Yes it was, and I’ll vouch for the fact that there were a number of people reading Chirac the way you did/do. At the time, the convincing proof to me was that the “Veto under any circumstance” meme was going around the US media for a week, and Blair was repeating it, and Chirac never clarified his statements.
Which goes right back to what I started with–Chirac did nothing. If he infact did not imply he would veto no matter what, that should have been clarified.
clairobscur, you’ve confused me, perhaps becaue you’re tired. But the link you sent very clearly at the top said,
I have to admit that I’m tired too and in reading through a variety of articles I’ve mixed up the word veto and vote. After googling France and veto I’ve read a dozen articles about how France would veto any resolution. I believe it would then be up to Chirac to clarify.
I stand corrected.
I had forgotten about Germany and Syria. Yes, they surely would have voted “no”.
The others had so much pressure on them from various sides that it’s probably hard to tell how they “really” wanted to vote. But then, that’s almost always the way the game is played, so I guess we’ll just have to accept that we’ll never really know.
fHere’s a link to the whole thing.
When Chirac states " Ma position, c’est que, quelles que soient les circonstances, la France votera non parce qu’elle considère ce soir qu’il n’y a pas lieu de faire une guerre pour atteindre l’objectif que nous nous sommes fixé, c’est-à-dire le désarmement de l’Iraq.", "Autrement dit, on passe d’un système qui était celui de la poursuite des inspections pour désarmer l’Irak à un autre système qui consiste à dire : “dans tant de jours, on fait la guerre” or “La France ne l’acceptera pas et donc refusera cette solution” he’s discussing and has been discussing for a long moment about the new resolution, whether other countries are going to vote for or against it, etc…, etc…
If you can read read french, then read the thing, it’s as obvious as the fact that in this thread we’re discussing about the UN and the war in Irak. If you can’t , too bad, but don’t state “that’s propaganda on both sides”. It would make as much sense as having an opinion about whether this thread is about pumpkin farming or not while not being able to read english.
Yes , it does say so. Note that there’s no “S” at the end of “resolution”. The issue is the statement that Chirac “insisted on veto-ing any resolution put before the UN” (your words). And you wrote * any * in italics.
Chirac never said he would veto “any” resolution. He stated that he was going to veto this resolution in particular, for reasons that he exposed.
The main contentions points were, IIRC :
-Allowing the inspectors to finish their job (which they did not have, they evacuated Irak hastily at this point). In particular France proposed a two month delay before waging war, IIRC, instead of one week, as in the US-UK proposal. That’s the part of his speech were he said that the resolution basicaly amount to “in so much days, we’re going to war” : “dans tant de jours, on fait la guerre”
-Waging war only if the UN , on the basis of the inspector’s reports, decided that Saddam Hussein had not complied. While the US resolutions proposals stated that Irak would be fair game if he didn’t comply, without stating who was going to decide whether he had complied or not. Which would have meant that the US alone could have stated “according to us, he didn’t comply, and the resolution allow us to wage war in this case, so this war is UN-backed”, whatever could have been the UNSC opinion about Hussein’s compliance.
What could I say that I didn’t already stated? The discussion would be totally pointless if you could read french, since you just would have to read the text. That’s why it’s so irritating. All the statements are related to the incoming meeting of the SC, whether or not it will be at the Head of States/ Government level, whether or not he will personnaly attend it, whether the majority of 9 votes could be reached on this resolution, whether or not france is going to veto it, etc…etc…All he says is revolving around this meeting and around this particular resolution, line after line, sentence after sentence. There’s zero ambiguity concerning what he is talking about.
Here are the statements immediatly preceeding the contentious one :
“Je répète : la France s’opposera à cette résolution”. :
I repeat : France will oppose this resolution.
“Alors, première hypothèse, qui est aujourd’hui, ce soir, la plus probable, cette résolution n’a pas une majorité de neuf membres.” :
“Then, first hypothesis, which is tonight the more likely : this resolution won’t get a 9 votes majority.”
