Or, in our zeal to try and “prove” our point ;), we could just ignore that polls showed just over half of all Americans supported the war before it started, hmm?
It’s irrelevant anyway. Even if we found a thousand nuclear missiles aimed right at GWB’s butthole, we still would not have justified the invasuon. The invasion was illegal at the time it was lost and no amount after-the-fact “evidence” will make the invasion legitimate.
The claim that the US was acting in defense of an imminent threat is still laughable because the missiles in question can’t reach the US.
Popular support does not legitimize the invasion either. Hitler’s invasion of Poland had enormous popular support in Germany, so what?
“Embedding” reporters with the troops destroys their objectivity. It is impossible to remain detatched when you spend weeks or months on the frontlines bonding with the soldiers and being dependant on them for your own survival. The embedded reportrers are effectively PR flaks for the military. They are basically just a bunch of glory-seeking, ass-kissing, toady suck-ups with a healthy case of Stockholm syndrome. I don’t believe a fucking word they say
That should have said "The invasion was illegal at the time it was launched, not “lost.”
A little Freudian slip there I think…
Not to me. Which is why the justification for this war always seemed like so much BS to me; we invaded because the UN inspectors were unable to prove a negative.
Indeed. I trust the irony here does not go unnoticed.
As I said before, al-Jazira has embedded reporters, I am sure they will be fascinated to know that they’re “a bunch of glory-seeking, ass-kissing, toady suck-ups with a healthy case of Stockholm syndrome”. Anyhow, I’m glad you’ve clarified your location, you’re just the other side of reality.
I know I’m going to regeret asking this, but I’m curious: How exactly do you define “Illegal” when refering to the war.
Illegal means in violation of the UN charter. I’ve already posted that fucking thing in like three other threads please don’t make me do it again.
The legal justifications for aggression against another nations’s sovereignty are clearly defined as self-defense. or aginst an clear and unambiguous “imminent threat” from another country. The veracity of an “imminent threat” is to be defined by the UN only. THe UN charter has the same authority of law in the US as the constitution.
Neither of the conditions for aggression was met before the invasion. The invasion was illegal. QED.
and Bush is a fucking war criminal.
Right! The people who hold mass vomitings are the rational thinkers of the world, huh?
So you’re claiming that, at no time, did Saddam ever violate ANY of the UN sanctions imposed against him? He didn’t, oh, kill a few thousand Kurds? He didn’t, oh, have his men fire AA missiles at American and British planes patrolling the no-fly zone?
Why don’t you go delude yourself elsewhere, DTC?
The gassing of the Kurds was done with the full knowledge and support of the US government.
Any post-Gulf war violations of the UN resolution are for the UN to deal with, not the US. Bush Jr. has no legal authority to enforce UN resolutions on his own. If you know you have a crack house in your neighborhood, and the police are doing nothing about it, you still do not have the right to organize a posse and raid it on your own. If you were to kill a drug dealer in that raid, you would not be acting with any legal authority or under any imprematur of law enforcement. You would be committing murder under the law no matter how much of a scumbag the victim might be, or how popular your actions might be with the public. As a matter of pure law, GWB is a criminal. He’s Travis fucking Bickle with an army.
The UN Charter does NOT have the same authority of law in the U.S. as the Constitution. Jeeze, do some basic reaserch, will ya? If the above was true, the U.S. would no longer be a soverign nation. EVEN if you classify U.S. actions as in violation of treaty- based on the reasoning proposed by RTF above-shakey reasoning at best, and unlikely to convince many people- A Soverign Nation always has the option of breaking a treaty and remaining a soverign nation. Jimminy Christmas, this is 101 level stuff here, very basic! I mean, have you got any clue as to how the real world works? How old are you, anyway?
True enough Tejota, though, to be honest, this thread is a bit surreal. When I replied to CR I thought he (she?) was doing the usual freedom fries thing, but it turns out that was a sarcastic post. Now White Lightning seems to think (as I suspected might be possible in my last) that bluetrust’s assholish-sounding post was actually an attempt to rebut what he (she?) thought was an anti-French comment on my part. What “political elitism” would, in that case, have to do with anything is beyond me since I wouldn’t call french-bashing an elitist pastime.
Well we may never get to the bottom of things unless CR sticks to using smilies, and bluetrust decides to grow up and play “nice” on the Internet ;).
What the…
Ummm…that clause says that states can’t pass laws that supercede the Constitution or individualy break treaties signed by the U.S. Government. It does not say that treaties are equal in stature to the U.S. Constitution.
Try again.
Oh, I do so love this.
The closest thing humanly possible to giving reporters autonomy in a war zone while giving them unfettered access to actual happenings on the battlefield, while imposing very few restrictions on them (“Here! Have a satphone and your own fucking vehicle! Just don’t tell everybody where we are.”) and you don’t trust their professional ethics.
How incredibly insulting.
You actually enjoy flinging unsubstantiated accusations, don’t you?
“Oh, but it can’t be true! Why? Cause I say it can’t, and poor set-upon Uncle Saddam can’t actually have WMD’s, cause he’s all warm and cuddly and fluffy and stuff, while we’re horrible, horrible people!”
<DtC happily self-flagellates, wallowing in self-loathing>
Just to expand on the supremacy clause, once a treaty has been ratified by congress, it has the same authority as a constitutional amendment (although a foreign treaty cannot override or amend any part of the constitution) and can only be broken if the security or sovereignty of the US is threatened.
It doesn’t fucking matter if Saddam has WMD’s, it’s completely beside the point. We had no evidence before the invasion, and if we had seen evidence, we would have still had to prove that Iraq could hurt the US with those weapons.
We`ve heard the term “US interests being threatened”. Can the US extend itself to its “interests” when it comes to defense and security. Vague, I know, but it will come up sooner or later.
We knew he had chemical agents and a weapons program. We weren`t satisfied that they were destroyed or terminated.
No, dear. Try to keep up, and try not to foam on the carpet if at all possible.
You claim it’s a plant. You have no proof, yet you fling the accusation. Do you have some reason for this statement, other than your own self-loathing at being a Horrible American?
No? Thus my statement that you think it can’t be true simply because you say so. The rest was icing. Insulting icing, sure, but hey. We’re all adults here.
OK, I have to ask for a cite on this one.
As for your claims regarding the UN Charter; I’m not sure that “supreme power” means exactly what you think it means. In the context of the paragraph you quoted, it clearly means that Federal Law trumps State Laws. It doesn’t mean that a treaty has the same force of law as the Constitution.
it can be persuasively argued that the President has the executive power to cancel treaties
(http://www.fed-soc.org/Publications/White%20Papers/ABM.htm). This is different than amending the Constitution which requires the ratification of a majority of the States.
Further, the President has the ability to determine the execution of treaties; so regardless of what you think; the Executive branch and not you gets to judge whether this war is a legal interpretation of the UN Charter or not.
Ill-advised? Maybe. A public relations nightmare? Sure. Illegal? At the very least, debatable.