[Sober Thought]

"A resolution against terror
A resolution to increase democratic freedoms.


Category: The Furtherment of Democracy
Strength: Strong
Proposed by: Ricardo and Smith

Description: Jihadist states shall be deemed illegitimate and undemocratic.
No religion gives the justifcation needed for war.
In a time of great insecurity, all well-meaning states will gently encourge Jihadist states to democratise.
- Trade sanctions.
- Diplomatic meetings.
- A policy of containment.

Jihad can also describe an individuals interpretation of faith. This resolution respects this distinction on an individual level.



Approvals: 1 (Ricardo and Smith)

Status: Lacking Support (requires 148 more approvals)

Voting Ends: Thu Apr 21 2005"

This was posted recently by Ricardo and Smith, a nation I was trying to recruit and one that dropped by to have a look at the region. R&S is looking for approvals for this, but I telegrammed back that I thought it was a good idea but it needs a lot more work before people will make it a formal proposal, let alone adopt it in a full vote.

Since we have such success writing UN proposals, do we want to take this one on? I'm all for it, and I will work on it on my own even if the rest of the IDU does not because it combines several of my cherished values: democracy, diplomacy, moderation, secularism and peace. I would, however, be happy to defer to the experts in these matter who have actually had proposals successfully adopted.

[Sober Thought]

Ricardo and Smith's new and improved version telegrammed to me:

"Outlaw Religous Terror
A resolution to improve world security by boosting police and military budgets.


At the present time, the UN does not have a universal definition of religious terror. Therefore some states are ?legitimately? assisting organisations they regard as ?freedom fighters? or ?liberation armies?.

A religious terrorist group is an organisation that seeks spread its spiritual or fundamentalist religious ideals through the use of force. This force includes domestic terrorism and international terrorism.

A country promoting religious terror is doing one or more of the following

-Offering financial, logistical, military or intelligence support to religious terrorists.
-Providing a safe-haven for religious terrorists to hide or operate.

Countries guilty of refusing to outlaws religious terror will be dealt with in the following way.

- Political leaders of the terror states must meet the UN Delegate of the victim state and promise an end to terror attacks.

- If terrorist atrocities do not desist in the victim state. Then all UN member states cease to trade with the terror-supporting state. This includes economic, financial and military trade. As well as humanitarian aid. The terror state is now a pariah state.

- If terrorist atrocities do not desist. The victim state has the right to attack the terrorist state in anyway it chooses. Other UN members have the right assist victim in attacking the terrorist state in anyway they like. No other state has the right to assist the terror-supporting state. If they do, the above steps will be repeated for them.


Please endorse it."

Language changed to make it apply to all fanatical religious wars, more specific descriptions of actions, easily bumps it up two notches. But I think we can still do better. Especially to get majority support. 8^)

[Mikitivity]

While there is no "official" format, when I tried to read the resolution I found it hard to determine a preamble (i.e. justification) from a body (i.e. action).

[Groot Gouda]

It really needs a lot of work. Even then, I'm in doubt about supporting this. I'm not really a big fan of the whole anti-terrorism hype. Any resolution against terrorism opens the way for undemocratic regimes to call any state they don't like "terrorist", to legalise violent acts against the nation or its citizens. I do not think that the UN should endorse this behaviour, which it does if a resolution like this is accepted.

Another big objection is that is goes on about religious terror, as if that's the only kind of terrorism there is. I find this discriminating against religiously inspired nations (not that I am particularly fond of religious nations, but it's not up to us to judge them)

In short, this resolutions is against my principles as a pro-democracy, pro-justice nation, and I will not support it.

(OOC: To open a can of worms, this smells like it could be used in the same way as Iraq was invaded illegaly. I and millions of other people in the world did not protest against that for nothing. This resolution seeks to legitimise that kind of violence, and I will simply not support it.)

[Groot Gouda]

From the same author:
Quote: Stop Hippies !
A resolution to restrict political freedoms in the interest of law and order.

Category: Political Stability
Strength: Mild
Proposed by: Ricardo and Smith

Description:
This resolution proposes that all member states should take extreme measures against 'hippie' protesters.

'Tree huggers' and eco-warriers are a barrier to trade, and prevent political stability.

This resolution authorises the use of -

-Armoured Cars
-Automatic weapons
-Tanks
-Rapid deployment of anti-organic forces. [/quote]

Which for me is enough reason not to help this nation, period.

[Sober Thought]

Groot Gouda --

Thanks for the info, and I agree. It certainly is not very moderate.

[Groot Gouda]

Sober ThoughtApr 21 2005, 03:57 PM this certainly illustrates why the UN delegate should have a firm historical view of UN activities, and why I shouldn't be UN delegate. [/quote]
Actually, the same can be accomplished without a firm historical view. All you need is a firm view of Page One of the proposal queueue at the right time.

I don't mind you bothering me - I occasionally send telegrams to proposal authors about promising proposals, inviting them here for help. Sometimes it works out good, sometimes it doesn't.