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Right, because there's certainly no way you're wrong, right?
Edit: I'm not attempting to say, "They didn't say it outright." I'm saying they said something else, something similar but with a very crucial difference.
Accept for a second the thesis I've outlined is the one the administration attempted to advance. Please explain how any of those statements are inconsistent with it. Just because you refuse to accept a subtle but important difference in meaning doesn't mean it's not there.
Go ahead, dismiss it as legalese. It's the accepted way to accuse someone of saying something other than what they said.
Dagonee Edit: And you really should stop trying to restate other people's positions. You're very bad at it. Believe it or not, you have to actually read what others say in order to refute it.
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Dagonee: The way you stated Bush's justification for going to war in Iraq is because Saddam was a known supporter of terrorists, we should go after him. If that is the case, I fail to see why he hasn't continued to go after more Middle Eastern countries such as Sudan and Saudi Arabia. Instead I would like to present a completely new hypothesis that isn't the one stated by the Administraction, nor is it a war for oil. Instead, I think it Bush is taking this war something akin (but not completely as) a personal vendetta (to be explained lower), and a just war that he has been made president to wage.
First, I'll state why this can't be a war for oil: it costs too much. To put it bluntly, it'll take us decades to recover the cost of what we've spent in waging this war even if we milked Iraq dry.
Instead, I'd say the reason for this war is the exact reasons Bush has laid out. To him, he is doing just as he says, he honestly believes that he is doing the right thing in unilaterally declaring war on a nation and completely rendering international law moot in an act of defiance to the United Nations and attacking a sovereign nation unprovoked. And that is what I'm against. Yes it is a good thing that Saddam has been removed from power. Yes, it had to happen sometime. However, it was not right to do it without the approval of the international community. However, I digress.
As I stated, I think president Bush honestly believes that he is doing completely justified. He believes he is using his chance at power to do what he thinks is right, and I do respect that quality in him...however, I also see him as deeply misinformed and blind to the common man, that's why I don't like him, I have deep fundimental disagreements with what he is doing. This man has thrown away 50 years of international law and peace. The human world is made up of laws that keep some sort of order. We were at an impass at a chance for taking the next step towards global peace, and instead of grabbing that chance...he struck it away and threw humanity a few rungs down the social ladder and told the world that international law does not matter. Satyagraha
Posts: 359 | Registered: Jun 2001
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First, none of those countries have WMDs - that was what made the invasion necessary short of actual terrorists on the ground (assuming there had been some - I'm talking about what was known at the time). Second, Saudi, at least, is not officially sponsoring terror, at least not from the whole government. I think it's perfectly valid to say that in one instance war is appropriate and in the other, where there is hope, to work with parts of the government to stop the sponsoring. As far as Sudan goes, we have humanitarian grounds to go in right now, but not the manpower or equipment to do it alone.
There are some very colorable legal arguments that the invasion was justified under international law. I've posted them before in the form of briefs from England, Australia, and the U.S. on the subject. There's no international body able to adjudicate such matters, so there's no better way to resolve it than to say, "You're wrong!" "No, you're wrong!"
I would have preferred a larger coalition. I think Bush Sr. could have gotten one under these circumstances. But with the way veto power is allocated, I do not think Security Council approval is needed for every use of military force. Had the Soviets not been boycotting when North Korea invaded South Korea, the U.S. would have had to go without UN approval, and it would have been the right thing to do.
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And I'd still hold to the fact that laws are laws and need to be followed. You're studying to be a lawyer, you know that. Satyagraha
Posts: 359 | Registered: Jun 2001
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This is the theory that President Bush set out.
1) The US is vulnerable to attacks from Terrorist groups. (Proven by 9/11) 2) Hussein does not like the US (Proven by Hussein's speaches and attacks on US planes) 3) Hussein has WMD. (BAD INTELLIGENCE that should have been obvious, but was overlooked because of a desire to prove this theory right) 4) Hussein has connections with terrorists including Al-Queda. (Accept for his publicity stunt of giving away small amounts of money to the families of Palestinean suicide bombers, this is BAD INTELLIGENCE that should have been obvious, but was overlooked because of a desire to prove this theory right. I say small amounts because with Iraq's oil revenues, $25,000 is nothing.)
HENCE: Hussein will seek to get revenge on the US by giving Al-Queda WMD that will be used in the US. (There is NO intelligence or evidence supporting this fear.)
In October of 1991 the President of the United States started publically pressuring congress to allow him to go to war with Iraq if needed. Congress was given information based on faulty intelligence and almost crimminally optimisitic descriptions about what the costs of the war and rebuilding after would be.
In the two and a half years since, the faults with that intelligence has come to the surface. The facts are now known. Yet when anyone, Democrat or the occasional Republican, claims that based on these new facts there support of the war has changed, the Presidents administration claims that they have flip-flopped.
Of course they have.
