Let me help: The argument that the war was illegal was predicated on the notion that the U.N. has legal authority over initiating warfare. Therefore, a war carried out without UNSC approval is ‘illegal’.
But if you can show that the UNSC was compromised, and that any deliberations of that council were in fact influenced or even controlled by Iraq, then that calls into question the legality of the UNSC, and by extension the illegality of any process that goes around it. After all, if the UNSC is compromised, how could it be possible at all to obtain any quasi-legal sanction for the war?
The obvious example would be a court case where the judge or jury is bought off.
I hardly think that an allegation against Halliburton is conclusive proof that the Bush administration is corrupt. (Others may feel that it is so.)
I do note that Cheney was made CEO of Halliburton with absolutely no experience running a corporation and that following his selection by the Halliburton board, Halliburton received a large boost in government contracts. I further note that KB&R was handed a no-bid contract months before the war that went far beyond putting out oil well fires, extending into nearly every area of “rebuilding” Iraq and that they have already been caught in two separate scandals of overbilling the government.
I have seen no evidence that the vaguely identified “European” industries are run by people who know Chirac, Schroeder, and Putin personally or have any connection with those gentlemen.
So, while I do not believe that a Halliburton/U.S. government connection is necessarily corrupt, the conclusion drawn by the OP has, so far, far less evidence to support it than a charge of U.S. corruption.
SS: *The argument that the war was illegal was predicated on the notion that the U.N. has legal authority over initiating warfare. Therefore, a war carried out without UNSC approval is ‘illegal’.
But if you can show that the UNSC was compromised, and that any deliberations of that council were in fact influenced or even controlled by Iraq, then that calls into question the legality of the UNSC, and by extension the illegality of any process that goes around it.*
Thanks for the summary, Sam, but that sounds disturbingly like arguing that “two wrongs make a right”. Surely, if the UN’s legal authority is somehow compromised due to corruption, the proper thing to do is to expose and eliminate that corruption, not use it as a justification for ignoring whatever the UN says in order to pursue our own agenda.
The obvious example would be a court case where the judge or jury is bought off.
What Beagle seems to be asserting here, though, is that in such a case it’s okay for the prosecutor independently to declare the defendant guilty and execute him. I don’t think that’s justified. (Especially when there’s a possibility that the prosecutor too may have been “bought off”.)
To recap:
Corruption and profiteering are indeed Very Bad Things, and those found responsible for them should be punished, in industry and in government.
Corruption and undue influence by profiteering companies do not, however, prove that governments’ foreign policy decisions are wrong, though they rightly lead us to be suspicious about the motives for making such decisions.
The existence of self-interested motives doesn’t prove that a particular policy decision is wrong, much less that it can be unilaterally ignored. After all, we already knew that, e.g., France and Russia had powerful incentives to maintain the existing Iraqi regime so that their potentially lucrative oil contracts might be honored. That doesn’t mean that their votes on an Iraqi invasion somehow “don’t count”.
It cuts both ways. If Beagle wants to argue that corruption and self-interest imply that UNSC opposition to the war was illegitimate, then it’s equally acceptable to argue that corruption and self-interest imply that US/UK support for the war was illegitimate.
If the pro-war people are saying “The UN was bribed! They wanted oil and kickbacks! Their opposition to the war is tainted!” and the anti-war people are saying “The US/UK were bribed! They wanted oil and kickbacks! Their support for the war is tainted!”, then we’re right back where we started, aren’t we? I really don’t see how we can logically use this scandal to undermine the UN’s legitimacy without simultaneously undermining our own.
I hate to point this out to you Beagle, but at least in the case of China and state owned enterprises, they are hardly a pipeline directly into the decision makers in Beijing. The State is trying to off load the generally ailing State Owned Enterprises as fast as possible via direct sale, bankruptcy, listing on stock exchanges, etc.
To think for one tiny minute that doing a deal with a Chinese state owned enterprise is directly giving bribes and influencing the leadership in Zhongnanhai is like saying that slumlords are the ones directly making people crack whores.
It’s just so unfair, isn’t it? After Colin Powell presented all of that rock-solid evidence to the UN, and after the weapons inspectors uncovered all of those nuclear warheads and chemical weapons factories and anthrax laboratories, the UN still refused to support the invasion. Absolutely incredible. And now we know why.
Lets put aside the question of whether the UNSC was compromised. Do NOT forget the burden of proof is on your side. Now, the question is, did the US has a legitimate reason to invade Iraq? This is the most fundamental question. Lets not run before we can walk.
There were reported instances of Iraqi oil being exchanged, under UN auspices, for truckloads of medicines. The Iraqi official would sell the most expensive medicines on the black market and let the rest rot in a warehouse.
There is little that can be done in the face of such overwhelming corruption on the Iraqi side, and anybody that official did business with would be tainted with allegations of being party to a corrupt transaction.
