Actually, I oppose the sanctions on Iraq, they’ve killed thousands of innocent people and done nothing to Saddam.
But as to the question of just "forgetting about all of them, " I would say that it’s far more important ton address those nations which can hurt us (North Korea, anybody) than countries that *can’t]. It’s pretty simple math.
And by “address,” I do not mean attack, but to engage diplomatically. It is better for us to bring NK further into the
oops, got cut off…
I was going to say it is better to bring countries like NK further into the community of nations than to further isolate and villify them. We need to diminish anti-US hostility, not aggravate it.
The above two posts should have been addressed to erislover.
Well, then, tell us what makes this case different, if you please. If you can, that is. Or, for that matter, cite any other instance in which you have granted those who disagree the possibility of being in good faith. I literally haven’t seen that from you, ever.
jr8:
[quote]
…
Of course, the fact that the number of anti-war marchers outnumbered any previous anti-sanctions protest by an almost exponential factor suggests that, in all likelihood, you may be wrong in a few more cases as well…
/
[quote]
What? Sam would never yank a statement out of the air and assert it as fact, would he? Never. Perish the thought.
Dammit, where’s elucidator when we need his sarcastic touch?
Saen, it’s up to the Security Council to decide what resolutions to make, and what to do about them. Nobody else. Including us, except to the extent of our participation in it. Is that hard to follow, or just to agree with?
Now, I’ll ask more specifically the same way I asked december, another poster who wants the UN to be “legitimate” only as a rubber-stamp for the US: If the Security Council decides on a particular course of action that is less than you personally think is best, should the US flout it in the name of upholding the UN’s legitimacy? Should we go to war, against the wishes of the UN, in the name of the UN’s legitimacy? I would suggest that, if that’s the best rationale for going off and killing people that you have, then it’s time to reconsider.
Yes, since you bring it up, UN resolutions are part of the diplomatic process. So, said Clausewitz, is war itself, if it comes to that.
Those who think like you, and a few countries such as the United States and Great Britain - who are operating completely out of cynical and economic self-interest, both with their dealings in Iraq and their desire to lessen the U.N.'s power and influence - don’t get that, or do get it, and refuse to accept it. They can go fly, as far as I’m concerned. And you can too.
:rolleyes:
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic <<< The rest of the world is not so stupid as to believe that the US has only just decided to care about Iraq’s UNRC violations after more than a decade of not giving a shit.>>> snip
I feel the US HAS given a shit over the last decade; it’s just hard to find the concern through the mass of smoke generated by the fool who was our CIC for most of that decade.
<<<Actually Kudos to them for laughing at Powell’s attempt pull the rest of the world into a self-serving political stunt on behalf of our incompetent president.>>>
Wouild you find him more compentent if he were getting blow jobs in the Oval office? Bush does not speak well but at least he knows what “is” is.
For december…something to consider…
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 the UN responded quickly by declaring sanctions and calling for armed force to remedy the situation.
When the U.S. attacked Iraq in 1998, without UN sanction but in response to generally recognized “provocation,” what did the UN do? Nothing. No condemnation, no sanctions, nothing.
When NATO attacked Yugoslavia in 1999, without UN sanction but in response to generally recognized “provocation,” what was the result? Nothing.
Admittedly, the UN has a hard time with openly calling for armed intervention (as opposed to “peace-keeping” functions). I can only think of three times in their history that they’ve done so. But don’t they still sometimes send a message by their very inaction that nations whose behavior places them “outside the pale” cannot look to the UN for support and protection. And doesn’t this have some value even if it’s not as much value as one might wish?
I dunno…I see this whole thing as the old “good cop, bad cop” schtick. France, Germany, Russia and China are the “Good Cop.” The US is the “Bad cop:”
US" Tell me where your weapons of mass destruction are or I’ll pull your fucking tongue out through your ass!"
France "Now, now, mon amis… surely zere is no reeson why our Iraqi friend won’t cooperate (gives slantendicular wink to Saddam)…Isn’t zat right, cherie?
Surely people have noticed that Saddam seems to move toward meeting his obligations (i.e. allowing U2 over-flights) only as a last-minute tactic when faced with imminent force?
You need to read up on North Korea. For one thing, its guiding philosophy, juche, is predicated on North Korea being an autarky, completely isolated from the rest of the world. Moreover, it is a vicious police state whose brutality and venality exceeds George Orwell’s wildest nightmares. Its people starve while its leaders hijack foreign aid for their own use. If its citizens attempt to flee, they and their families are executed or imprisoned. Its leader is the benficiary of a cult of personality that makes Stalin and Mao look modest by comparison.
