notquitekarpov:
“Yup X~Slayer “the biggest idiot should start listening to the UN” - and that IMHO would be Dubya and various US administrations for the last oh lets say 40 years.”
“I’m against the war so NO I cannot share the OP’s fence sitting position. There is a legal reason - it’s simply illegal under UN rules that the US subscribe to without a specific mandate - the idea of a legal pre-emptive strike is simply an UL.”
I’ll guess at the last acronymn, just for the fun of it, and say that it must stand for an Unruffled Lethality. The United Nations is in no position to make laws. We may seek the approval of other nations for political reasons, but there is no ‘law’ that would make unilateral action ‘illegal.’ Unless, of course, one would like the U.S. to be ruled by the ‘laws’ handed down by the United Nations. It makes for compelling rhetoric, but saying that something is, “simply illegal under UN rules,” has all the force of saying that wearing a short skirt is simply illegal under Parochial School rules. This is hardly a legal argument, then, but a biased and emotional one.
“Next on a personal moral basis I believe it is wrong. I am no peace-monger - for instance I supported the UK action over the Falklands - but do not see any threat from Iraq to the world generally or even the region if he is kept in his box by inspection regimes etc. There is even less case for trying to link Iraq with O-bin-L or international terrorism on the evidence I have seen.”
Which might be seen to argue that the U.K. action in the Malvinas was justified in the interest of the world, in general, where Iraq is less of a threat than Argentina was at the time. Certainly Argentina has always been a threat to world peace, we all clearly understand, and those little islands down there at the southern tip of South America were vital interests to the civilized world. Any thinking person would have supported steaming half a navy across half the world to reclaim the Malvinas as a hands down more compelling action than going to war with a nation that has already attacked nearly all of their neighbors. It goes without saying that there is no compelling evidence against Iraq, what with the Argentinian threat all around us.
“And it is a disgrace for the US/UK to threaten to go to war
unilaterally if the UN do not give them the go ahead - talk about a gun to the head. I could go on but mustn’t leave myself accused of ranting…”
Indeed. It was, if I recall, the United Nations that gave the U.K. the legal sanction and full approval of all nations to go down and teach Argentina a lesson they’ll never forget . . .
Gairloch
Try, try . . . No. Think, think.
“Anyone that opposes us, we’ll crush. As a matter of fact anybody that doesn’t support us we’ll crush…” (Attrib Tex Colson, Nixon campaign aide) – (Or, paraphrased, Attrib. to Saddam. You decide.)