newsgroups. And in fact the parellels between the list of newsgroups and list of tlds is strikingly similar.

But ask yourself what the difference is between the administration of those two lists of names. And ask why anyorganizatin than can do one is not doing the other as well.

Pardon me while I go and quetly cry in the corner; I'm glad I was able to be there that day in Berlin when the US government sold out the Internet.

Primary the root zone for yourself. I don't care whose root zone you use, but stop the sucking dependance on USG run servers to control your namespace.

Oh, great....

[TFGeditor]

...can you imagine trying to register as domain name with a bureauacracy like the UN in charge?

Jeez....

Re:Oh, great....

[Rei]

Yeah, I could, as opposed to having ICANN in charge. And perhaps for once domains won't be as subject to patent and trademark lawsuits, since the US seems to be about the most patent and trademark-happy nation on the planet.

Conference

[locarecords.com]

I remember attending the Politics of Code conference in the UK in 2003 and hearing Richard Hill from International Telecommunication Union giving a very odd speech about the ITU and international regulation of the Internet etc. At the time I thought it was a coded land-grab for the transfer of control of ICANN to the ITU.

ICANN was also still in a confusing semi-democratic phase at the time (this seems to be steadily decreasing) and also weirdly self-imploding. Ester Dyson also gave the most contentless speech I think I have ever heard - no doubt to ensure minimum offense to anyone in the audience.

As with all these things wheels within wheels... but I do wish the call for some form of ICANN democracy would renew rather than lose it to a not very democratic body (i.e. the ITU) or to the corporations (kinda where it is now).

Re:Conference

[rs79]

"I remember attending the Politics of Code conference in the UK in 2003 and hearing Richard Hill from International Telecommunication Union giving a very odd speech about the ITU and international regulation of the Internet etc. At the time I thought it was a coded land-grab for the transfer of control of ICANN to the ITU.

ICANN was also still in a confusing semi-democratic phase at the time (this seems to be steadily decreasing) and also weirdly self-imploding. Ester Dyson also gave the most contentless speech I think I have ever heard - no doubt to ensure minimum offense to anyone in the audience.

As with all these things wheels within wheels... but I do wish the call for some form of ICANN democracy would renew rather than lose it to a not very democratic body (i.e. the ITU) or to the corporations (kinda where it is now)."

Bing-go.

Twice in one night I have seen the crystal clear truth ring out and resonate on slashdot. Somebody call Guiness.

There was a cnference in DC in 1997 discussing the ill fated prededcessor to ICANN, namely IAHC. The purpose was to "introduce the concept of IAHC to people" The Architects of IACH (Bob Shaw, ITU; Albert Tramposch, WIPO; Don Heath, ISOC, the I* boys) were on stage and things were going great those those smug bastards as they continued to pull the wool over the sheep-like eyes of the poor unsuspecting members of corporate Dumbfuckistan until a luminary from the State department, Richard *cough*forgothislastname*cough* gave a passionate articulate tremendously driven speech about how the US had just spent years getting control of it's phone number back from the ITU as a Clinton policy initiative and how the ITU (as an instument of the small number of families than control the Euro phone systems) was about the worst thing you could ever have the within any distance of the Internet. Bob Shaw turned red with anger and looked like somebody had beamed a dead rat into his mouth. He was pissed somebody knew the truth. Tramposch lost his job over this as an embarrasment to WIPO (which is tough to imagine) while Shaw and Heath went on to work behind the scenes to found the ICANN we despise today. They are always in the shadows.

Good call on Estie. Vapid is the term I was thinking of. But, she made her $$$ by investing in the first registrar.

I was a contract whore for NSI at the time, I worked on the diagnostics for the shared registry system (then quit in disgust) and I can tell you that registrar went live before their system was even finished let alone working.

All the time while the public ICANN mantra of "stability of the Internet" was being bleated probably todistract people from noticing they'd hands repeatedly stuffing large wads of cash into their pockets. And you wonder why port 43 whois is broken...

Whenever a county is taken over by a dictator they always say they're doing it for "the stability". Check it out, that really is what they say.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[Rei]

Well, if the UN can manage CEB, CTBTO, ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCAP, ESCWA, FAO, UNCTAD, HLCM, MA HREF="http://ceb.unsystem.org/hlcp/default.htm">HL CP, IACSD, IANWGE, IAPSO, and about 5 times as many more, I think they can handle one more. :)

UN's record isn't that great IMHO

Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetical order), how many are bloated and overbudget? How many have involved scandal of any kind? How many have been largely ineffective? Etc?

Honestly, I think that this is just going to turn into a big OFF-bashing thread.

The ITU... ugh.