“Moi, je vous donne mon sentiment. Ma conviction, c’est que ce soir cette résolution comportant un ultimatum, et donc donnant le feu vert international à la guerre, n’a pas une majorité de neuf voix.” :
“I give you my feeling . I’m convinced that tonight, this resolution which includes an ultimatum and gives the international green light to war, won’t get a nine votes majority”
“A partir de là, naturellement, la France prendra parti. Il y aura des nations qui voteront non, dont la France. Il y en aura qui s’abstiendront. Mais, en tous les cas, il n’y aura pas, dans cette hypothèse, une majorité. Donc, à ce moment-là, il n’y a pas de problème de veto.” :
“From then on, naturally, france will take a stance. There wil be nations who will vote no, including france. There will be nations who will abstain. But in all cases, there won’t be a majority. Therefore, a veto won’t be necessary.”
-“Alors, deuxième hypothèse, un certain nombre de gens changent d’avis par rapport à ce que je crois être leur sentiment ce soir. A ce moment-là, il peut y avoir effectivement une majorité de neuf voix ou plus qui sont pour la nouvelle résolution, celle qui autorise la guerre pour dire les choses simplement. A ce moment-là, la France votera non.” : "
"Then, second hypothesis : some people change their mind, despite what I believe tonight is their opinion. Then, indeed, there could be a 9 or more majority supporting the new resolution, the resolution which allows war, to say things simply. At this point, France will vote no.
Then follow the famous statement :
“my position is that, regardless the circumstances, France will vote no…etc…”
I only removed the questions asked by the interviewer and side comments about the working of the USCN and similar things. Note also that before this, he was already talking about the resolution, but the post is already long enough. Following that, he states that France isn’t a pacifist country, then comment on the uses of the veto at the UN by the permanent members in the past, answer a question about whether or not the chinese and russian votes could influence the french one, etc…in case you would be wondering.
He makes very abundantly clear that France will vote no, again and again. But he’s refering, again and again, to this particular resolution. One has to make a lot of picking and choosing and to totally ignore all he said before and after to contend that he’s talking about anything else than this particular resolution. The questions asked are about the resolution, the answers are about the resolution, he gives his opinion about the resolution and so on…There’s just no room to interpret his statement otherwise.
Time to go to bed, now. I spend too much time reading translation of papyrus or presidential speeches, lately.
Sweet dreams. Here’s something you can read at breakfast.
You are missing the whole point. Bush was pushing for “resolution currently being considered by the United Nations Security Council that would give Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a March 17 deadline to disarm or face possible military consequences” and Chirac was saying that France will veto it “no matter what the circumstances”, while all this time and long before that Saddam was already disarmed. That was the elephant they were trying to keep out of public sight, Bush and Chirac together. As I said earlier “the simple truth was that US kept pressuring Saddam to disarm and he was complying. There was no cause for the invasion. Diversion had to be created.”
Here we fall in the long line of argument, “Who knew that Saddam was disarmed?” First, a logical argument: Somebody had to know. If Saddam decided that it wasn’t worth it to keep the WMD and got rid of them altogether, he had to intimate it to some people in the West. Understandably, he didn’t want his neighbors Iran, Syria, Kurds etc. to know about it, but he had to communicate it to somebody to placate US. My reading is that he never actually said that he got rid of all the WMD, more likely his messages were that weapons can be made disappear in a very short time. What he might have wanted in exchange would be, obviously, security guarantees, which he never got. His fate was decided in 1991, and his removal was only matter of time and an opportunity. Before you dismiss my theory out of hand, read this cite, which shows that UN inspectors must have known that Saddam destroyed WMD as early as 1991.
Conspiracy freak.
Chirac’s dedication to veto really isn’t that important. What is important is that nothing was done to stop the invasion/liberation, and I was curious as to why.
Many people on this board (assuming they paid the $5) consider the invasion/liberation to violate international law. If this is so, why hasn’t something been done since the invasion/liberation.
More significantly, can anything be done to prevent the next invasion/liberation? The way I see it is that any country can now invade/liberate as they choose, citing the the Iraq conflict as precident. It was pointed out that this violation is not the first of its kind, but I do see it as the largest since the end of the Cold War.
So from my point of view, this war was legitimate/legal. If it wasn’t, then inaction by the World™ has legitimized it. Simply saying, “what were/are they supposed to do, its the US, the US is all powerful…” does not absolve anyone from responsibility.
You are giving me too much credit. If I really had ‘evidence’ documenting Bush, Blair, Chirac, Shroeder and Putin sitting silently in the same room, listening to a ‘mysterious unknow’ telling them what to do about Iraq, I wouldn’t be posting here. However, I can present some circumstantial evidence to prove the following:
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Inspections were a sham;
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Chirac opposition to Bush was a sham;
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UN disapproval of US actions was a sham.
