Lets talk about the soldiers.

[Decker]

Your posts are starting to resemble Zulu's, that guy who would post all the pictures of the KKK and call everyone on the forum a limp-dicked, flat-assed white boy.

And using third-classed internet sites as a source tells everyone all they need to know about the merits of your argument.

In all my time on this forum, I think I have posted 4 or 5 pictures. The opinion expressed in the post was my own. The picture came from a yahoo search. I guess that means nothing to you.

If you read my post containing the picture, you'd know what I was saying. You see the picture, you become defensive, you liken me to a flaming racist re style of argumentation.

Do you feel better about yourself now?

Did you get that out of your system?

Oh yes, the merits of my argument are persuasive but you'll never know b/c:

• Your reading comprehension takes a backseat to your vindictive prejudice and
• Partisan politics mean more to you than bona fide deliberation

In spite of those things, I still think there's hope.

 

[brogers]

pull out the troops..... and send in the:

preferably several thousand of them

 

[DOMS]

pull out the troops..... and send in the:

preferably several thousand of them

You've got my vote.

 

[Decker]

There are also lawyers who say that Bush hasn't done anthing illegal. But they have an agenda.

I disagree. Every argument I hear from the opposition is not a legal argument. Here's what I mean: The world is better off w/out Hussein in power; We removed a tyrant; We've given democracy a chance. etc. etc.

You have made absolutely no arguments for why the invasion is legal. You talk about attendant circumstances--where are the charges for this, why isn't Bush in jail then---but you make no substantive legal counterargument.

I showed you the Congressional grant of authority, resolution 1441 and how Bush violated both of those.

But, again, where is the easy conviction? But I was also talking about international law.

Articulating charges is all I have done. There is no slamdunk easy conviction in any court...especially one where the president of the US is the main defendant.

I didn't care. Nor did much of anyone else in the US.

I see. But you do see my point, don't you?

 

[ZECH]

Just think about it for one moment. If international law, the kind embodied in the Geneva Convention and UN Charter, dictates that use of force is justified only in self defense or in conjunction with UN resolutions and Bush attacks a country with no justification under either requirement, then we have an illegal use of force. Bush abused the authority granted to him by Congress and the UN when he attacked Iraq before the inspections were completed.

You might hate the UN, but you're letting your prejudice cloud your judgment. Like it or not, the US is a member.

Decker first let me say that my last post or any future post in no way is meant as a slam to you personally.
Now, the Geneva convention has nothing to do with use of force. It is only relevent to the treatment of prisoners of war.
IMO, the time Iraq was given and kept asking for was the time they needed to get the WMD's out of the country. He used gas before.......so we knew he had it. I think Albob posted one time that showed sat photos of convoys streaming into Syria. We know these things just didn't mysteriously disappear. I think Saddam knew what the consequences would be if he used them(that answers the question someone asked on why they weren't used). He never thought he would get caught. He was going to stay in power(he still thinks he is going to come back into power today) and bring these back in at a future point.
Yes Congress did authorize the war. So how did he abuse it?
Yes the US is a member of the UN, but where does it say we have to abide by what they say? Is it not just guidelines to go by. When they do nothing(which is all the time.....they are nothing but talk), we must act.
OK, If and when we get out of Iraq, what do we do with Al-Qaeda and their training camps. Do we let them train and grow until they attack us again?

 

[clemson357]

The conspiracy theorist on this board is calling me partisan. HA!

Decker, you are citing the slums of the internet in support of your argument. Its obvious you have an engrained hatred for Bush, by your pictures of him with nuclear explosions and headstones in the background.

