Legitimacy of the Iraq invasion/occupation vs. legitimacy of the insurgency

Why the caviot? Insurgencies by their very nature are against sovereign states after all…mostly against LEGITIMATE sovereign states, whatever that means. If all insurgencies are legitimate (your assertion btw not mine) then sovereign states invading one another are also, by this logic, legitmate. Personally I find the whole notion that they are all legitimate ridiculous, but if one is I don’t see how the other isn’t.

Again, I fail to see the distinction. Insurgencies are against INTERNAL sovereign states, invasions between external sovereign states. Why the difference in your mind…I truely don’t see it.

And Korea only got sanctioned because the Soviets screwed up and walked out if I’m remembering correctly. There have been numerous dustups by just about every major power on the board…all unsanctioned by the UN.

Again, why? Insurgents most certainly try to interfere with another state’s sovereignty. And in cases like Iraq and Afghanistan (both now and when the Soviets invaded)…hell, all the way back to Vietnam and Korea for that matter…foreign fighters, ‘volunteers’, etc, and foreign weapons, money, intellegence, etc etc have played a part in these ‘purely internal’ conflicts. Again, I fail to see why there is any distinction. You assert that ALL insurgencies are legitimate. I don’t agree but playing along, going by that same logic, then all conflicts between foreign powers, including invasions, are also legitimate. I don’t see how you can logically see it any other way BG.

As to Iraq’s invasion of Kuait, well, they had their national reasons for that…they badly needed the capital Kuait represented. It was a national imperative, and part of their nation security. So, by the light of ALL insurgencies being legitimate, so was Iraq’s invasion of Kuait. Of course, the US’s and other powers national interests were threatened by this so OUR retaliation was justified as well. North Vietnams interference with South Vietnam and the quasi invasion was legitmate…so was the US’s involvement there. The invastion of Grenada and military action in Panama were justified by this light…and the current invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Nazi invasion of Poland, the low countries, France, Russia, etc…all legitimate. The various Soviet invasions…legitimate. Etc etc ad nausium.

I think your Hussein annexation of Kuait is a bad example. SH tried to annex a part of the world that is of vital strategic necessity. No way could that stand. It wasn’t a matter of principal…it was a matter of urgent need to both keep it out of his hands (from a regional/ME perspective) and to get it back (from an industrialized worlds perspective). Had it been, oh I don’t know, some obscure province on the outskirts of China say, no one would do more than weakly protest. Or if it was some nation putting the moves on another in, oh I don’t know, say North Africa, then no one would care.

There is not ‘unwritten rules’…the major powers make up rules as they go along and do what they feel is best for their own national interest. Most of the SC has been in violation of the Charter in one way or another since WWII…many of them are repeat offenders. They use the Charter like a club to beat the smaller nations into submission, or to use it to justify actions against them if they step out of line. But the Charter doesn’t really apply to the members of the SC…they don’t respect it at all in fact. Except when its in their best nation interests to respect it or follow it to the letter of the law. If their national interests go against it though they ignore it…or try and twist it to provide them with a fig leaf (like the US did in Iraq). Thats if they bother at all.

-XT

I just go and see if I can dig them up (literally)

Sorry, but I just don’t find this definition useful. It’s too subjective. Besides, to say that the “right of conquest” had some legitimacy prior to WWII only makes sense if we define “some” as “almost none”, or about as much as it does today. Hitler may have thought he had some legitamcy, but so did S.H.

I’ll go back again to my earlier question. If the UNSC has passed a resolution condemning the insurgency AND calling on member states to use force to quell it, how on earth can it be called legitimate? All you have said is that it might have been called legitimate 60 years ago, before the UN existed. But how does that inform our decision about its legitimacy today?

Brainglutton… didn’t Saddam “justify” at the time his invasion due to the fact that Kuwaitis were drilling into Iraqi subsoil ? There is always an excuse… see WMD for example.

As I understand it, the proximate cause for the invasion was because Iraq was nearly bankrupt, and they needed some money. Saddam had previously threatened Egypt and Jordan, I believe, as well as Kuwait, for $30 billion in forgiven debts, and $30 billion in cash. The US was well aware of every second of the impending invasion, but said and did nothing. I believe it was George H.W. Bush’s trap. Why, I dunno. Maybe being a “war president” runs in the family.

As for the allegations of slant drilling, I don’t know if they were true or not, but I would easily be convinced that they were. Kuwait is hardly a nation of innocent little angels, and the oil reserves in the region are shared across the border.

In any case, looking at it from historical context, it does look rather, er, fishy, for both of the Bushes to launch wars against Iraq, a nation that barely had the resources to keep itself running at both times of invasion.

Maybe a deeper, more complex question: Why didn’t we bring democracy to Kuwait? Again, hardly angels.