[jd]

CCITT/ITU has some good points. The X.500 standard for labelling directory information has become a fairly established standard. Or, at least, some of it. X.25 for slow serial is actually pretty decent. And their older modem standards for Europe were very acceptable.

The first problem is that they are hardly open. They charge a LOT for any of their documentation, which is split into many, many books. Unless you start off as rich as Bill Gates, you're unlikely to ever get enough of the texts to actually know what the standard even is.

The second is that they operate in a manner that resembles a medieval court. I half expect to see things by them with a royal seal and a coat of arms.

I have a much, much better idea and it's cheap. Let me run it. I would do a lot better job than either ICANN (ICAN'T) or the UN ever could. Given that most DNS servers cache, and therefore the actual throughput to replicate any top-level changes would be relatively low, I wouldn't need much more bandwidth than I already have.

(How much bandwidth do you need, when changes can take days to get anywhere? And how fast does the top-level domain change, anyway? I didn't know they added TLD extensions on a daily basis. Most of the actual domain names registered are registered with registrars lower down the heirarchy.)

If the DNS system switched from tree to grid, which it easily could and partially has, then a central administration system has nothing to do. Which is fine with me, if someone takes me seriously and gives me the job. Hey, I've no problem with world Governments paying me to do nothing, the way they do with Microsoft.

Re:No way...

[skaffen42]

I vote NO on rewarding incompetence and nepotism.

Always good to meet another Kerry voter... :)

Backwards?

[demind]

I think that ICANN should replace the UN!

UN Arrogant?

[kbahey]

from the gold-medal-in-arrogance dept.

Say what? I don't know what this tagline is supposed to mean. Does it refer to ICANN or the UN? If this was directed at the UN, they are many things, but arrogant is not one of them. I know the average US citizen has been turned against them by the media portrayal, but this is a bit too much.

Anyways, the idea that an international body handle internation communication is not new, as pointed to by the the ITU already in place.

Re:What is that supposed to accomplish?

[Chirs]

Did you read the summary? They're not suggesting that the General Assembly vote on everything. They specifically mentioned the ITU, which already manages all kinds of technical stuff internationally: satellite orbits, radio spectrum, telecommunications interoperability, etc.

That's the spirit!

[Fnkmaster]

Let's take away control of the Internet from the corrupt, unaccountable, undemocratic, hopelessly bureaucratic organization that controls it today so we can make sure it's controlled by ...

Oh, you said the UN?

Nevermind.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[suyashs]

I don't want the UN deciding what is and isn't spam...at least the first amendment is valid in the US, an international body may decide that "hate speech" is illegal and therefore decide to censor certain websites like countries do now. I would prefer as little world government interference with the internet as possible.

Re:Are you f'n nuts?

[ortcutt]

I think it was the US that lost track of 9 billion dollars in Iraq.

CNN

No, no, no, this is all wrong....

[ajdavis]

I'm reading The Checkbook and the Cruise Missle, in which Arundhati Roy says injustices increase as decision-makers are geographically separated from those affected by the decision. She cites the World Bank in Geneva, and the IMF, the WTO, as examples.

So Third-World countries want power over names? And they think they can accomplish that by moving the naming committee to UN Headquarters in New York? The UN didn't work for poor people in Iraq, or Palestine. Why will it work in the case of Internet names?

This is the first case I know of where software standards have reached the level of world politics. (It's different from software patents in Europe.) I don't think they ever belong there. Software standards have developed reasonably well under Darwinian conditions: it may take decades, but eventually everyone switches to open standards because there's an advantage to being able to communicate. E.g., everyone uses TCP/IP now, not IPX or any other proprietary network protocol. I know, I know, we're still fighting this battle daily, but you can see the positive trend, & it's happening without any legislation or government enforcement.

What I'm getting at is Third World countries should just set up their own root DNS servers. Whatever it is they want -- get rid of the 3-letter root domains? So instead of .com, US sites will have to use .co.us like everyone else? That seems reasonable. If they just set up root DNS servers that don't answer requests for .com (or .org, .gov, etc.), those servers will be more convenient to client hosts in their region. Software will get patched to check both authorities, since it's an easy fix, & US sites will register both types of domains to maximize their availability. Then, over an excruciating number of years, while everyone has to support both naming styles, .com & the other 3-letter domains will die out, & the plaintiffs will have their way.

I'm gonna sound like a Wired columnist, but here goes: The Internet is suggesting new kinds of economics, government, maybe religion.... We should stick with what works, instead of imposing traditional kinds of governance onto the Internet.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, Oil-for-Food, forced prostitution rings in the Balkans, rape in the Congo, Ruud Lubbers sexually harrasing his colleagues, thousands of unpaid parking tickets issued to diplomatic vehicles in NYC every year, inaction in Sudan, Syria on the human rights committee... Should I continue?