With 20/20 hindsight, the war wasn't necessary. The truth remains that EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs, I could cite you the quotes from the Clintons, Kerrys, etc., but I don't think thats necessary. In fact, he did have chemical WMDs, though this isn't what we suspected. Now you are trying to use EVERYONE's mistake for your political gain, and thats bullshit. Everyone thought Saddam had those weapons because thats what Saddam wanted everyone to think. He wouldn't comply with the UN weapons inspectors, so your argument about "let the UN finish its job" is horseshit. Im sorry you, and all the rest of the liberals, have no greater cause to stand up for than Iraq. Really, its kind of pathetic. Im sorry you don't have the fortitude to stick it out for three or four measly years, but thats why people like you aren't in charge of the military. This is no Vietnam war, there is no draft, and nowhere close to 60,000 US personel have been killed. Your nastalgic war-bitching is both tired and annoying. We are over there, whether it was a mistake or not, and the job needs to be finished.

 

[clemson357]

As far as your international laws, I couldn't give a shit less and neither should anyone else.

Why don't you get elected president, and then when Iran or North Korea is aiming a nuclear warhead at us, you can book a conference room at the UN to have a pow-wow and sing Kumbiya while the country is obliterated. At least then we would be legal, right?

 

[DOMS]

You have made absolutely no arguments for why the invasion is legal. You talk about attendant circumstances--where are the charges for this, why isn't Bush in jail then---but you make no substantive legal counterargument.

Yes I did present a rebuttal. 1441 was written 11 god damn years after the fact. It's like writing a new law that says that jay walking is punishable by life in prison and retroactively enforcing it. The UN wrote 1441 because that's all they do. They write documents and spout off. Show me a legal document written back in 1990 that stipulates that the UN can tell the US when to, and when not to, attack. Come on, cough it up!

I showed you the Congressional grant of authority, resolution 1441 and how Bush violated both of those.

And for that point, I conceeded that Bush (and thereby, the US) performed some illegal act. Now where the hell is the convictions if it's so clear cut? Oh, that's right, you don't know why. Well hell, I think I won the last powerball lotto, but no one is giving me my prize.

There is no slamdunk easy conviction in any court...especially one where the president of the US is the main defendant.

Then where are the initial proceedings? Where are the formal charges? Convicting someone is a far cry from simply filing some papers. It's been four years!

I see. But you do see my point, don't you?

In regards to defeating Iraq? No, I don't. From the very moment we engaged Iraq back in 1990, it's been the right of the US to defeat the Iraqis. Not from 2002, but from 1990.

 

[DOMS]

As far as your international laws, I couldn't give a shit less and neither should anyone else?

A goodly part of International law is simply to make the greater powers answer to the lesser ones.

And something I've said before, "International Law is like professional wrestling, it's all fake and only children believe in it."

 

[Decker]

Decker first let me say that my last post or any future post in no way is meant as a slam to you personally.
Now, the Geneva convention has nothing to do with use of force. It is only relevent to the treatment of prisoners of war.
IMO, the time Iraq was given and kept asking for was the time they needed to get the WMD's out of the country. He used gas before.......so we knew he had it. I think Albob posted one time that showed sat photos of convoys streaming into Syria. We know these things just didn't mysteriously disappear. I think Saddam knew what the consequences would be if he used them(that answers the question someone asked on why they weren't used). He never thought he would get caught. He was going to stay in power(he still thinks he is going to come back into power today) and bring these back in at a future point.
Yes Congress did authorize the war. So how did he abuse it?
Yes the US is a member of the UN, but where does it say we have to abide by what they say? Is it not just guidelines to go by. When they do nothing(which is all the time.....they are nothing but talk), we must act.
OK, If and when we get out of Iraq, what do we do with Al-Qaeda and their training camps. Do we let them train and grow until they attack us again?

No problem. Re the Geneva convention, you???re right. I was reaching for the Nuremberg holdings but all I could come up with was Geneva. I was trying to pinpoint the rules for war???no such thing as preventive war etc. I knew that Geneva violations by Hussein was proffered as one reason for invasion but it???s inappropriate for the point I was trying to make. Thanks for pointing that out.

I do agree with you that Iraq was in defiance of UN resolutions. The weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq and are world class scientists. I don???t pretend to understand how they investigate wmds. But the people that worked on UNSCOM and the IAEA knew in 1998 that Hussein???s WMDs were history and his capacity for production was crippled. The WMD Inspectors were merely verifying those conclusions with the inspections of 2002.