That whole region is screwed up. Iraq wasn’t much worse than any of its neighbors, including the Saudis.

hehe… I was talking about justification… not real reasons for Iraq to take Kuwait !

One good historical example was Hitler invading Poland… and he almost forgot to put up an excuse ! He just made up something, after the invasion, about Germans in Poland being persecuted I think.

IIRC, his position was that Kuwait was historically Iraqi territory, or that it should have been incorporated into Iraq when the country was formed out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Kuwait, although ruled by a native dynasty from 1710, had been a sort of tributary state of the Ottoman (but Persian-occupied) vilayet or province of Basra, which was one of the three Ottoman provinces merged together to form Iraq. Iraq claimed it long before the Gulf War. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kuwait.

I know this is just a blog, no usually a good cite…but I think its interesting and ties into the OP. Take it with a grain of salt and make your own judgements (this is a departure for me…I NEVER use blog cites):

I make no claims on how representative this all is. What struck me though was the almost universal calls for the Insurgents and especially the foreign fighters (‘arabs’) to get the hell out of Iraq and leave them alone so they can vote. THESE folks anyway seem to just want to vote and then to get on with rebuilding their lives. Many want the US gone…but they want the insurgents gone first. A lot of them (correctly IMO) see the elections as the first step to getting rid of both odious groups from Iraq.

Anyway, as I said, its a blog by an Iraqi citizen…so take it with a grain of salt.

-XT

Salt duly ingested. :slight_smile: I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination to assume that the majority of Iraqis just want to get on with their lives. Most civilians wish combat was not going on (at least not around themselves or relatives).

Here’s an interesting article from the Gaurdian discussing a possible electoral/diplomatic end-run around the Sunni insurgents. If implemented properly it might keep the US out of some bad electoral legitamacy press. If they are determined to go through with this election despite unsafe to vote zones - some sort of at least short term (I would suggest long term) ethnic quotas in the legslature need to shore up against the fear/apathy factors in specific regions.

Hmm, guess I’m hijacking there a bit. Still, I used the word “legitamacy”

Even if i spelled it incorrectly every time, ffs. :wally

There have been claims he is a US agent.

Well, thats why I said take it (as all blogs) with a grain of salt. Myself I have zero idea of how good or bad a source he is. Was the poll I quoted incorrect also? I have to tell you that the responses touched a chord with me…so I’d be interested if it was made up. Do you have any cites for him possibly being a US agent?

-XT

BrainGlutton, I am a little surprised to see you’re trying to find legitimacy for the insurgents.
In response to John Mace’s question about what constitutes legitimacy, you responded with:

This must be one of the most relaxed definitions I’ve come across, but even still, what could the insurgent leaders (in the rare cases where any exist) say at The Hague that would be legitimate? “Yes your honour, that whore Margaret Hassan was ruining our country! How dare French reporters set foot on our soil!”
I think your OP has a slightly flawed premise. You are absolutely correct that the cause of liberating one’s homeland from foreign invaders is a legitimate cause in the international community. But that in and of itself doesn’t make the insurgents (or at least a majority of them) legitimate. To put it in another example, just because Bin Laden claims certain legitimate causes doesn’t lend any legitimacy internationally to Al Qaeda.
By legal definition, for the insurgents to be seen as a legitimate militia, they must at the very least have some sort of defining insignia or uniform and some sort of organizational structure. A prime historical example would be the Free French forces or, to a lesser extent the NVA. Or a modern equivalent (and much to the disagreement of our American and Israeli posters) would be Hezbollah, perhaps even the Tamil Tigers. But none of the current insurgent groups seem to be much more than a grouping of at most several dozen men. The closest thing I could see to an internationally recognizable resistance group were Sadr’s Militia and they seem to have been dealt with diplomatically (and just in time as I think he was starting to run out of young men to martyr).
I think a much better measure of legitimacy would be how much support they have amongst the populace. I don’t know if you read a recent reports which put the number of the insurgency at somewhere between 17,000 to 20,000 active fighters and up to 200,000 if you were to include active supporters and sympathizers. But let’s assume that number is extremely conservative. Let’s say it’s ten times higher. That would put the number, all counted, at about 2,000,000. What’s the population of Iraq? 25,000,000 or so? That would make it, at the best estimate, a total of less than 10% of the population. That’s not legitimate by any standard, international or otherwise.
But the problem is that the longer the occupation drags on, the more those numbers will swell. The longer folks don’t have electricity and water and fuel, the more frustrated they become and the more they sympathize with the insurgents. As you may have already read, the insurgency is gaining in complexity and tactics. It’s only a matter of time before necessity creates some sort of an organizational structure. If they set out some sort of charter and become unified (with an increase of support amongst the local populace) then I think it could be reasonably argued that the insurgency is legitimate. As it is now, no.
The problem with legitimacy doesn’t end there though. If most of the Sunni’s boycott the upcoming election and there aren’t enough international monitors due to security concerns, then Jan 30 is just as much of a diplomatic masturbatory maneuver as June 30th (17th?) was. But that’s another thread.