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Well, if the UN can manage CEB [unsystem.org], CTBTO [ctbto.org], ECA [uneca.org], ECE [unece.org], ECLAC [eclac.org], ESCAP [unescap.org], ESCWA [escwa.org.lb], FAO [fao.org], UNCTAD [unctad-undp.org], HLCM [unsystem.org], MA HREF="http://ceb.unsystem.org/hlcp/default.htm">HL CP, IACSD [unsystem.org], IANWGE [unsystem.org], IAPSO [iapso.org], and about 5 times as many more, I think they can handle one more. :) UN's record isn't that great IMHO Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetical order), how many are bloated and overbudget? How many have involved scandal of any kind? How many have been largely ineffective? Etc?

How about you start by telling us what the heck any of these organizations actually do and what real and meaningful good they actually have accomplished? It is up to the UN and its defenders to prove they are doing some good, not the other way around.

What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.

Brian Ellenberger

The UN's lack of use

[[cx]]

The UN is going the way of the League of Nations, nobody (particularly the USA) listens to them, their bureaucracy has bloated any potential for use they might have had.

Handing anything over to the UN is just asking it to be poorly managed by more people than could ever be needed to manage a particular task, and then to be delegated over repeatedly, until all sides are happy. Which, obviously will never happen and 1 side will just start ignoring them and doing what they like, which is an alarming trend as of late.

As is the case in Iraq and Sudan as of late, the nations that helped found the UN based on the League of Nations lack of authority, don't even listen to the UN, why put anything else under the jurisdiction of a useless entity?

Their only goal seems to be expand its bloat and watch and comment on the atrocities it's supposed to prevent, I for one am sick of international organizations that don't even stand up for themselves when they are trampled over again, and again.

The UN will go the way of the League of Nations, even though we all know it already has. Peacekeepers hiring prostitutes in Congo, people in Sudan starving to death, unchecked war in Iraq, and soon I'm sure war in another country with brown people in it, and hopefully some natural resources, yeehaw!

[cx]

Dear U.N.

[Skye16]

Dear U.N.,

No.

Signed,

- Everyone

Seriously, though, the U.N.? I'm all for internationalization, and I believe working with the global community is a very good idea, especially in the long run, but the U.N.? No. Maybe someone who has their act together. But not the U.N. As much as I get angry with my own government, at least I can rest easy at night knowing we don't pay any attention to the U.N. at all.

United Nations: 9/10 as an idea, 2/10 in implementation.

UN's track record in technology...

[Hobart]

Two items about the U.N.'s track record in technology:

Look at the wonderfulness that is the X.400/X.500 email/directory infrastructure, and the OSI protocol stack (take a look through the BSD source code for the remanants of it). Those were real winners.

The ITU-T has a history of happily passing patent-riddled and overpriced standards. (Why's it taken so long to implement a free software modem?) I'm sure it will be delightful to every 'net software developer when the RFC editor position is retired, and we can shell out $75 to $250 a copy to Global Engineering Documents for a copy of an Internet standard.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[LuSiDe]

What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.

You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.

Are domain names needed?

[dumllama]

Could we just get rid of the centralized domain name system? Could we get rid of domain names all-together? Perhaps a search function like Google could make these names obsolete, and we can avoid the politics.

My technical knowledge is littile, so I'd appreciate any thoughts you guys have.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[Rei]

>How about you start by telling us what the heck any of these organizations actually do

You see, there are these magical things called "links". How about you learn the spell for following them?

> Rwanda

Yeah, and when the UN didn't step in, the US stepped right in and took care of things, right? Oh yeah... we were completely ineffective there too.

> money launderer for Saddam.

As if we've done any better:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fil e_on_4/42 16853.stm

BTW, do you know what body of the UN had the authority to block contracts under OFF? It was the Security Council, and it only took one member to act.

Politics vs. Administration

[ari_j]

I agree that the UN is the wrong body for this, because the UN is an international political body, and control over any essential element of the Internet on a global scale should be as far removed from political control as possible.

Re:No way...

[NerdConspiracy]

Is it just me or is there a lot of misunderstanding here about what UN is. UN doesn't have an army that can stop genocides. UN is made up of sovereign nations that can choose to cooperate in order stop genocides (or whatever) or not. If the countries within it (especially the most powerful ones - guess where I'm going with this...) decide its in their interest not to stop genocides (or whatever), then by definition UN can't stop them. Seems unfair to cause UN to be powerless and then blame it for being powerless.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[einhverfr]

After reading their web pages:

CEB: I still have no idea what they do. I am guessing this is where high level coordination occurs.