But let???s look at the validity of the inspections themselves. The US, under Bush I, said publicly that the sanctions against Iraq would continue until Iraq fully complies with investigations. The US also said that even if Hussein complies fully with inspections, the sanctions would continue. Clinton continued that policy. There's obviously some dissonance there. It???s not just GW Bush, it???s also Clinton and Bush I that are culpable for many things. Why? The real reason was obviously regime change. Anyway, the culpability for Iraq reaches back years, not just to GWB.

Under the UN Charter and Nuremberg holdings, to legally use force, a country must be attacked, face imminent attack, or threats to peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression. Which of those did Iraq engage in?

The lynchpin was the WMD rationale. Bush exceeded his grant of authority by not permitting the inspectors to finish their jobs inspecting. Instead, he engaged in preventive war???strictly outlawed by the Nuremburg holdings.

The UN does have problems. But the US is a willing member which avails itself of the UN Charter and the bylaws. In short, the US must play by the rules it helped write in creating the UN.

What do we do with Al Qaeda? We treat it like an international police problem???using sound policework and infiltration. The military is the wrong vehicle for taking these people down.

 

[Decker]

The conspiracy theorist on this board is calling me partisan. HA!

Decker, you are citing the slums of the internet in support of your argument. Its obvious you have an engrained hatred for Bush, by your pictures of him with nuclear explosions and headstones in the background.

With 20/20 hindsight, the war wasn't necessary. The truth remains that EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs, I could cite you the quotes from the Clintons, Kerrys, etc., but I don't think thats necessary. In fact, he did have chemical WMDs, though this isn't what we suspected. Now you are trying to use EVERYONE's mistake for your political gain, and thats bullshit. Everyone thought Saddam had those weapons because thats what Saddam wanted everyone to think. He wouldn't comply with the UN weapons inspectors, so your argument about "let the UN finish its job" is horseshit. Im sorry you, and all the rest of the liberals, have no greater cause to stand up for than Iraq. Really, its kind of pathetic. Im sorry you don't have the fortitude to stick it out for three or four measly years, but thats why people like you aren't in charge of the military. This is no Vietnam war, there is no draft, and nowhere close to 60,000 US personel have been killed. Your nastalgic war-bitching is both tired and annoying. We are over there, whether it was a mistake or not, and the job needs to be finished.

Here's an interview with Weapons inspector Scott Ritter (whom incidentally believes that Clinton should stand trial for his role in Iraq policy)
MR. RITTER: "Well, of course he told us. Look, let's be honest, the Iraqis were obligated in 1991 to submit a full declaration listing the totality of their holdings in WMD, and they didn't do this. They lied. They failed to declare a nuclear weapons program, they failed to declare a biological weapons programs, and they under-declared their chemical and ballistic missile capabilities. Saddam Hussein intended to retain a strategic deterrent capability, not only to take care of Iran but also to focus on Israel. What he didn't count on was the tenacity of the inspectors. And very rapidly, by June 1991, we had compelled him into acknowledging that he had a nuclear weapons programs, and we pushed him so hard that by the summer of 1991, in the same way that a drug dealer who has police knocking at his door, flushes drugs down a toilet to get rid of his stash so he could tell the cops, "I don't have any drugs," the Iraqis, not wanting to admit that they lied, flushed their stash down the toilet.
They blew up all their weapons and buried them in the desert, and then tried to maintain the fiction that they had told the truth. And by 1992 they were compelled again, because of the tenacity of the inspectors, to come clean. People ask why didn't Saddam Hussein admit being disarmed? In 1992 they submitted a declaration that said everything's been destroyed, we have nothing left. In 1995 they turned over the totality of their document cache. Again, not willingly, it took years of inspections to pressure them, but the bottom line is by 1995 there were no more weapons in Iraq, there were no more documents in Iraq, there was no more production capability in Iraq because we were monitoring the totality of Iraq's industrial infrastructure with the most technologically advanced, the most intrusive arms control regime in the history of arms control.
And furthermore, the CIA knew this, the British intelligence knew this, Israeli intelligence knew this, German intelligence, the whole world knew this. They weren't going to say that Iraq was disarmed because nobody could say that, but they definitely knew that the Iraqi capability regarding WMD had been reduced to as near to zero as you could bring it, and that Iraq represented a threat to no one when it came to weapons of mass destruction."
-interview over

