Subject:
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Re: We'll take in your poor, your homeless, your oppressed...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 9 Jul 2004 13:00:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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1185 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Laswell wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
> > Its an example to show that you can't use a country's laws legally in another
> > country. The UN had the resolution--the UN has to deal with enforcing it.
> > The US, stating the UN resolution as reason to invade, but at hte same time
> > acting against what the UN stated, started an illegal war. I thought it was
> > clear.
>
> The US didn't invade Iraq because Iraq was breaking US laws, though. The
> justification for the invasion was because Iraq had failed to live up to the
> sanctions imposed on them by the UN after the Gulf War. The UN set a deadline
> by which time SH had to comply or face the consequenses...
Note: The "consequences" did not include what happened (i.e. armed
intervention).
> and then failed to go
> forward with their own mandate. The fact that two of the five full
> member-nations were alleged to have strong financial ties to his government made
> that not so much of a surprise as it would have been in the case of, oh, say,
> North Korea. Basically, though, the US went in with a UN-voted mandate,
That is a rather subjective view.
> but not
> with active UN support.
>
> > Again, I recall when SH was committing atrocities--Kurds dying and such.
> > However, I don't recall him making the headlines over the last couple of
> > years.
>
> When's the last time he let UN inspectors in? How can they report any
> atrocities when they've been kicked out? Just because noone was able to report
> them doesn't mean he wasn't still commiting them. After both the abandonment of
> our Kurd allies in the Gulf War, and his brutal suppression of the subsequent
> Shiite revolution, how likely do you think it is that anyone under his rule
> would come forth and volunteer evidence while he was still in power?
>
> > So if SH was a bad man *then* why wait until now for the invasion? And
> > looking at the atrocities going on in the world today, why attack Iraq for
> > past transgressions?
>
> Bush Sr. didn't get voted in for a second term, so he wasn't around when things
> went bad. Clinton just sat back and lobbed missiles at suspected targets
> instead of threatening any real consequences.
What did SH do whilst Clinton was running things that was worth even lobbing
missiles at?
> And due to the Florida election
> fiasco, Bush Jr. didn't have the public support necessary to pull it off until
> after kicking the Taliban out of Afghanistan.
I hear they have returned. ;-(
>
> > I'm being swayed by the 'sovereign nation' idea--I personally dislike SH but
> > does that give legitimacy for another sovereign nation to invade, especially
> > based on no 'imminent threat' to other countries?
>
> His track record showed that he was willing and eager to be an "imminent threat"
> to other nations. The only way to know if he actually was a danger was to have
> UN inspectors constantly patrolling the territory looking for suspicious
> activities. Unfortunately, they couldn't really help out on that front if they
> weren't allowed in the country. There's only two real reasons for kicking out
> UN inspectors that you've already agreed to allow in your country. The first is
> because you're just sick of them and want them gone, but kicking them out is
> just going to create more problems for you, not solve them. The second is
> because you really have something serious to hide, and you're worried that they
> might find it.
... or because they were CIA spooks rather than independent experts…
> The sensible thing to do in the former situation is let them
> back in, prove that you're not a threat, and defuse your enemy's hand-grenade
> before he can shove it down your throat. The stupid "macho posturing" thing to
> do is keep them out so you can convince your neighbors that you've still got
> some teeth, and hope that your real enemy doesn't drop the Hammer of God on you
> for being a boneheaded moron. Saddam chose poorly.
>
> > Just = legitimate or legal or even moral. The legitimacy of this war has
> > been disproved many times over. Some may disagree on my idea that this is
> > an illegal war, but Dubya did base this war on the breaking of UN res 1441
> > (and others).
>
> If he presented broken UN resolutions as his justification for entering into the
> war, how exactly does that prove it to be an illegal war?
>
> > And morality, eh, we already know the answer to that one.
>
> Yes, we do. The US goverment is personally responsible for putting SH in charge
> of Iraq three decades ago. We owed a moral debt to every one of his victims,
> and making sure that he and his sons are unable to continue their reign of
> terror is but a down payment on that debt.
Even if the Iraqis did not want the war?
>
> Based on the behavior of various nations during various stages of this process,
> I'm actually wondering if the UN didn't both know that this was the inevitable
> outcome of their backpedaling, and secretly hope that this situation could be
> resolved without them having to dirty their hands. Too many nations have
> shifted from being vehemently opposed to going to war, to mildly opposed during
> the early stages of the war, to congratulating the participants on the
> successful deposing of SH's reign, to demanding their "fair share" of
> involvement during the reconstruction, to sitting back and grumpily condemning
> the US for doing something that they'd essentially threatened but failed to do
> themselves.
Which countries are we talking about?
Scott A
> They all wanted him gone, and they had the opportunity to do it in
> a truly united fashion, but they chose not to.
>
> Now, I'm not saying that absolutely no dirty dealings went on to set the
> situation up to allow a legal war, or that the whole situation couldn't have
> been handled much better in many ways, but something needed to happen, and the
> longer the UN kept failing to uphold their own mandates, the more explosive the
> situation was getting.
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