Geez. I think you’re really pushing it with that one. The fact that the rest of the world is willing to let the U.S. have a free pass on that one doesn’t really make the current government legitimate. Have an election that’s at least as fair as the one in Afghanistan and maybe it could be considered a legitimate pre-cursor to a future legitimate government. The U.S. and its allies picked those people that picked these people (with the U.S.'s approval of course). That’s legitimate??? BrainGlutton and I both agree that elucidator owns your house. Guess it’s tough luck for you, eh?

Wasn’t my arguement, but I have to ask…if the international community and the UN recognizing the interrim government as legitimate isn’t good enough, what is in your mind? Or, to ask it a different way…if it means nothing that the UN and the international community recognizing the current Iraqi government as legitimate for the purposes of governing until the elections (which is what you seem to be saying), then what good IS the international community and the UN with reguards to legitimacy…or the converse??

I also have to ask that if the UN and the international community is willing to give the US a free pass, why didn’t they do so BEFORE the invasion? Is it because the US is the defacto ruler of Iraq through force of arms? If so, what does that say about the UN and the international community if they REALLY believe the invasion and continued occupation is illegitimate that they rubber stamp legitimacy on the interrim government??

-XT

Having elections that are seen as legitimate by international standards. Any of this “handing off power” nonsense to people that aren’t democratically elected is simple political posturing.

Its good is derived when its rules and rulings are followed. It’s legitimate when its rules and resolutions are followed. But when used to provide political fig leaves, then I agree, it’s no good (nor legitimate).

Because the invasion was illegal and they were hoping the U.S. would take note of that. There were many folks across the world who were warning the U.S. about the legality of the proposed invasion (the most forceful ones coming right after the decision to pull Blix before his work was done).

Well, this is just a matter of practicality. Can you imagine the rain of hell the U.S. and England would pour down on the U.N. if it didn’t go along with this? Just think what kind a psychological (and propaganda) boost this would give to the insurgency and sympathizers. “The U.N. clearly stated the invasion is illegal… and now they’re saying the occupying government is illegitimate!” I think the rest of the world and the U.N. just want this nightmare to end as quickly as possible and are willing to at least lend some help where they can get away with it. But if I were the U.S., I wouldn’t expecting any International Law/Human Rights awards these days.

I can not locate the source of the rumour. I came across it on Juan Cole, but his blog isn’t searchable. From recollection it was ultimately unresolved. The picture was not of a cia bod in some quiet office but a US sympathiser receiving support funding.

On further recollection JC may have withdrawn the inquiry. Nonetheless there is something smelly about that particular blog.

What blog?

‘Iraq the blog’

are you referring to Iraq the model?

Hold the phone. First of all, I do not want the insurgents to succeed. That might be, as I have argued, the best thing for the American people, but not necessarily for the Iraqi people. What would be good for them is hard to see from here. Any outcome that leads to a protracted civil war in Iraq is, obviously, undesirable. So is any outcome that leaves them under the rule of a neo-Hussein. So is any outcome that leaves them under the rule of an Islamic theocracy. So is any outcome that leaves them under the rule of a technically “elected” but effectively U.S.-controlled puppet government for the indefinite future. But the last possibility is probably the best out of the lot. :frowning:

Furthermore, I am not, except as a strictly forensic exercise, “trying to find legitimacy for the insurgents.” I simply infer their legitimacy from what I perceive to be the existing consensus norms of international relations. And, as I said in OP, I don’t even approve of those norm. In particular, I don’t believe in leave-us-alone nationalism. (Not even on America’s part!) In this thread – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5626025 – on the prospect of the U.S. invading Syria (a course of action I emphatically do not support), the now-banned Aldebaran posted:

To which I replied:

Just so we’re clear. But that’s got nothing to do with this. The existing consensus norms are what we’ve got to work with.

It’s vague, to be sure . . . but what else could it be, in a world without a global government or other entity with acknowledged authority to pronounce definitive formulations of acceptable norms of international relations? A loosely defined “consensus” is the best we can do – the most that Earth’s 200+ nations, starting from very different cultural assumptions, can more or less agree upon, or at least accept for the time being. The modern, post-WWII, post-European-imperialism consensus, as I said in the OP, is that national sovereignty trumps almost everything else and unprovoked military aggression across recognized national borders is unacceptable except in very rare and extreme circumstances. “Historic claims” to territory, for instance, are to be discounted, as the Argentines learned in the Falklands War and Hussein learned in the Gulf War. If that isn’t an ideal set of rules, at least we’ve moved past the old imperial-colonial consensus, that civilized Christian nations had the right to rule over less-advanced peoples and exploit their land. (Haven’t we?)