Let’s see…my great, great grandmother lost her home when Andrew Jackson defied his own Supreme Court and ordered all native Americans off of their homeland. You know, the area they had been living on for hundreds of years until The Man landed and decided he wanted it all for himself. Jackson broke treaty after treaty after treaty with the native Americans and ultimately forced them off their land to march a few thousand miles like lots of cattle to a freaking desert. Half died en route of disease, malnutrition and exhaustion.
Yeah, I can see how Bush kicking a despot’s ass can beat that.
Hint: Get ye a history lesson or five before making blanket statements, junior.
It is unseemly for those of us with some Cherokee blood to brag about it in public. Perfectly understandable, of course. Still, it annoys the unfortunate and tends to make them spiteful.
Amongst the tribe, I am called “Dances With Vulvas”.
Not to rationalise the suffering of the native American, but,…
What has happend to Iraq is only slightly better, a promised invasion never materialised, and those who rose up expecting it to happen were ruthlessly exterminated.
The country has been under sanctions for years and estimates suggest that up to one million people have died as result of lack of medical materials and contaminated water, these things you can mostly blame Saddam Hussain for.
Now the US has invaded, compromising what is left of public services infrastrucutre, the result is that water and electricity supplies are fragmented, poor and in some areas have collapsed altogether.Raw sewage flows through city streets, hospitals have not the material to deliver decent basic healthcare.
The use of cluster bombs whose contents(up to 10%) have not exploded has denied the Iraqi farmers the ability to sow crops, thus Iraq will not be able to feed itself.Those cluster bomblets are effectively doing the same thing as anti-personnels mines do, they are going to be defused limb by limb, probably by the most vulnerable in Iraq, the children.
Lots of cluster bombs fell on farmland, and nowhwere near any military targets.
All this pain is mostly due to the historical support of Saddam Hussain and his evil bunch by the US to counter another failed US policy in Iran.
And to actually go to war the second time, GWB went against the express wishes of the international community.
What you have done is point out that the US has a very long history of deep dishonour, which is made worse by the US commenting in the past about the dishonourable nature of colonialist nations such as the UK, France, Spain etc.
Wrong. Operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch were planned and executed under the authority of a coalition of UN Members, (US, UK, France, Russia, Turkey) , NOT under the UNSC, much like the recent fighting was. Enforcing the No Fly Zones was NOT under a UN Mandate, and NOT under UN control.
Your cites don’t say who the ultimate authority is for the coalition. I’m still pretty sure it is the UN. I know for sure that UN Peacekeepers are under UN authority but I’m not sure if those enforcing the NFZ were officially Peacekeepers.
The No Fly Zones were part of the UNSR. It makes no sense to say that the resolution belongs to the UN but the enforcement doesn’t.
So why did GWB try to argue those as UNSR violations rather than an act of war? Why invent a phony causus belli if he had a legit one?
(Zoe, thanks for the kind words. Peace be with you. )
You are not 100% correct in saying that the No Fly Zones were part of the UNSCR, but you are 100% correct that it makes no sense that they did not include enforcement and punishment for violations. SOP for the UN, IMHO.UNSCR 688 did not mention any No Fly Zones. But the No Fly Zones were established (see next paragraph) in order to enforce UNSCR 688.
The authority for both the establishment of the zones and the enforcement was President GHW Bush and the Joint US/European Task force, much the same as the authority for the recent invasion was a joint US/European coalition. The hundreds or thousands of times the Allied planes or missiles hit Iraqi targets with bombs and missiles (under both Republican and Democratic Administrations) over the last decade had nothing to do with the UNSC.
The UN Weapons Inspectors, Peacekeepers, and the like WERE under UN mandate and control, no doubts there. UN Peacekeepers are generally (in my understanding) rather impotent with regards to retaliation.
My guess about why GWB didn’t use those violations? The status quo had been firmly established over a decade that violations of the No Fly Zone would result in a very limited military response, and that excuse had no real bearing on the people at home, while the excuse they DID use had quite an impact on the people at home, whether or not it was legit.