CTBTO: Looks good. I want to see a comprehensive nuclear test ban too, but I am sure the Bush supporters won't like it.

ECA, ECE, ESCAP, ECLAC, ESCWA: These are regional commissions for economic issues regarding regions.

FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization

UNCTAD, IACSD: Sustainability of human development.

HLCM, HLCP: coordination organizations.

IANWGE: Work on promoting gender equality

IAPSO: Procurement for other UN offices.

Note that many of these are support organizations for those who go out and do the real work. Others work on solving economic and social problems.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[Rei]

Sure, continue on, but next time be more statistically valid. Picking out incidents from an entity is not valid; I could equally point to a hundred major scandals in the US from the past decade. A more fair method is to pick organizations in a deterministic fashion (i.e., no hunt-and-peck), and then look at their records.

But, hey, for the heck of it, lets look at your list (feel free to add more!)

> Oil-for-Food

OFF "leaked" by 2-4 billion$ (the other money was from oil smuggling, which never was under the jurisdiction of OFF). US reconstruction money (largely Iraqi oil profits) leaked by 9B$, when dealing with a smaller total. Net result: UN handled money better.

> forced prostitution rings in the Balkans

Perhaps you're confusing NATO with UN? Italian NATO peacekeepers were accused by the Spanish Secret Service of running a prostitution ring. Also, DynCorp (A private US company) was involved in a prostition-ring there; members even filmed the rape of a young girl.

> rape in the Congo

Yes, of the 11,000 UN troops in the congo, there were 150 allegations of rape against about a dozen troops. This is, percentage-wise, about on par with accusations against US troops by Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. And like we have any right to talk after Abu Ghraib and the recently exposed Guantamo details.

> Ruud Lubbers sexually harrasing his colleagues,

Sexual harassment? That's the worst you can come up with? I think you need to have a talk with Janis Karpinski about that in the US. Or perhaps talk with the >60% of female US soldiers who experienced sexual harassment, and the >30% of female US soldiers who experienced rape or attempted rape by their fellow soldiers, over the course of their military careers. 19% of women at the Air Force Academy were raped during their stay; 81% were too afraid to report the rape, and 42% of those who did experienced retaliation for doing so. I could go on and on, on this front.

> thousands of unpaid parking tickets issued to diplomatic vehicles in NYC every year,

*Unpaid Parking Tickets*? Please tell me that I just hallucinated you writing that...

> inaction in Sudan,

Naturally, the US stepped right up to take their place, right? Oh yeah, that's right, we were the leading cause of UN inaction on this front.

> Syria on the human rights committee...

Yes, everyone gets a chance. Like the US is one to speak with Guantanamo, Baghram, Abu Ghraib, Shebargham, and its policy of extrordinary rendition, especially to the very country you just named.

> Should I continue?

Please do. What's next - jay walking?

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[hyfe]

UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.

The UN faithfully delivered all suggested contracts to a commitee manned by 5 standard members of the council, several was marked as financially suspicious but none of these were investigated. The US did however block hundreds of other contracts for what they said was security reasons, the other 4 countries blocked none. This was [b]not[/b] a fault of the UN administration

Furthermore, the money involved in these contracts are dwarfed by both the amount of money mysteriously disappearing from Iraqui oilwells nowadays, and the amount of good old-fashioned smuggling out of Iraq pre-war.

The "genocide" in Yugoslavia is a fairly good example actually, because before NATO/US moved in, people on all sides were killing eachother pretty equally. It was war. However western media somehow(for what reasons? by whose decision?) misrepresented statistics and the whole situation blew up when NATO went in. To add insult to this, they never went in with ground fources to break things up. Europe(Germany? my memory fails me) premature approval of Kosovo didn't help much either. The UN tactic of waiting it out, and not arbitrerarily choosing one side to side with was prudent; and it's only our acute sense of stupidity that keeps us from seeing it.

Lastly, the world is a big place; listing the disasters of the world is not proof the UN is not working. They are not, and never were intended to be world police. They are not perfect, and they don't have a magic wand to remove problems. Problems often seem quite different depending on the perspective, and while I'm sure you're sure your perspective is right, I'm equally sure mine is right.

Oh, and sorry for not providing links, but I don't have them handy; and you're probably just as good at searching as I am :)

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[gorbachev]

So what you're saying, you'd rather have ONE country and its ideals control what is and what is not acceptable in the Internet?

Okay.