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Here is translation of an article from “Die Zeit”, based on interview with UN inspectors in Iraq, where they are saying such things as “Could this war have been prevented? Yes, say some [inspectors]. But with a surprising argument: Germany, France and Russia made war unavoidable with their purported peace politics.”. The article goes on to describe why inspection didn’t work from the point of view of inspectors themselves. Combine this with Scott Ritter quitting during Clinton after concluding that inspections were a political game, having very little to do with actual Saddam disarmament.
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This article comments at the end on immediate political implications of Chirac’s “television interview saying he would veto a resolution authorising war whatever the circumstances”, which shows that Chirac wasn’t trying to prevent the invasion. What Chirac was really trying to do was to escalate US-French conflict in the UN. He had simple means to delay, postpone and try to defuse the situation. Instead, he was speeding up the crisis. Was Chirac stupid or was he following a different goal? I think he is a very smart, vily and experienced politician and he knew exactly what he was doing. (It is one of the biggest ironies, how French crooked right-wing politician became a hero for US Left)
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Follows from 1 and 2.
Now, what would be a ‘non-conspiratorial’ explanation for all these?
Look, we don’t really differ all that much. Let’s check the basic premises:
You say, “Bush lied!”
I say, “Everybody lied”.
You say, “Bush bad, Chirac good!”
I say, “Bush not so bad, Chirac not so good”.
Who is being more realistic?
The UN Charter clearly spells out the circumstances under which armed forces can be used against another country: 1) by UNSC authorization, 2) in self-defense against an armed attack, or 3) in collective self-defense against an armed attack. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Iraq war was not authorized, as evidenced by the UK pulling its resolution. Even the US Ambassador initially denied that 1441 authorized force. It is an open-and-shut case.
The fallout from this unauthorized invasion is political, not legal. This does not mean that the US did not violate its obligations, no more than Nixon didn’t break the law because he was never impeached or convicted of a crime. It is a self-evident case, not a judicial action. One might as well argue that if I took out a knife and stabbed someone to death, that those acts would not be murder unless I’m convicted in court. Nonsense.
I remind you that the UN Charter is the supreme law of the land, in accordance with the Constitution. Only a withdrawal from the treaty would alter the US obligations to that piece of international law – actions contrary to the law by a government do not render the law invalid. Similarly, it is my view that treaties trump customary law, although some may have different views (as noted above).
Just because the US was not hit with sactions or invaded by a UN army or even condemned by the UN does not change the basic fact that the US invasion of Iraq did not confrom to the requirements of international law.
Seen this before over and over. Its a bad analogy IMO. The difference is, if you stab someone to death in plain view, you WILL be prosecuted for murder. A murder charge is a real, tangable thing. Sure, you might be able to fight it out and win (OJ anyone?), but you’d HAVE to fight it out in court. The law is meaningful because you know that, if you go and murder someone and are caught and convicted, you will be emprisoned. For that matter, even if the police don’t know it was you, they will investigate the murder at the very least, so the possibility exists that you could be caught, tried and imprisoned.
So the law has meaning. However, on the UNSC, the ‘law’ is meaningless. For those in the club, they can and have (repeatedly) ignored the ‘law’ when it suited them to do so, or followed it to the letter when THAT suited them. Every single member of the UNSC has done this. Most of them are repeat offenders (including the US who is probably either the number one or number two offender depending on how you count). So, if you are above the law…what is the meaning of law? If ‘everyone’ chooses to violate the ‘law’ at whim, again…what does that ‘law’ really mean?
The UN Charter, as it currently is, is nothing more than a propaganda tool used by the members of the UNSC to justify their actions…or to beat up on less fortunate nations by strictly following the letter of the Charter when it serves their purpose or ignoring it when it doesn’t. I’ve heard over and over again that the US should follow the charter to the letter reguardless of what other nations do. Why, when by and large they don’t do that themselves? I’ve heard over and over again that it would be pointless for anyone in the UN to censure the US over its supposed illegal activity in Iraq because the US would simply block it. So what? They’d be on record at least…it would be SOMETHING. But there is nothing because THEY, unlike us on the SDMB, know the real score and the real game, and they would be hipocrates to censure the US for something they themselves have done in the past…and will most likely do in the future if the situation presents itself.