It was Rumsfeld and Bush that created the special Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon that fed all the Bullshit cherry-picked "evidence" about Iraq's WMDs and WMD programs.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

 

[min0 lee]

In all my time on this forum, I think I have posted 4 or 5 pictures. The opinion expressed in the post was my own. The picture came from a yahoo search. I guess that means nothing to you.

If you read my post containing the picture, you'd know what I was saying. You see the picture, you become defensive, you liken me to a flaming racist re style of argumentation.

Do you feel better about yourself now?

Did you get that out of your system?

Oh yes, the merits of my argument are persuasive but you'll never know b/c:

• Your reading comprehension takes a backseat to your vindictive prejudice and
• Partisan politics mean more to you than bona fide deliberation

In spite of those things, I still think there's hope.

 

[Decker]

Yes I did present a rebuttal. 1441 was written 11 god damn years after the fact. It's like writing a new law that says that jay walking is punishable by life in prison and retroactively enforcing it. The UN wrote 1441 because that's all they do. They write documents and spout off. Show me a legal document written back in 1990 that stipulates that the UN can tell the US when to, and when not to, attack. Come on, cough it up!

"Throughout the now more than decade-long dispute over Iraq's compliance with its disarmament obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 687 which ended the 1991 Gulf War, a majority of both the Security Council- and a majority of its permanent members- have consistently argued that it is for the Security Council as a whole, and not individual states such as the U.S. or Britain, to decide how to enforce its resolutions...." http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0212lawyers_body.html
The US was outvoted and must play ball according to UN rules re Iraq resolutions.

And for that point, I conceeded that Bush (and thereby, the US) performed some illegal act. Now where the hell is the convictions if it's so clear cut? Oh, that's right, you don't know why. Well hell, I think I won the last powerball lotto, but no one is giving me my prize.

That is funny. I'm not being facetious. But articulated charges are a long way from indicting the president and his cohorts let alone convictions. This isn't a jaywalking ticket were discussing after all.

Then where are the initial proceedings? Where are the formal charges? Convicting someone is a far cry from simply filing some papers. It's been four years!

See above.

In regards to defeating Iraq? No, I don't. From the very moment we engaged Iraq back in 1990, it's been the right of the US to defeat the Iraqis. Not from 2002, but from 1990.

See above re how the rules of procedure work in the UN.

 

[min0 lee]

Decker, what law do you keep referring to that is broken??
Where is this law written? Who inforces this law?
The UN is a piece of shit which we should never be a part of. I hope someone will sponsor a bill to remove us from the UN.
The UN would never ever authorize any such thing and Bush knew it.
Hell just give them them 10 more years of talk and sanctions. That will certainly do it.
It has worked in North Korea hasn't it??

You should personaly how much of a waste of money it is. I see part of it......

 

[brogers]

Regarding the UN: The Chavez/Ahmeidinejad incident should clear any doubt that it is digustingly out-of-touch and should be dissolved.

 

[DOMS]

The US was outvoted and must play ball according to UN rules re Iraq resolutions.

Why must the US? They can vote all they want, but that still doesn't tell me why the US must. The word that your looking for is "should". Like I said before, there is no international law that can dictate the US couldn't finish the war with Iraq. Even if you could point to a solid, non-retroactive, piece of documentation that said so, it still doesn't mean squat. Ulitmately, the US only has to answer to itself. The UN simply isn't a governing body. It's little more than a bunch of old biddies sitting around trying to tell people what to do when they themselves are a monumental screw up.

