Can the UN step in?

[FirstLight]

...I wonder if Puerto Rico can receive Aid from the UN... HOW or IF that would even be feasible?

Shit...I wonder if the UN could save the rest of us from this disaster of a President too...

[RKP5637]

1. I sometimes wonder if the day will come when allies will have to step in and save the US from Trump.

There appears to be no stopping him as he continues to destroy this country for his sadistic pleasure.

[FirstLight]

3. Seriously!

It's just surreal to me how much of a clusterfuck it all is...like a slow-moving trainwreck of horrors

And the inability of our Congress to invoke the 25th Amendment or effectively put a leash on his crazy is beyond me...regardless of party, don't they SEE what a monster he is and how he is dismantling the govt and Constitution?


....ugh...I need a drink...

[RKP5637]

6. Sadly, and I mean it, I'm feeling many in congress are just like him and don't care. n/t

[grantcart]

2. No

[FirstLight]

4. care to elaborate?

I thought the UN was all about humanitarian aid?
Obviously PR is NOT being treated like a true US Territory or State...it's basically on it's own...

Just curious if it could be a thing?

[grantcart]

7. Where to start?

The idea that the UN is a unified bureaucratic structure that represents governments is simply not true.

The UN General Assembly is a stand alone institution where all nations big and small have the same power and its only real function is to allow for a soap box so that everyone can, once a year, come and express their feelings. General Assembly resolutions have no power except when they are confirming that has already become so universally agreed to that they are unanimously held. The GA also elects the Secretary General.

The UN Security Council is made up of 15 members, some permanent and some temporary. Permanent members have veto power. The purpose of the UNSC is to offer a table so that if there is consensus among the major powers there is an instrument to study, debate, memorialize and vote to agree. It's purpose is to allow the major powers a place where, when they are in agreement, to meet without having to re-establish the means and ways of how to meet. Since any major power can veto anything it only works when a consensus can be found.

The United Nations Secretary General is not a chief executive like a Prime Minister or President, he is a moral figure and a meeting convener. The Office of UN Secretariat is very small and only covers a few areas:

•Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG)
•United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS)
•United Nations Office of Legal Affairs (OLA)
•United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA)
•United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
•United Nations Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
•United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
•United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
•United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS)
•United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)

Many of the agencies that you associate with the UN like UNICEF, UNESCO and so on are stand alone "international committees" that have their own independent board and do not report to the UNGA, UNSC or the Secretary General although they would naturally be inclined to work with other UN agencies. There are dozens of other international committees that function as international civil service but are not tied to the UN, like ILO, IOM and so on.

To summarize, there is no legislative body or bureaucracy that would have any authority to interfere with the internal affairs of a member state and the only time that UN can effect military actions is when they do so as UN Peace Keeping operations but those operations require not only Security Council agreement but agreement with the nations in the area.

If the UN could involve itself in areas where the government has become a failed state it would have in Zimbabwe, Sudan or Cambodia after the war.

The reality is that in a parliamentary system wide spread dissatisfaction will trigger a recall election and a new government but in the US there is no fail safe for stupid. We are tied to a 4 year term unless there is a supermajority agreement that a conviction for 'high crimes and misdemeanours' has occurred.

[Lee-Lee]

5. With what?

The US is the only country that actually has any airlift or sealift capability to do anything like this in any volume.

The typical UN response is measured in weeks or months before they do anything. They don't have any logistical capabilities and move at a very slow pace.