May I remind you that while spam is an entirely American invention, it still is a worldwide problem. As such it would probably make sense to fight it globally rather than individually in national levels, which is exactly what is happening and not working right now.

Re:No way...

[gorbachev]

It's kinda hard to have UN solve anything when its biggest member:

a) is not paying its dues
b) does not want to respond to genocide w/in a year or two of its happening
c) has veto on all votes of the security council

Get a clue.

Mod parent up

[einhverfr]

I would add that up until the invasion of Kuwait, the former Bush Administration was selling arms to Saddam. Additionally, most of the WMD raw materials including bioweapons cultures came from Saddam's good buddies in the US. So it is really funny to watch all this criticism of the UN when it was the Regan Administration (and later the first Bush administration) who gave active support to Saddam's WMD ambitions.

The UN could not do anything because the member countries of the Security Council who were generally much closer geographically to Iraq were (rightly as it turned out) afraid of what would happen when Saddam was ousted.

In other news, we can look at the nepotism that goes on wrt Iraq contracts under the Bush Administration (Haliburton anyone?) and see strong parallels to the OFF issues. Therefore the US government must be bad and we should get rid of it? I don't know anyone who reacts this way to the US Gov't except strangely those who are responsible for supporting this type of morally bankrupt government.

The UN has been coming of age in recent years, and this is likely to be the source of a lot of the hard feelings. The WTO which used to be a sounding board for US corporate interests is now becoming more egalitarian with the third world countries standing up to their interests much better than in the past. Similarly, the US cannot just assume that other countries (particularly those in the EU) will simply bow to US economic, trade, and even foreign policy. The UN has become a strong force for Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and this is a direct threat to the global supremacy of the US. This is why there is so much bitterness against it from here.

Sure there is some corruption, but there is corruption in every other burocracy in the world. What is news is that for the first time since WWII, the US is opposed by a community of nations in a variety of ways from trade policy to its international agenda. There is a lot of cooperation too but nobody mentions this.

The UN would do well to take over the duties of the IANA and the ICANN. And again this is because it would give poorer nations more just representation in these policies.

Re:Mod parent up

[maetenloch]

I would add that up until the invasion of Kuwait, the former Bush Administration was selling arms to Saddam. Additionally, most of the WMD raw materials including bioweapons cultures came from Saddam's good buddies in the US. So it is really funny to watch all this criticism of the UN when it was the Regan Administration (and later the first Bush administration) who gave active support to Saddam's WMD ambitions.

The U.S. did sell arms to Iraq in the 80's, however when you look at the amounts, you can see that these were miniscule compared to what they received from the USSR, France, and China. Even at its largest in 1988, U.S. sales only accounted for only 5% of Iraq's arms purchases. In fact based on these numbers, France has a lot to answer for.
Also the 'bioweapons cultures' that you refer to were most likely plain anthrax spores which were quite easy for anyone to order from a catalog back in the 80's. These have legitimate use for agricultural research and are not particularly dangerous unless they are 'weaponized' i.e. finely ground up, mixed with other substances to keep the spores viable, and mixed into an aerosol - a non-trivial task.

Re:Mod parent up

[einhverfr]

The U.S. did sell arms to Iraq in the 80's, however when you look at the amounts, you can see that these were miniscule compared to what they received from the USSR, France, and China. Even at its largest in 1988, U.S. sales only accounted for only 5% of Iraq's arms purchases.

Actually if you do research on Iraq-gate, you will find that similar to the OFF scandle today, the allegations were that Reagan/Bush were using humanitarian aid to help Saddam buy weapons. They basically helped Saddam launder money from humanitarian aid in order to build an army. Additionally, most of the raw materials that Iraq used in its NBC/WMD weaponry programs came from the US.

I guess some things never change. It is just good when the President of the US does it and bad when the UN does it.

Re:Mod parent up

[brpr]

Read the text, dimwit. For example, this bit:

The U.S. was officially neutral regarding the Iran-Iraq war, and claimed that it armed neither side. Iran depended on U.S.-origin weapons, however, and sought them from Israel, Europe, Asia, and South America. Iraq started the war with a large Soviet-supplied arsenal, but needed additional weaponry as the conflict wore on.

Initially, Iraq advanced far into Iranian territory, but was driven back within months. By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of al-Qaeda. Activism by Iraq's main Shiite Islamicist opposition group, al-Dawa, was a major factor precipitating the war -- stirred by Iran's Islamic revolution, its endeavors included the attempted assassination of Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.)

Prolonging the war was phenomenally expensive. Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. Agriculture Department provided taxpayer-guaranteed loans for purchases of American commodities, to the satisfaction of U.S. grain exporters.