-XT
Good to see you, xtisme. You’re the only guy I know who makes Bush look like a moderate. 
Okay, if you want to go with that analogy fine, assume there was a stabbing in broad daylight, with multiple embedded reporters recording it, a plethora of cops watching, and a team of lawyers who were told it was going to happen.
There are then three subsequent problems:
1.) Anyone who had prior knowledge that the stabbing would occur is duty-bound to do everything in their power to stop it, failure to act makes them in part responsible.
2.) Anyone who witnessed the event has a duty to assist in prosecution, again failure to act makes them in part responsible.
3.) Failure of the above two points sets a precedent. Failure to act on the first stabbing sends a clear message that stabbing is acceptable. Thus making it harder to prosecute on the second offence.
There have been hundreds of debates on the legality and morality of this invasion/liberation, and I respect anyone that feels it was illegal and/or immoral.
Now that the act has been committed these two questions must follow, as with any criminal preceding:
1.) Who knew about it before hand and what did they do to stop it? and
2.) Who witnessed it happen and followed up on prosecution?
Those answers are quite blatantly obvious since the entire world (minus the sections with restricted news media) were able to watch that war take place. What’s more, Pres. Bush very clearly stated that he was going to do it, and gave a very definitive date for starting.
So why was nothing done before hand, and why has nothing been done since?
New Iskander, even if Chirac had said he would veto any resolution (a contention that you apparently failed to notice has already been debunked in this thread), it still isn’t evidence of a conspiracy.
Nothing was ‘debunked’. Posting in disagreement is not debunking. I might as well say that I ‘debunked your errors’, because I believe my theory is better.
US was pushing for UN resolution with ultimatum and a drop-dead date for Saddam to disarm. Chirac said he will veto such a resolution because it “authorises war”. What we have here is a pointless exchange where some people say YES, “Chirac promised to veto UN resolution that might have lead to war” and some say NO, “Chirac promised to veto UN resolution that might have lead to war”. So we are basically yelling YES and NO at each other on the same factual basis.
The important point is that Chirac could delay, postpone and may be even prevent the invasion if he really wanted to do so. British official clearly said in the link above, “If he had said ‘let’s look at it again in two months time’, we would have been in much greater difficulty.” Yey Chirac didn’t try anything like that. For politician of his caliber it couldn’t be a mistake, it was done on purpose.
Imagine, if you will, the situation where a big guy is going to clobber a small guy and you want to prevent that. What would you do? You may try to yell, “I forbid absolutely!” first. What if it doesn’t work? Obviously, you’d need to try something else, like saying, “Hey, big fellow, I know a place we can get some liquor and meet some girls if we go right now, what do you say? Let’s go, you’ll finish this guy later…” But if you just stay there and denounce the big guy, pretty soon you start whipping up tempers even worse. That’s what Chirac was doing. His demeanor throughout all the pre-war hullabaloo was extremely arrogant and incendiary, as if he was trying to set up a fight.
I didn’t use that analogy to demonstrate that international law is (or should be) as stringent as criminal law. I only mean to say that actions can be fairly and accurately characterized without the presence of a judge (for there is no such thing as a jury trial, criminal negligence, or conspiracy in international law – and I certainly did not imply that in my analogy).
Look, international law is a unique discipline. It isn’t tort law and it isn’t criminal law. But it does serve a purpose. The fact that the League of Nations grew out of WWI and the UN grew out of WW2 (not to mention the body of international law that grew out of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, if you want to go that far back) is pretty convincing to me that a completely anarchic international system is not in the interest of humanity.
Even if international law is but a set of guidelines, and there is no world policeman to enforce the law, the fact that the guidelines exist and have some, but not a total, effect on how states behave themselves is, to me, the whole reason that international law exists and is useful.
In other words, expecting international law to be as rigorous as criminal law is a useless fantasy, but that doesn’t make international law a useless fantasy.
Fear of looking like a hypocrite prob’ly not a factor in these sorts of decisions.
It is extremely likely that if there were a reasonable chance of a majority voting with the US we would have pushed through with the vote, as Bush had vowed we would, just to show that the world was behind us, not the French, Chinese, and Russians. For Bush’s purposes a majority of any shape or size would be a victory, a coup. Given that we now know (thanks to the UK whistleblower) we were spying on security council members to find it how they would vote I find the concept that the vote was a toss-up somewhat preposterous.