I’m not defending any administration or any reasons for war, I’m merely straightening out some facts.
Sheesh. This one again. This idea that some Europeans seem to have, that the US and the US alone was somehow entirely responsible for the rise of Saddam, is just fucking stupid, IMO.
I hardly think one can say the US was “supporting” Iraq in any substantive way after, oh, say, 1990 or so.
Please explain how the US actually supplied the Iraqi government with its weapons, nearly all of Soviet, Chinese and western European manufacture.
Please help us all out by explaining the extraordinary efforts European nations made to prevent the rise of Saddam and the Ba’athists, and tell us how the big bad USA prevented them from doing so.
Please tell me which nations had the most business dealings with Iraq after the first Gulf War.
Ya know, I was firmly against the recent conflict, but more because its main rationale (WMD) was trumped-up horseshit, and because the US-led coalition should have done it back in '90, than because I was crying hyprocritical tears over previous US ‘support’ of Saddam.
Thanks, UncleBill, I didn’t fully comprehend the structure of the coalition patrolling the NFZ. If the US was doing that on its own authority, IMO, that was the same as doing it on no authority, so they had no cause to complain if their planes were getting shot at.
I accept you corrections, but I still don’t see the actions of the Iraqis as acts of war.
Well, to be safe, I’m steering slightly off subject of the war with Iraq, and instead focusing on the title of the thread. Most amoral? Really?! I have a book you should read, it’s called Derelictions of Duty, and it’s by Lt. Col. Patterson. Now, I’m not saying Clinton was the executive of the most amoral administration in history. But I will say that, IMHO, Bush doesn’t qualify as the worst.
And about the No Fly Zones… Unclebill is correct. They were not a UN mandate, but set in place by a coalition to support the UN mandate of making sure Saddam didn’t get up to his business of murdering people. I’m a firm believer in reading up something directly from the source, so… you can find every UN Security Counsel resolution here. http://www.un.org/documents/scres.htm
Just trying to be useful.
I said nothing about WMD’s, and in fact have already stated that I consider that excuse to be bull. Your bringing it up is nothing but a red herring.
The true point of contention, in my view, is the “imminent threat” clause. In my opinion, it is VASTLY limiting the intention of that clause to say that it refers solely to an imminent threat to the United States. Iraq under Saddam had already proven itself, beyond any doubt, a threat to the region - and US allies - if allowed free reign. Ergo, ANY action by Iraq that showed that Saddam was willing to violate his sanctions indicated a threat to US allies and US interests in the region, which justifies action against Iraq.
The annoyance, my dear sir, comes from your habit of being smug, snide, and carrying around a “holier-than-thou” attitude. This has been going on for quite some time, and quite frankly, I find it disgusting.
Good for you. I brought up the “babykiller” reference because that’s the sort of attitude that your behavior reminds me of.
Perhaps you need to read Cecil’s new column. It sums up your behavior perfectly.
I’m referring to a habit of yours that has you simply demanding unreasonable evidence from the other party without having to supply any of your own.
Ah. The Elucidator defense. “Snort, har har, I’m hilarious!” :rolleyes:
And incidentally, I was the author of the post that’s attributed to MsRobyn. She would never say anything like that, since she’s as far left as you are, Diogenes. More’s the pity for that.
I wasn’t a big fan of Clinton’s. I’m not even a democrat. I criticised Clinton’s “wag the dog” bombings as well as some of his domestic policies. Clinton was way too conservative for me, but at least he had some sense of fiscal responsibility and he was never as reckless in his foreign policy as Bush.
Wait. I thought we were talking about Presidents that were amoral.
Let’s try to keep this on topic. You made an obvious statement of bull, and I called you on it. Unless you want to tell me how amoral Gandhi was so you can make your comparison work.
I’ll be waiting for that for a very long time, I think.
)