You really need to stop using the word "must" in relation to the UN and the US.

And as for you, the quote, and its associated link, you miss the point yet again. The UN called in the US to take care of Iraq back in 1990. That was a perfectly legal reason for the US to go to war. What you, and the people you linked to, are trying to do is split one war into two. There is only one US / Iraq war. Just look at the end of the first conflict. The US stopped attacking (note that they didn't say 'end the war') if Iraq did what they wanted them to. Iraq didn't, so the US (in a war they were called in on by the UN) finished the war (or at least continued it). The US did not need a reason to start a war, because they weren't. The simply finished the war they had started over a decade before.

You're simply trying to perform a sleight of hand. Which didn't work.

That is funny. I'm not being facetious. But articulated charges are a long way from indicting the president and his cohorts let alone convictions. This isn't a jaywalking ticket were discussing after all.See above.

Of course it's not a jay walking ticket, but it does show how to try to blow off the real fact that no charges have been leveled because they don't have a case.

 

[ZECH]

Validity of the inspections? Oh please. Scott Ritter is one of the biggest critics of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. So you know he would say there was no WMD's. I do like this statement from him though.....

"I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measured in months, reconstitute chemical and biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program"

This was after he got blocked from inspection sites and kicked out of Iraq in Jan 1998 and accused of being a spy for the CIA.

Now, wonder why he was denied access to the sites? Bingo, they didn't want him to see what they had.
When the United States and the UN Security Council failed to take action against Iraq for their ongoing failure to cooperate fully with inspectors (a breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1154), Ritter resigned from the United Nations Special Commission on August 26, 1998

On September 3, 1998, several days after his resignation, Ritter testified before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and said that he resigned his position "out of frustration that the United Nations Security Council, and the United States as its most significant supporter, was failing to enforce the post-Gulf War resolutions designed to disarm Iraq."

He was against the "domino effect" which was basically the US foreign policy stategy which attempted to stop other coutries moving toward communism instead of American based capitalism. (Known as Containment)

Another interesting fact is this statement made by Ritter on Oct 21 2005.
"based upon the information given to me, and it's 100% accurate, that in October 2004, the President of the United States ordered the Pentagon to be prepared to launch military strikes against Iran as of June 2005. That means, have all the resources in place so that if the President orders it, the bombing can begin. It doesn't mean that the bombing is going begin in June"

He also stated that war with Iran is going to happen. "We just don't know when, but it's going to happen"
In an interview with Amy Goodman broadcast on Democracy Now! on October 16, 2006, Ritter again reaffirmed the U.S.'s state of undeclared war vis-à-vis Iran.

 

[Decker]

Why must the US? They can vote all they want, but that still doesn't tell me why the US must. The word that your looking for is "should". Like I said before, there is no international law that can dictate the US couldn't finish the war with Iraq. Even if you could point to a solid, non-retroactive, piece of documentation that said so, it still doesn't mean squat. Ulitmately, the US only has to answer to itself. The UN simply isn't a governing body. It's little more than a bunch of old biddies sitting around trying to tell people what to do when they themselves are a monumental screw up.

You really need to stop using the word "must" in relation to the UN and the US.

The US can only attack another country (this goes for the 1990s war as well as the present):

a)In self defense, or

b)pursuant to the principles of the UN Charter (keeping the peace)

Iraq did not attack the US, so a) is out. So, for the US to attack Iraq legally, (and GWB wanted the attack more than anyone--that's why he cherrypicked and misrepresented evidence of Iraq's WMDs)--the only option it had was to do according to UN directives...that leaves b).

Since the UN procedure for determining when/how use of force was to be implemented, that took any unilateral action by the US or Britain off the table.

It is evident that the US MUST follow UN directives if it wants to attack Iraq...which it did.