The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country's official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald Reagan. These were prepared pursuant to his March 1982 National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 4-82) asking for a review of U.S. policy toward the Middle East.

One of these directives from Reagan, National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 99, signed on July 12, 1983, is available only in a highly redacted version [Document 21]. It reviews U.S. regional interests in the Middle East and South Asia, and U.S. objectives, including peace between Israel and the Arabs, resolution of other regional conflicts, and economic and military improvements, "to strengthen regional stability." It deals with threats to the U.S., strategic planning, cooperation with other countries, including the Arab states, and plans for action. An interdepartmental review of the implications of shifting policy in favor of Iraq was conducted following promulgation of the directive.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[STrinity]

Rwanda

Yeah, and when the UN didn't step in, the US stepped right in and took care of things, right? Oh yeah... we were completely ineffective there too.

Um, you know, the UN did step in in Rwanda. The complaint against them is that they didn't accomplish anything -- if anything, they made matters worse by attracting people to safe-zones that turned out not to be safe.

Mod parent and grandparent up!

[Dioscorea]

I would add that up until the invasion of Kuwait, the former Bush Administration was selling arms to Saddam. Additionally, most of the WMD raw materials including bioweapons cultures came from Saddam's good buddies in the US. So it is really funny to watch all this criticism of the UN when it was the Regan Administration (and later the first Bush administration) who gave active support to Saddam's WMD ambitions.

True. If by funny you mean the sort of joke that makes you want to throw up... and let's not forget that the CIA under Reagan was the primary organizing force behind the Afghan mujahedin, including certain terrorists of recent renown.

The denigration of the UN, so mindlessly echoed by many on here, is a neocon tactic designed to set up the New American Century. Just look at the smearing of the IAEA (and subsequent total failure of the US to do any better). It's sad when people are so ignorant of history that they forget why the UN was created in the first place, or how Germany and Japan undermined the League of Nations as a critical part of their imperial manouevres in the 30's.

People need to take a minute to think about the agenda behind this constant rubbishing of the UN. Is Empire really what Americans want? Possibly not, but there's no way of knowing: see e.g. Mike Scheuer, former head of CIA's bin Laden unit, who points out that the underlying reasons for Arab terrorism or the implications of America's continued imperial expansion are simply not part of the political dialogue in America right now.

As for bureaucracy, I've worked in many US govt labs and the idea that America is somehow less bureaucratic is another of those jokes that makes you want to hurl. People, turn off your TV, it's lying to you...

Re:Mod parent and grandparent up!

[einhverfr]

The denigration of the UN, so mindlessly echoed by many on here, is a neocon tactic designed to set up the New American Century [newamericancentury.org]. Just look at the smearing of the IAEA (and subsequent total failure of the US to do any better). It's sad when people are so ignorant of history that they forget why the UN was created in the first place, or how Germany and Japan undermined the League of Nations as a critical part of their imperial manouevres in the 30's.

I would add to this that the neocons are neither conservative by any classic sense nor are they new. I consider myself both a progressive in mission and a conservative in methodology. The more I study however, the more I fear that my country is sliding towards a fascist style of government based on authoritarianism in both the family and the government.

People need to take a minute to think about the agenda behind this constant rubbishing of the UN. Is Empire really what Americans want? Possibly not, but there's no way of knowing: see e.g. Mike Scheuer, former head of CIA's bin Laden unit, who points out that the underlying reasons for Arab terrorism or the implications of America's continued imperial expansion are simply not part of the political dialogue in America right now.

The UN is largely a confederation of world states, which come together to negotiate treaties and develop international legal traditions (such as the Geneva Convention) and approach common problems. Nobody here has suggested, for example, that we should do away with the WHO, so it seems that everyone here agrees that the UN has a purpose and a mission.

Regarding the issue of the underlying reasons for Arab Terrorism.... Ok, I am relatively nonpartisan.... Anyway, this is a failure of the US government of which both our political parties are equally at fault. Additionally I think we need to look too at the question of the formation of an international terrorist network, how they derive their support, and what we can do about it now. People think of state sponsored terrorism because that was a standard tactic of both the US and USSR during the cold war. However a new problem has arisen which requires no sponsor. Indeed, the monster of terrorism requires only a lawless space. It thrives on injustice because this is the source of its support.

So the only solution to the problem of international terrorism is social justice and the rule of law throughout the world. I am sorry to say that Iraq has made things worse on at least one of these fronts. I think that the objecting members of the UNSC (China, France, Germany, etc.) have been largely vindicated in their judgement.

This is on-topic because people are afraid of being restrained by the UN so they want to undermine it even on this discussion board regarding something seemingly unrelated.

