From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 01:02:32 MDT
Joe Dees wrote:
On 2 Aug 2002 at 0:12, Blunderov wrote:
> Joe Dees wrote:
><snip>
>> No, the justifications for deposing the Iraqi regime were clearly
laid
> out previously (six separate points, I believe).
> <snap>
>
> [Blunderov0]
> Almost I don't believe what I'm seeing. I don't care if there are a
> hundred points written in Beelzebub's own personal ink. There is no
> justification in international law for deposing a regime you don't
> like, no matter how emphatically you may disapprove of it. Bush is
> simply inventing a pretext in the time honored fashion of warmongers
> everywhere.
[/Blunderov0]
>
Or no matter what it does?
[Blunderov1]
Yes. No matter what he does short of launching, or being clearly seen to
be in the process of launching, an actual physical attack. This is the
law.
[/Blunderov1]
Such as attacking their neighbors, creating
chemical weapons they use against those neighbors and against their
own people, and attempting to assassinate a former US president
(among other things)?
[Blunderov1]
I'm sorry? It is not clear to me whether you are referring to the USA or
Iraq in this sentence. If I recall, the USA has very many exotic weapons
including chemical ones. It has no compunction about using depleted
uranium shells in aircraft and artillery weapons. It has a history of
genocide against its indigenous people. The USA has frequently attacked
its neighbours. It has issued an open fatwa on the life of Fidel Castro,
for instance, not to mention Saddam Hussein in, as far as I know,
flagrant contravention of international law and convention. It is still
the only nation on earth ever to have used nuclear weapons in anger.
[/Blunderov1]
No reason WHATSOEVER????? You
apparently must then, by following your own statement to its logical
conclusion, disapprove of the deposing of the Taliban, Hitler, Duvalier,
Idi Amin, and Pol Pot. You have little company.
[Blunderov1]
No, not "no reason whatsoever". International law lays out the
circumstances that may constitute adequate grounds for a pre-emptive
attack. The reckless USA seems to think it can cherry-pick the bits of
international laws, treaties and conventions which it finds tasty and
leave the nasty bits for everyone else to swallow.
[/Blunderov1]
> How is this splendid indifference to international law different from
> Islamic, or any other, extremism?
>
It is in response to an expansionist and fascist extremism, rather than
itself being same.
[Blunderov1]
I love it here in wonderland. It is a marvelous place where pre-emptive
self-defence (for instance)
can be justified to one's adoring electorate as a righteous response to
an intolerable situation that was in, no small part, precipitated by the
USA itself. I am sickened to the marrow by the speculation that the
USA's
attack will be timed to coincide with some elections. I fear it is all
too true.
I ask with tears in my eyes:
If the USA is in a position to allow itself the luxury of attacking on
high-days and holidays that are convenient (for reasons only remotely,
if at all, connected to the war) to it's leaders, how can there be said
to be a clear and imminent danger, as required by international law, in
the situation ?
[/Blunderov1]
When the US goes in to protect its interests and
Those of its allies, it leaves when the job is done (and sometimes,
regrettably, too soon). Saddam was planning to seize Kuwait (and most
probably the entire Arabian peninsula) for the duration.
[Blunderov1]
The complicity and duplicity of American diplomacy prior to the Gulf War
have been well documented in these annals. I don't buy the "righteous
indignation" pose.
[/Blunderov1]
>
> I have no doubt that any feebleness in the legal rationale will be
> satisfactorily obscured by gunfire, much as is the case in Israel.
>
The rationale IS gunfire (Saddam's), and his continuing attempt to
augment same with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, which he
would most certainly use, as he has used chemical weapons already
agaist his own people and against those of other countries.
[Blunderov1]
It is true that Iraq is firing on American personnel. The fact that
these Americans are in airspace that doesn't belong to them may have
something to do with it. Or does it belong to them? Maybe international
law is tiresomely archaic in promoting outmoded concepts such as
"sovereign airspace" and "non-interference"; clearly these things have
no part in the modern world if America finds them irksome. After all,
America is nothing if not modern.
[/Blunderov1]
>
> This is horrible. The next thing the whole world will be in flames.
>
No, just one mustachioed madman's crazed ambitions.
>
[Blunderov1]
The USA is setting a terrible example that will not go unnoticed.
[/Blunderov1]
> Despondently
>
>
>
>
>
>
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