The facts have flip-flopped.
In fact, its the inability to change ones position when new facts are discovered that makes me question either the administrations inability to recognize fact from fiction, or their honesty.
They claimed A. They claimed if A then B. Instead we have C. They respond, B anyway. Either they don't recognize that C is the fact, not A, or they knew C was the fact, but lied to us about A so they could do B.
It is this type of factual mismanagement that has stirred up the anger of many people. We don't like being lied to and we don't trust a fanatic who won't change his position when the facts used to support that position are proven to be in error.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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But how can you say international law has been followed, it is acting unilaterally that is against international law. Taken from the Charter of the United Nations:
quote: Article 1 The Purposes of the United Nations are: 1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective [u]collective[/u] measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the supression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about [u]by peaceful means[/u], and in in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of internationa...
Article 2 The Organization and its Membvers, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shalla ct in accordance with the following Principles. 1. The Organization is based on the principle of the [u]sovereign equality[/u] of all its Members...
...3. All Members shall settle their international disuptes by [u]peaceful means[/u] in such ma manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not engangered.
4. All Members shall [u]refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force[/u] against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations...
Article 27 1. Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote.
[u]2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members.[/u]
3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.
Perhaps I'm reading the language incorrectly (after all I've only had a single year of college education), but it seems to me we didn't follow the laws when we attacked Iraq without Security Council approval.
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First, you need to read the whole document: it does not preclude all use of force.
Second, the briefs laid out a case based on U.N. resolutions for the invasion. It's the rare legal issue that can be resolved by quoting three Articles from a charter.
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If you go by that assumption, then the United Nations Security Council has no reason for existance. Thus effectively removing one of the few entities that provide some source of order in an otherwise chaotic system of near anarchy. Because the United Nations along with it's security council is seens as the overarching governing forum for nation-states, it's rules and decisions should be seen as law because we don't have anything else governing the actions of governments. Thus any action overriding the United Nations is an action overriding the basis of International Law. Mind you, that's my way of interpreting it, obviously you have a different one, while I won't say that you're wrong, I will say that the way I see it would be ideal because it then allows for checks and balances of countries of greater power (such as the US). To compare it to the United States...we wouldn't want California to break off and attack...say...Florida. Satyagraha
Posts: 359 | Registered: Jun 2001
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It is a good thing I was already lying down in bed when I read that...otherwise i would've fallen off of my chair onto an open power supply and shocked myself on the capacitor (with my luck) and CONTINUED to laugh, as it is I almost dropped my laptop!
I can just imagine hippy surfer dudes going "Hey man...we've all got beaches and waves man...share surf it's all cool." :: giggles :: Only reason I wouldn't be one of them is because I sink...hmm...I should always carry scuba gear around with me whenever I'm near water....ya... Satyagraha
Posts: 359 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I didn't misunderstand them at all. They said quite clearly "Iraq almost certainly has WMDs! Iraq is a clear and present danger to the US! Iraq's presence helps the terrorists out significantly!"
I have yet to see that any of these three were true. Would you like to address any of my other points in the several posts I made?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Even if that was the administration's reasoning as you laid out, it was pathetic. Iraq's support for terrorism that we know about is penny ante compared to several other countries. Iraq's possession of WMD was tenuous at best throughout the entire affair, and multiple experts in the administration knew it, yet weren't listened to.
It was atrocious reasoning, and it represents a failure in their representation of American interests.
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That may be. Obviously you and I disagree on that, at least to some extent. I believe Iraq represented a unique nexus of association with terrorists, high potential danger in the type of operation they could support, high potential for success of the mission, and a justification under international law.
But it's impossible to have THAT discussion when people are outright lying about what the administration said, and then storming off because someone refuses to accept their version of reality. (Not you.)
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I don't see it on google now, but wasn't there a story just a few weeks back showing one of Saddam's lieutenants spent time in Al-Qeida training camps?
We wanted to knock down all the governments that actively support terrorism. We picked Iraq first cause no one really liked them anyway. It seemed like the best choice politically if not militarily. I don't think anyone could have predicted the war would be such a partisan issue.
As for the WMDs, Saddam ran a good bluff. He needed all his neighbors to think he still had them so they wouldn't attack. He needed to convince everyone he had them. I just don't follow the reasoning that our intel in a vast and openly hostile bit of the world should have known better.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I was in a rush this morning. I didn't mean to dismiss your points, I'm just not prepared to have a discussion on them in depth, so I gave you the outline of what my thinking is.
I'd have to do a lot of research to be able to document all my supporting evidence, and I don't have time to do it justice. I pick the topics I go in depth on partly from how much I know about the primary source material and how to get at it quickly, since I prefer not to post without cites when possible.
You raise good points that need to be addressed by the administration.
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I just don't follow the reasoning that our intel in a vast and openly hostile bit of the world should have known better.
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