The UN does an excellent job at many things including common infrastructure for vaccinations, radio spectrum, etc. The functions of the IANA and ICANN would be things that they would do well with regardless of their other failures. Even the neocons^W neofascists don't argue against these functions.

Re:The UN? The most corrupt buerocracy on the plan

[numark]

And they have recently decided that what is happening in sudan is not genocide [cnn.com].

The problem with the term "genocide," until international law, is that it has an extremely strict definition under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (a treaty from 1951). While the UN committee found that they couldn't strictly, under the treaty, call it genocide under international law, they did point out that serious crimes against humanity were being perpetrated in Darfur. Crimes against humanity are just as prosecutable, and in many cases easier to prove in international courts and tribunals than genocide, with quite similar punishments. The problem is in assuming that the term "genocide" has the same meaning in both international politics and law. It doesn't. International law often makes much more strict determinations of terms, because of how treaties and customary law works. It's not like Sudan is getting off easy in this matter. The Security Council is soon likely to pass (based on the report) a resolution most likely creating a tribunal to prosecute these serious crimes occurring in Darfur. You'll also note that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established less than a year after the crimes there started taking place, and has since delivered convictions in cases.

With the tsunami aid effort, they were mostly concerned with holding meetings in 5 star hotels while other people did the real work.

Generally, I prefer to get my information from better sources than a blog that repeatedly uses such stellar examples of journalistic writing as the use of the terms "UNocrat," "lefties," "deranged pimply-faced trolls" (a term applied to people who disagree with them!) and "The Queen of the High Priest Vulture Elite" (referencing the UNICEF director). See for yourself! Their only source for their accusation that the UN is not providing sufficient support is an ill-defined "fact sheet" that they don't even corroborate with additional sources, nor tell where this "fact sheet" even came from. I would hope people would do much more research than just assuming that such a vitriolic blog posting is true.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[Rei]

Darfur Crisis Causes U.S. To Stumble Over Opposition To International Court" U.S. Stubborn On Sudan

The basic problem is that the US doesn't want to back up the ICC (which the Bush administration opposes). Thankfully the administration is now supporting a security force (they weren't when the majority of the crimes were being committed), and this year is leading the effort to help get peacekeepers there. They're still causing rifts by trying to keep the ICC out of it, though.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[lobotomy]

Let's look at the ITU (and it's predecessor the CCITT). Does anyone remember the OSI protocols? You know, the internationally designed protocols that were going to replace the TCP/IP suite. They tended to be a nightmare of complexity and over design with each representative nation trying to get it's 2 cents into the specs (whether they made sense or not). Just look at X.400. That was the e-mail protocol. MHS (Message Handling System) was their flagship application. The committee which produced MHS in 1988 didn't bother to worry about how their version of MHS would interoperate with the 1984 version of MHS. X.400 addresses were also a nightmare of complexity and poor design.

Just be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

Re:No way...

[supagold]

By the "biggest member", I assume you mean the most populous: India. Or maybe China. Or maybe you mean the largest: Russia. But I suspect that you mean the country that pays 22% of the UN's budget: the US. As far as I know, our dues are completely up-to-date. What genocide are you referring to? It can't be Rwanada, Kosovo, or the Sudan. After all, according to the UN those weren't genocides. Granted, the Clinton administration's handling of Rwanda was shameful, but no less shameful than the UN (and for that matter, the EU's) handling of all three; and at least they stood up in Kosovo. Yeah, the US has a veto. Let's look at the current genocide in the Sudan, who's blocking action on that? I'll give you a hint: it's not the one power that has actually come out and said that crimes in the Sudan ARE genocide. Try France, Russia, and China. Of course, I'm sure it has nothing to do with their oil intrests - only the US is interested in oil! "Get a clue." People in glass houses... By the way, your earlier "insighful" post makes the claim that spam was "entirely" invented in the US. Maybe. But if the US has that as a strike against it, do we get credit for other inventions? Like for instance, the Internet? Or the UN? Look, the UN has it's good points and it's bad points. Frankly, I don't think it would be a good organization to manage the registry. (The ITU makes more sense.) They do a lot of good in the world, but they have SERIOUS problems. Trying to pass the buck to the US, who is one of 188 member nations, and 1 of 5 veto-weilding security council members, doesn't do anyone any good. In fact, the main problem the UN has is that it's not accountable to anyone.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[strider44]

What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam.

And they didn't stop the tsunami disaster - that should have been preemtively prevented like America preemted Iraq using WMDs. And of course they should have moved in right away when GWB got reelected.

But tell me, wtf does that have to do with the bloody governmence of the internet?

Should the UN take over the Internet? 1 word:

[Money for Nothin']

No.