And as for you, the quote, and its associated link, you miss the point yet again. The UN called in the US to take care of Iraq back in 1990. That was a perfectly legal reason for the US to go to war. What you, and the people you linked to, are trying to do is split one war into two. There is only one US / Iraq war. Just look at the end of the first conflict. The US stopped attacking (note that they didn't say 'end the war') if Iraq did what they wanted them to. Iraq didn't, so the US (in a war they were called in on by the UN) finished the war (or at least continued it). The US did not need a reason to start a war, because they weren't. The simply finished the war they had started over a decade before.

You're simply trying to perform a sleight of hand. Which didn't work.

If I am wrong, then I suggest you call GW Bush and John Bolton and tell them your take on procedural and substantive aspects of the UN Charter.

The US did not simply finish the war started in the 1990s. The US and Kuwait asked the UN to convene and pass a resolution to resolve the conflict. (Bush, any Bush, jumps when an oil rich Arab command so). So you are mistaken as to the facts at the start of the war just as you are mistaken as to the facts regarding the operation of the UN. Bush I asks the UN to authorize by resolution, the attack on Iraq. The UN, by vote, manage the terms of the surrender. The UN decides if use of force is appropriate (by vote). What is so difficult to understand?

And now you say the US can ignore the UN. That's simply wrong. Not only that, your suggestions for US action are illegal.

Of course it's not a jay walking ticket, but it does show how to try to blow off the real fact that no charges have been leveled because they don't have a case.

You're engaging in a logical fallacy. Just because charges have not been made does not mean that they cannot be made.

 

[Decker]

Validity of the inspections? Oh please. Scott Ritter is one of the biggest critics of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. So you know he would say there was no WMD's. I do like this statement from him though.....

"I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measured in months, reconstitute chemical and biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program"

So you do agree with Scott Ritter. Of course he's a critic. Read some of his writings. The man is a straight shooter. He goes out of his way to lay the blame for the US's Iraq policy at the feet of Bush, Clinton and Bush II--he makes a rather compelling case for the impeachment of all three.

This was after he got blocked from inspection sites and kicked out of Iraq in Jan 1998 and accused of being a spy for the CIA.

Now, wonder why he was denied access to the sites? Bingo, they didn't want him to see what they had. When the United States and the UN Security Council failed to take action against Iraq for their ongoing failure to cooperate fully with inspectors (a breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1154), Ritter resigned from the United Nations Special Commission on August 26, 1998

On September 3, 1998, several days after his resignation, Ritter testified before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and said that he resigned his position "out of frustration that the United Nations Security Council, and the United States as its most significant supporter, was failing to enforce the post-Gulf War resolutions designed to disarm Iraq."

He was against the "domino effect" which was basically the US foreign policy stategy which attempted to stop other coutries moving toward communism instead of American based capitalism. (Known as Containment)

Another interesting fact is this statement made by Ritter on Oct 21 2005.
"based upon the information given to me, and it's 100% accurate, that in October 2004, the President of the United States ordered the Pentagon to be prepared to launch military strikes against Iran as of June 2005. That means, have all the resources in place so that if the President orders it, the bombing can begin. It doesn't mean that the bombing is going begin in June"

He also stated that war with Iran is going to happen. "We just don't know when, but it's going to happen"
In an interview with Amy Goodman broadcast on Democracy Now! on October 16, 2006, Ritter again reaffirmed the U.S.'s state of undeclared war vis-à-vis Iran.

I see nothing else in your comments about Ritter that I have a problem with except for the reason that Hussein kicked out the inspectors. Clinton continued the Bush policy of sanctions without the possibility of abatement.

The UN resolution 687 directed that, upon completion of inspections (among other things), the sanctions would be lifted. Both Bushs and Clinton ignored that directive instead saying that as long as Hussein is in power, the sanctions continue.

 

[ZECH]

On September 3, 1998, several days after his resignation, Ritter testified before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and said that he resigned his position "out of frustration that the United Nations Security Council, and the United States as its most significant supporter, was failing to enforce the post-Gulf War resolutions designed to disarm Iraq."