I believe that the invasion was justified for humanitarian regime-changing purposes. I believe similar intervention should occur in Burma, Haiti and across Africa, all under UN supervision.
But humanitarian regime-change was not the justification offered for ignoring Hans Blix and the UNSC. The justification was a credible threat against Iraq’s neighbours and the West due to possession of WMD’s and links to terrorists who might be supplied with WMD’s. That justification has been proven false.
That just isn’t how things work here in GD. For that matter it doesn’t really work that way in GQ or the Pit either.
Your content free one-liners are IMHO or MPSIMS material. Please keep them there.
If you have anything real to add, please do so. Explain your argument, or do some research, or take a position, or provide a cite that supports or refutes something or other.
I doubt that you even properly read or understood xtisme’s post, let alone the others in this thread.
Standard disclaimer that I’m not a moderator or anything like that.
Why is “peace for oil” more likely than “war for oil” ?
Are European politicians just inherently more corrupt than American ones?
Just because many American pols and appointees stand to gain from this foreign policy venture of ours doesn’t mean that their gain was the motivation for the war does it?
Just because many European pols and appointees stand to gain from opposing this foreign policy venture of ours doesn’t mean that their gain was the motivation for the opposition does it?
I mean, unless European politicians are inherently more corrupt than American ones.
Oh look, Dessie’s showing off his charming visceral hatred of me.
As for why I thought xtimse’s post was so sensible, I suppose I might as well say why. Not that it matters to anyone, least of all Dessie, but here goes:
xtisme pointed out that, whatever this turns out to be, it doesn’t make the claims about WMDs any more valid, even if, as he points out, they were a geniune concern prior to the invasion. This issue can’t be used as a justification for the invasion since it wasn’t even an issue that was brought up prior to the war, except for some vague shouts from the pro-war faction about Russian and French oil contracts.
Likewise, the article casts doubt on the motivations of the security council members who led the charge against the invasion. Were France, Russia et al actually opposed to war on grounds of international law or were they worried about the kickbacks various officals and organizations were getting from the Ba’athist government of Iraq?
Was this the reason why they were opposing the invasion. I don’t know. Probably not. Was it an influencing factor in that decision? Maybe. Again I don’t know enough to make any sort of educated conclusion. I’m just stating my opinion, which is, in the end, all we really have most of the time.
Does this change the fact that the whole thing became a political clusterfuck leaving nobody smelling like roses? Not the slightest bit.
(1) I am shocked, shocked that Saddam was bribing companies and skimming money off oil-for-food. Oh, no. Wait. I’m not shocked at all. Because it’s ancient news.
(2) Saddam must have run over Beagle’s dog or something, given the way that he starts foaming at the mouth every time another pissant story comes along about how Saddam was, like, a really bad guy.
ME: *Likewise, the article casts doubt on the motivations of the security council members who led the charge against the invasion. Were France, Russia et al actually opposed to war on grounds of international law or were they worried about the kickbacks various officals and organizations were getting from the Ba’athist government of Iraq?
Was this the reason why they were opposing the invasion. I don’t know. Probably not. Was it an influencing factor in that decision? Maybe.*
I think those are reasonable points. Again, though:
It’s no news that France, Russia, etc. had self-interested motives for opposing the war—not just a few million bucks for dirty oil-for-food profiteers but multimillion-dollar oil trade deals. I really don’t think anybody here was under the illusion that any major government that opposed the Iraq invasion did so out of sheer altruistic commitment to the principle of national sovereignty or the illegitimacy of wars of aggression. However, that doesn’t make the principle of national sovereignty or the illegitimacy of wars of aggression just go away, and it doesn’t automatically excuse our unilaterally riding roughshod over them.
The accusation of self-interested motives tars both the anti-war and pro-war governments with the same brush. If we’re going to assert that France and Russia chose their position with an eye to the oil and other profits they stood to gain from it, they have at least equal justification for making the same assertion about us.
Does this change the fact that the whole thing became a political clusterfuck leaving nobody smelling like roses?
Actually, I’d like to put in a good word on that account for Hans Blix’s UN inspection team. They took their mission seriously, they went in there and leaned on the Iraqis, they pulled the place apart peering into cupboards and files, they reported clearly and honestly under incredible political pressure what they were (not) finding, they gave us their best estimate of what there would (not) be to find, and they kept on doing their job until they had to leave because it was obvious that we were about to drop bombs on them.
And they were right. Myself, I think Hans and the Weapon Snoops come out of this smelling at least a little bit roseate.
True. Which was actually a point I was making. Everyone had alterior motives, although if there was any sort of profit motive among the reasons (whatever they were) that Bush wanted the invasion, it certainly can’t be said to have worked out to well, what with the billions of dollars we’ve had to spend so far on the reconstuction. And as for accusations about Halliburton, et al, I must say that there are easier ways to slip money to cronies than by starting a war. But that’s a can of worms I’d rather not discuss right now. God knows everybody else will, though.
And I do think you’re right about the UN inspectors, Kimstu.