That's the short reply. Long version: the UN, as evidenced by the oil-for-food scandal and their attempts to impose a tax on the U.S., is a corrupt organization of politicos bent on controlling everything - not unlike the American government, really.

The trouble is, the UN wants to make everything a bureaucratic struggle, such as in Darfur, and that bureaucracy would strangle the organization of the Internet.

More often than not, decentralization works better than centralization -- smaller businesses tend not to abuse their customers as much as big businesses do, smaller governments tend not to abuse their people as much as bigger governments do, and so on. It's a matter of accountability - like with the problem of increasing numbers of managers over one's head back at the office, increasing the number of "official" overseers only bogs down efficiency. Let the customers of an organization or individual be the real overseers (as is the case currently w/ ICANN) - this is a decentralizing move.

Hence, in the name of decentralization, in the name of not being tied up in corruption (at least as much of it as the UN clearly is), in the name of efficiency -- I would argue that leaving ICANN in its current position is better than putting it under the wing of the UN.

(Note to knee-jerk UN defenders: the UN has its place as a means of mediating conflicts between nations and smoothing things over; as a forum for foreign relations. But we should all be worried when it starts interfering with the sovereignty of any nation, whether that nation is ours or not.)

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[peachpuff]

"What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda nor have they been able to prevent the UN from being a money launderer for Saddam."

Has ICANN?

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[R.Caley]

What I do know is that none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in Yugoslavia or Rwanda

Did ICANN?

This hardly seems a relevent argument in the context of the proposal.

Most of what the UN does is utilitarian stuff, like ITU creating standards or the WHO stomping on disease outbreaks. It all ticks along quietly because it's a long way from the politicians.

On the other hand most of the things the UN gets criticism for are either clearly outside it's power (how could the UN, which has no armed forces, have prevented genocide in Rwanda? Sent in some clerks to threaten everyone with really bad paper cuts?), or political schemes which were never supposed to work (eg oil for food, which was a propoganda tool for the western nations who set up the sanctions on Iraq, and so was immune to any kind of oversight, audit or normal management until it's propoganda use was over, it's supprising it wasn't a lot more corrupt than it was).

Like the EU, one of the main purposes of the UN is to be a front behind which governments can do things they can't be seen to do directly. The upside is that it's existance for that purpose means that some useful stuff gets done too.

Holy dogshit, batman!

[Grendel Drago]

Everybody commits attrocities.

Jesus fuck, if that's how you lead off, I'd like a bit of assurance that you don't live within two hundred miles of me. Fuck, what's your attrocity---making cockpuppets from the neighbors' dogs?

--grendel drago

Re:Unpaid parking tickets no joke

[1u3hr]

I *always* see a diplomatic plate parked in some ridiculous fashion

UN staff don't get diplomatic plates (unless Kofi Annan does). Those are ambassadorial staff, direct employees of foreign nations; the UN has no control over them. Same thing happens in every capital city in the world.

Re:Can United Nations REALLY stop cyber crime and

[dajak]

[..] none of those 13+ organizations you rattled off has been able to stop genocide in [..]

You never hear the small, positive stories. The media want to see blood. It sells.

Nothing happens unless there is a UN member or a coalition of UN members that has the means and the willingness to interfere. Other countries than the US do take on missions if they feel they have the means to pull it off.

What about France on the Ivory Coast? A quote:

"Without France, we would find ourselves in a second Rwanda," claimed Ibrahim Coulibaly, one of the rebels who took control of the north in September 2002, in an interview with Courrier International (Nov 17).

Or the UNMEE force in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where the Netherlands and Canada initially volunteered, but only after explicit assurances by the US through the media that they could call in US air support from bases in Saudi Arabia if needed. The force now mostly consists of troops from India, Jordania, and Kenya.

65,000 UN soldiers (excluding forces like the French one on the Ivory Coast) are currently serving in 16 UN operations worldwide, and most of those are succesful.

Srebrenica is a good example of what happens if you are willing but do not really have the means to pull it off yourself (and your 'ally' the US is secretly arming the side you are supposed to disarm according to your UN mandate). The Netherlands' force mistakenly assumed it could rely on air support by allies if needed, and the small force didn't have the means to take out Serbian tanks. The Serbs blocked munitions and arms supplies over the road for months before they attacked the enclave.

The US is the only country with a network of air force bases all over the world, and even the US would probably have had problems providing sufficient air lift and air support quickly in Rwanda. For smaller countries involvement in Rwanda could only have ended in embarassment.

All of this has hardly any bearing on the functioning of the UN bureaucracy. It is about cynical international diplomacy.