If they were failing to disarm Iraq, wouldn't that mean he knew they had something?

 

[Decker]

On September 3, 1998, several days after his resignation, Ritter testified before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and said that he resigned his position "out of frustration that the United Nations Security Council, and the United States as its most significant supporter, was failing to enforce the post-Gulf War resolutions designed to disarm Iraq."

If they were failing to disarm Iraq, wouldn't that mean he knew they had something?

Possibly. According to Ritter, 90-95% of Iraq's WMD capacity was eliminated prior to 1999. 100% of the nuclear capacity was eliminated. Iraq was not reconstituting its nuclear program at all.

Ritter's beef with Clinton/US was that he disagreed w/ the sanctions policy and thought that the US should resort to more diplomatic means of integrating Iraq into the Western way.

The US was pushing the sanctions to expedite Iraq's compliance while removing the carrot of equating full compliance with a suspension of those sanctions. That was a violation of UN resolution by the US and Ritter knew that.

How can we ask Iraq to comply if we can't? Some people don't care about these sort of complexities, but the reality is there.

 

[ZECH]

The US was pushing the sanctions to expedite Iraq's compliance while removing the carrot of equating full compliance with a suspension of those sanctions. That was a violation of UN resolution by the US and Ritter knew that.

I guess according to you, the US has never complied with a UN resolution? Why don't they kick us out

 

[Decker]

I guess according to you, the US has never complied with a UN resolution? Why don't they kick us out

That's a good punchline--can I use it?

I think our list of noncompliance is as long as Israel's.

I swear, it seems at times that any semblance of legal viability between the UN and it's resolutions is coincidental.

But we could say the same thing about the world court. The US is on its docket for war crimes when Reagan had a nicaruagan harbor sewn with landmines.

There's such a disparate composition of what's loosely defined as US interests that, when it comes to foreign relations, we've given up on the rule of law in favor might is right. Lip service is paid to 'legality' but that's it.

 

[goandykid]

is anyone else completely lsot by this thread.

 

[min0 lee]

I would pay to see these guys debate in person.

I have to admit I need to print this stuff so that I can read it later when I have more time.

 

[goandykid]

After you print it and read it, can you summarize it and explain it for the rest of common society?

 

[min0 lee]

After you print it and read it, can you summarize it and explain it for the rest of common society?

I hope I can!

 

[viet_jon]

is anyone else completely lsot by this thread.

not really.

but this is the best thread since Forman left though.

 

[goandykid]

Agreed, it would have been shit on long ago.


However, I still miss the occasional offhand comment from his peanut gallery self.

 

[DOMS]

The US did not simply finish the war started in the 1990s. The US and Kuwait asked the UN to convene and pass a resolution to resolve the conflict. (Bush, any Bush, jumps when an oil rich Arab command so). So you are mistaken as to the facts at the start of the war just as you are mistaken as to the facts regarding the operation of the UN. Bush I asks the UN to authorize by resolution, the attack on Iraq. The UN, by vote, manage the terms of the surrender. The UN decides if use of force is appropriate (by vote). What is so difficult to understand?

I understand exactly what you're saying, and you're ignoring a certain, important, fact: At no time was the US under the command of the UN. Not for a single moment.

You have yet to produce a single document, written before the fact, that stipulates that the UN could decide when the war was over. You have also failed to produce anything in regards to the US saying that the war was over back in 1991. Until you do, you position is...faulty; to say the least.

And now you say the US can ignore the UN. That's simply wrong.

You mean it's wrong to ignore the UN, who are a bunch of absoluting corrupt politicians who are trying to use the UN to force their will upon the significantly strong US? Sure, whatever.

Not only that, your suggestions for US action are illegal.

What are you referring to?

You're engaging in a logical fallacy. Just because charges have not been made does not mean that they cannot be made.

After fours years? Hahahahaha. If it was so clear cut, which you've said (and failed to provide any proof) it is, they'd have done it by now.