It is not so much a nation as a prison.
Elvis, who was it that decided to bring resolution 1441 before the SC? Or more specifically, who’s impetus on the issue braught forth the movement inside of the SC to consider the resolution. Did the security counsel as a body just all of a sudden decide it was time to do something about Saddams illegal activity? And considering it was an issue braught forth, mainly by the US and her close ally the UK, do you consider it a rubber stamp issue just for the sake of the those two permanent members? And if they decided to ignore any further resolution whatsoever against Iraq at that time, would you consider it wrong for the US and people like me to consider such a pathetic action to be a gross undermining by members and citizens of members about what they consider the UN should do and what it is supposed to stand for?
I don’t give a flying fuck about France or China or Russia on an issue like this, accept for the fact that they are veto wielders in a body that has decided to confront this specific issue. Not one of those countries are likely to risk any of thier citizens if action were to take place. It seems that those who have the most valuable commodoty to lose (people) are willing to take the risks. While those who have nothing to lose but prestige and ecenomic interests are all for blocking any action.
If my President decided not to act in my interest on such an important issue* only because any of those countries frowned upon it, I would call him traiterous, and would not support him in anything until we were able to get that coward out of power. And that is how this issue stands now. The opponents are not trying to convince my government that action is not a proper course accept for the fact that they dissagree. And I fuckin resent that. If they tried to present an alternative that my government agrred would be a proper course, besides war, that would be more than acceptable. It would be preferable.
But they are not doing that. they are just saying that we are not going to allow you to take this action in our name because we do not agree with it. And I respect that on the face of it**. But considering they have passed EIGHT-fucking-TEEN, and require a nineteenth, resolutions on an issue that has been considered a “threat to world peace” for over a fucking decade, I tend to question the validity of their concerns and what their goals really are. And when they continue on such a rediculos course for an indefinate period, their credibility becaome a valid issue like now.
*An issue they are convinced that the only alternative is a certain course considering all aspects of that course.
**I respect it, but not necesarrily agree with it. Wich is why I feel the US has every right to go it unilaterally even if we didn’t have 20 nations supporting and aiding our actions.
I still can’t believe that some people honestly believe that this whole war is Bush finishing what his father started/ trying to steal Iraqi oil/ shifting the focus away from economic problems.
Unfortunatley these views have come from complete ignorance and left wing partisan thinking. To those of you who come up with these ridiculous anti-war ideas because you hate Bush, you need to grow up. Stop dragging your feet on this issue just because you hate Bush. See the problem for what it is not for who’s the president.
The problem with our country is that no one judges a politicians actions based on how much sense it makes. They judge it on the basis of republican/democrat, conservative/liberal. That is to say, if you are a liberal you hate any idea that a republican has despite how good of an idea it is. This of course goes the other way as well.
So at this point in America we have a system where as soon as an idea is proposed by th opposing party we come up with the most ridiculous, off base rhetoric we can to try to make people not like this idea. For example any actions taken by Bush related to foreing policy will automatically be labeled as “motivated by oil” by the left.
It simply has no basis in fact. I have yet to hear someone be able to back up this opinion with any logical information. From what I can tell, you nut cases seem to think that as soon as we win this war the oil tankers are gonna come rolling in and we will proceed to fill them up and take them home for free. This is so unbelievably stupid.
I beg everyone to stop spreading such ignorance for your own political gains. It makes you no less corrupt than the politicians you hate.
Unfortunately both sides like to put out such misinformation and I would have to conclude that in the end it’s a huge waste of time and we become collectively dumber as a nation when taking part in it.
Matt
Yes, but further isolation is not going to help. I think we need to provide economic incentives for human rights reform, much as what we’ve tried to do with China. The fact is, NK has the bomb. They can hurt us. Let’s not give them any more incentive than we have to.
We have been through this before, friends, and we had fair warning that it was going to happen again. Every time the UN has failed to rubber stamp a US foreign policy objective there has been a faction consisting of the people who support the disputed policy and the usual suspects who equate the UN with a loss of sovereignty and one world government which has gone into a serious case of the vapors. Our friends December, Sam Stone, Saen and the other usual suspects are suffering a sever case of the vapors at present. If they lay down in a quiet place with a cold rag on their foreheads they will recover shortly and be all right until they read an other Wall Street Journal editorial, or a press release from the RNC.
