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Subject: 
Re: We'll take in your poor, your homeless, your oppressed...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Thu, 8 Jul 2004 01:12:26 GMT
Viewed: 
1016 times
  
Snipped much away.

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Leonard Hoffman wrote:

Being legitimate means that Saddam *was* the ruler of Iraq - and we, by
recognizing his government, had no right to undermine his rule.  The only body
that had that power is the UN.

However, is there a distinction between recognising the reality of a strongman
being in power through force, and recognising the legitimacy of his rule?

I'm just asking. But I suspect that many countries, operating in the real world
rather than the ideal one, do tend to deal with other governments without
necessarily addressing whether they are legitimate.

As for the UN, I can't recall nearly as many cases of the UN stating that a
government was legitimate (dejure governance) as I can recall reports of coups
(defacto governance).

Note that this is a very slippery slope to go down. For example I don't
recognise the dejure legitimacy of my own government, yet I choose to go along
with it because they have a lot of guns. I never recognised the legitimacy of
the Soviet Union's government either.

Is that making any sense?



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: We'll take in your poor, your homeless, your oppressed...
 
(...) Typo! This should read "wasn't legitimate" rather than was. That is, the UN hardly ever says anything bad about a government's legitimacy, compared to the number of coups. So the UN seems to see coups as (at least defacto) an OK way to change (...) (20 years ago, 8-Jul-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: We'll take in your poor, your homeless, your oppressed...
 
(...) I'm not suggesting, nor making any statement, that Saddam's actions are just. I'm questioning whether the USA's actions were just. Or rather, specifically, wondering why you think they were "not unjust." (...) I'm speaking hypthetically as (...) (20 years ago, 8-Jul-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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