I do not remember during the last presidential campaign that the President came right out flat footed and said that if elected he intended to go out and pick a fight with Iraq. What was said, I think by Cheney and Rumsfeld, was that the US was sufficiently dominant economically and militarily that it had no need to ask any other country or association of countries for leave to do anything. What we have going on right now with the UN and with NATO was prefigured by that calculated determination to take unilateral international action.
The point that is inescapable is that this administration sees any nation, association of nations or popular opinion that cannot actually impede its accomplishment of a unilateral objective as irrelevant. The US does not now need the UN or NATO and so ridicules and denigrates both institutions. Some of us think that this is a short sighted policy. Sooner or later, like it or not, French, German, Russian, UN or NATO support is going to be important to us.
Which naturally brings us back to the question of what is so important about beating up on Iraq now. Some sceptics might think that domestic politics has something to do with the administrations urgency. Those people might point out that the President has had some two years to turn the economy around but hasn’t done much. Those same people might point out that it has been 17 months since 9-11 and other than shooting up Afghanistan and scaring the daylights out of our own people and Middle Eastern immigrants the administration has precious little to show on the so called War Against Terrorism. A President who has not generated prosperity or security might think that the think to do in order to secure reelection is to make himself a war hero by finding a fight he can’t lose. If such a fight has the side effect of rewarding the President’s financial supporters with contracts to prepare for the war and clean up afterwards - so much the better.
Far from being irrelevant, there may be a fair argument that it is essential to the domestic sales job for the President to be seen as defying the UN and Europe. To the extent this is true the President needs the UN and NATO as much as he needs Saddam. The UN has not committed suicide, and it will not be allowed to do so. The President needs the UN too much to allow that to happen.
Spavined Rather than only casting aspersions on the characters of those you disagree with or consider it irrational or dream up some flight of fancy like the horseshit you just typed, why don’t you confront the facts. Disagree with the conclusions, by all means. but getting pety because others disagree with you does not reinforce your arguement. It just weakens it.
I have read your post twice, and cannot find one sentence I can argue with because any fact you may have hinted at is so peppered with hyperbole I can only attribute it to your personal opinions and daydreaming.
Your welcome.
Seriously, now, without trying to be a dick, of course we’re acting out of economic self-interest. It just so happens, however, that in acting out of economic self-interest, we are also protecting the economic interests of the rest of the world as well. Oil is absolutely vital. We simply can’t allow an unstable dictator like Hussein sit on the second-largest oil reserve in the world, and threaten the rest of the region.
See, I view it like this: we’re in a quandary. We should have been pouring money hand over fist into alternative energy sources for years, but we haven’t (comparatively.) As a result, we and the rest of the world are absolutely addicted, no, dependent on oil.
Sure, it’s a war for oil. What the hell else are we going to do, back away from the stability of the largest oil pool in the world? We can’t do that…not without probably severely damaging our own economy (and not incidentally, everybody else’s) in the long run.
I think the UN’s credibility is now gone. There is no credibility left to preserve. There’s no longer any point in worrying about the impact of action or inaction on the UN. It’s a corpse. The only reason I can see to keep pursuing UN support is to help Tony Blair politically.
I do think the US should militarily effect regime change in Iraq, working with an alliance of those countries willing to help out. There are several dozen such countries. The reasons are that Iraq is an immanent threat to its neighbors. It tortures and kills its own citizens. Iraq could be a threat to the US, if it provided WMDs to al Qaeda. Effecting regime change in Iraq will be a warning to other terrorist states and terrorist groups. IMHO any one of these points would be a good reason to go to war. Even if one or two of them turn out not to be the case, the remaining reasons would still mean that Iraqi regime change will make the world a better place.
I would have preferred that the UN be the international organization to maintain the peace of the world. Unfortunately, they have abdicated that job, so it falls upon the US to be the Policeman for the World. I’m sorry that American money and lives will be sacrificed in this endeavor, but it needs to be done. We seem to be the only ones willing to step forward and do it.
Then that means doing nothing but asking nicely, because I think the announcement was that any sanctions would be considered an act of war. So I heard on NPR, anyway, I must admit I don’t follow all this very closely.
Has it ever occurred to the Hawks that maybe the Rest of the Friggin World is against this War because it might not be a Good Idea? Maybe it’s possible for the U.S to be wrong every once in awhile.